Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:30:47 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: BHA: exciting threads!


Hiya Mervyn,

At 11:00 PM 1/28/01 +0000, you wrote:
>Dear Ruth
>
>My suggesting that you consult a book carries no implications re who
>told who about it.

No problem.  I was just teasing you.  (I did read it over, by the way.)

You wrote:

>I don't see the difference from Bhaskar (except to the extent that he has
perhaps
>lately espoused a form of unconditional knowledge) or why you think that
>for Bhaskar philosophy 'from the standpoint of redemption' is a piece of
>cake.

I had said:
>If I've understood you, it sounds as though your answer is that you don't
>think that there *is* an appreciable difference in their views.   ... Do
you basically >just think, then, that Adorno is worried over nothing?
(Since Adorno's position is >encapsulated in Bhaskar's, and Bhaskar isn't
worried?)   

It sounds from your post as though I didn't get your position quite right.
Let me take another stab at it.  The part that I got wrong doesn't seem to
be that you don't see much of a difference between them (since you reaffirm
that).  That leaves the part about whether you think that Adorno is worried
over nothing.  If I've understood you any better *this* time, it sounds as
though you're saying that, in your view, (1) Adorno is *less* worried than I
think he is and (2) Bhaskar is *more* worried than I think he is.  
Is that more like it?

I don't want to hog the airwaves with talk about Adorno, but speaking of
books...if I haven't mentioned it before, there is a really good book that
you and others might be interested in, if you don't know of it already.
It's a set of lectures, recently translated, that Adorno gave on moral
philosophy, in the spring and summer of 1963.  It's called *Problems of
Moral Philosophy*.  I've been reading it slowly over the past bunch of
months.  I'm enjoying it for two reasons.  One is because it's a transcript
of spoken lectures, so Adorno is very, very clear in it about what he means.
For a variety of reasons Adorno did not write in a comparable style.  But
his spoken word is downright endearing -- and, as I said, very clear.  The
other reason that it's great is that he talks a lot about Kant, and about
the possibility of any kind of pre- or non-Kantian realism, in the course of
the lectures.  So I've been finding it really relevant to the task of
comparing him with Bhaskar.       

Warmly,
Ruth




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