Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:05:39 -0000
Subject: Re: BHA:reasons as causes


Hi Howard,

Just some annotated comments on your very interesting post.

> Consciousness is socially constructed by activity, in
> particular the activity of matter thinking using signs.  

I would suggest that this is too broad. For the broad notion of 
'activity' I would substitute the more precise notion of 'labour'

> So if
> we are to talk of the material cause of social relations I think we want
> something actually material, e.g. human agents and their activity, living
> and dead.  To grasp the structure of their relations we need to develop a
> sense of social form, ie of formal cause.  

Agreed.


> I was intrigued by your observation that because Marx did not treat thought
> as a separate stratum he was not a critical realist.  I mean, what
> interested me was the sort of idea implicit in the comparison that CR is a
> set made up of a, b, c, and d, and while Marx shares items a, b, and c, he
> differs on d, therefore he is not a critical realist.  That's one sort of
> interpretation that can be put on the comparison you offer.  But I don't
> really view the enterprise that way.  In other words, we are not about
> creating either holy or political or philosophical sects. 

This seems a rather gratuitous interpretation of my words! Clearly, 
it may be that I consider 'a' 'b', and 'c' to be less important than 'd', 
rather than that I am some lunatic worried about holy philosophical 
sects! And, indeed I am idiosyncratic in that I do place emphasis 
on the mind-body relation more than do most people (but I would 
argue that Spinoza, and Marx, do too).

Many thanks,

Andy 
 




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