Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 16:56:02 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: For Ruth was Re: BHA: de-onts


Hi Gary,

>It is necessary to use a new word like 'de-ont' to reorient our thinking 
>away from ontological monovalence. If folk doubt me here they should go 
>back and read some Popper or Magee and see the  mind of a monovalent at 
>work. For these thinkers 'What is - is' and that is all there is to it.

Yes, ontological monovalence underpins the whole limited analytical
problematic in philosophy. (DCR does not, however, *reject* analytical
logic, it rather incorporates it as an important moment *within*
dialectical reason.)

Here are my (reconstituted) notes of some highly pertinent remarks by
Alan Norrie in his Punishment, Responsibility and Justice: a relational
critique. OUP, 2000. 40 pounds (hardback) (pp.68-69)

******
'Identity thinking' = the correlation of fixed identity and analytical
thinking in a process of mutual entailment which is central to
analytical philosophy. 

Eg Bertand Russell: there are a 'certain number of self-evident logical
principles' which 'must be granted before any argument or proof becomes
possible'. These include
1). The law of identity - 'Whatever is, is'. 2) of contradiction -
'Nothing can be and not be'  3). of excluded middle - 'Everything must
either be or not be'.

These 'self-evident' logical laws entail certain ontological
assumptions. The principles of logic in 2) and 3) rely on the
ontological principle of identity in 1) plus on ontological assumptions
about the way things are: an entity must in essence be "simple" (ie free
from contradictions), homogeneous (of the same substance or order),
present to, or the same as, itself (ie 'separate and distinct from any
mediation' (Lechte). It must exclude certain features: 'complexity,
mediation, and difference - in short, features invoking "impurity" or
"complexity". Yet such features constantly return to disrupt anaytical
thought, and this raises questions re the adequacy of the ontological
starting point and the way of thinking based on it.

For dialectical theorists, denial of the inherent complexity or
'impurity' of basic entities is wrong - dialectic is a mode of thought
which insists on the fluidity and instability of categories, and their
inability to conceal within themselves different aspects which may
radically change the nature of any concept. A dialectical approach
disturbs fixed identities, and thought that is based upon them, by
placing them within broader relations. As Bhaskar puts it, analytical
reason involves exclusion, an illicit employment of 'the logical norms
of identity and non-contradiction', and a false 'presupposition of fixed
subjects (394). Dialectical thought, by contrast, is 'the art of
thinking the coincidence of distinctions and connections'. The law of
identity at the heart of analytical reason is challenged because
'identity presupposes non-identity, and non-contradiction [implies]
incompleteness and change', so that 'identity is always an abstraction
from a process or set of processes of formation' (190). 

For Bhaskar, questions of non-identity, incompleteness and change are
encapsulated in his concept of 'entity relationism', a concept which
opposes being-in-relation to the idea of fixed entities and thereby
challenges the adequacy of analytical thought. If being is essentially
relational, it requires a dilectical understanding that can reflect
this. 
**********

Notwithstanding yourself and Norrie, the Marxist strand within CR (of
all strands!) seems to be dominated by the analytical problematic. This
seems highly paradoxical, because Marx himself was through and through a
dialectician - see eg the quote at the beginning of DPF, or the article
by Chris Arthur in the latest Capital & Class, for whom Marx's labour
theory of value is itself 'a dialectic of negativity' in which 'capital
accumulation realises itself only by negating that which resists the
valorisation process, labour as "not-value"'.

So really, we're back to the old CR/DCR divide. I think this has little
to do with the frequently alleged extreme difficulty and obscurity of
DPF, and much to do with a determination to resist dialectics at any
price.

BTW, I think DPF pp46-7 (including footnote) make it clear that Bhaskar
does *not* accept that 'in the beginning there was nothing'.

Mervyn

Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au> writes
>Like Dick I am following this with a great deal of interest.  It is 
>frustrating that I do not have the time to really get into it.  But it is 
>crucial.  It is not simply a matter of using a new word.  Nor is it a 
>matter of retranslating the obvious into the obscure as Ruth is inclined to 
>think, I believe.
>
>It is necessary to use a new word like 'de-ont' to reorient our thinking 
>away from ontological monovalence. If folk doubt me here they should go 
>back and read some Popper or Magee and see the  mind of a monovalent at 
>work. For these thinkers 'What is - is' and that is all there is to it.
>
>At the heart of all this is the difficulty with learning to think 
>dialectically. In some ways one is either a believer or not here.  My own 
>take on this is that thinking the world differently is a necessary but not 
>sufficient preliminary to changing it.  And there is no better way to 
>thinking the world differently than thinking dialectically.
>
>As for absence as I understand it there are two main positions here.
>
>1.  This is where the absent/ the void has ontological priority.  In the 
>beginning with nothing or as the Rig Veda puts it
>
>"Then was not non-existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
>What covered in, and where?  and what gave shelter? was Water there, 
>unfathomed depth of water?
>Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the 
>day and night's divider."
>
>Bhaskar I feel holds this position which Nick and others hold as a 
>non-relational view of absence. Bhaskar has developed from this his notion 
>of creation 'ex-nihilo" in from East to West.  For what it is worth I am in 
>this camp as well.  The contemplation of the prior to the non-existent is a 
>great comfort.
>
>2. The next position is that of a dialectical relationship between the 
>absent and the positive. If I understand Howard's great posts correctly he 
>argues that absolute absence or negativity can logically be thought to 
>exist but we know only the dialectic of the negative and the 
>positive.  Mervyn (as I read him) has pointed out here that within the 
>dialectical pair negative -positive the negative has priority.  Thus just 
>as we can have truth alone but not lies alone, we can have the negative 
>alone but not the positive alone. So in a sense negativity always wins.
>
>As far as I can judge from the list position two is the dominant one within 
>the dialectical critical realist camp.  Again if we go back to the Vedas 
>and in particular the dialogue between Gargi and Yajnavalkya in the 
>Upanishads we get a statement of the relational view of absence. When Gargi 
>asks
>
>"Across what then, pray, is space woven, warp and woof?
>
>Yajnavalkya replies
>
>"That o Gargi, Brahmans call the Imperishable (aksara)."
>
>Predictably Yajnavalkaya then proceeds to define "aksara" negatively.
>
>Like Ruth I must dash.
>
>regards
>
>Gary
>
>
>


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