Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 10:11:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Ruth Groff <rgroff-AT-yorku.ca>
Subject: BHA: Section 1 to Section 2


>Return-Path: owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.Virginia.EDU: domo set sender to
owner-bhaskar-AT-localhost using -f
>Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 16:18:50 -0700 (PDT)
>From: LH Engelskirchen <lhengels-AT-igc.apc.org>
>To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>Subject: BHA: Section 1 to Section 2
>Sender: owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>Reply-To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>
>What about moving on to the second section of chapter 2 of
>DIALECTIC, the section on emergence?  I think we can just start on
>it, anyone can, and at the point someone, assigned to do so or not,
>has a coherent overview to present, they can put it in.  But we
>should keep the reading moving.  I for one would like to see John
>Mingers attack the emergence section from the point of view of the
>things he was saying recently on emergence and systems theory. 
>Anyway, by way of facilitating the move, I thought I would
>summarize the points I have taken from the reading on absence, and
>others could have at them or sum up their own take.  
> 
>Notice that this is the only section specifically devoted to
>absence, so that gives it some significance.  Certainly there are
>related sections, e.g. in what we have already covered section 3,
>"Negation."
> 
>1.   Absence must be given material expression as far as our access
>to it goes.  That does not mean we cannot know absence or mean that
>we can only know presence.  We infer absence from presence as we
>infer other things that are real from their material effects.  In
>other words we have access to absence, as all our understanding of
>the world, through signs and signs are always materially embodied
>presences.  
> 
>2.   A consequence of what I just wrote is that we cannot establish
>the reality of absence by perceptual criteria, except as inference
>from perceptual criteria.  This can get a little pedantic in that
>once we have any experience we can know its absence, ie I touch the
>key, I don't.  But how can I know an absence that has never been
>manifest?  We say Pierre is absent from the cafe and we know that
>on perceptual criteria.  But Pierre is absent from a zillion cafes. 
>Why do we say "the" cafe?  What we perceive in the cafe are signs
>of Pierre's absence.  Or April is absent from the cafe also.  But
>I don't know April, don't know she exists, have never heard of any
>person named April, think April is only the designation of a month. 
>How do I know that April is absent from the cafe?  April *is*
>absent from the cafe, I'm not confused about that.  But I cannot
>establish the reality of this absence by perceptual criteria except
>insofar as I depend on inferences from material persences, e.g.
>"oh, there's no one that looks like this photograph here."  I am
>not trying to collapse the real to what we can know about the real. 
>I am asking by what criteria we establish the reality of absence. 
>Compare DPF 7 and 41.  
> 
>3.   Absence lacks causal efficacy and thus we cannot establish the
>reality of absence on causal criteria.  Absence is constituted by
>lack, including most especially a lack of generative processes. 
>Thus absence is not causally efficacious.  Absence is instead the
>negation of causal possibility.  It is causally significant insofar
>as it leaves other generative processes operative.  When we absent
>an absence we in fact negate the negation of causal possibility. 
>The presence of the pilot caused the ship to pass through the storm
>safely.  Compare DPF 7 and 39.
> 
>     In this connection I'm not sure what is meant by the
>distinction between real absence and actual absence, DPF 39.  From
>p. 56 of The Realist Theory of Science, the real is the domain of
>generative mechanisms, the actual the domain of events and the
>empirical the domain of experience.  Pierre's absence from the cafe
>is actual absence.  This is an event.  The hole in the ozone layer
>is actual.  Also real?  Phlogiston?  But the problem with my
>understanding is that if absence is the lack of generative
>mechanisms and the negation of causal possibility then what sense
>does it make to call absence real?
> 
>If absence is in fact causally efficacious, then we need some
>example that cannot be adequately understood as the mere negation
>of causal possibility.  We would want to identify some generative
>mechanism.  If not, then what is it that is causally efficacious
>that is at the same time not a generative mechanism?
> 
>4.   The reality of absence is not established by an argument from
>reference DPF 40.  Certainly we can refer to absence, e.g. to a
>bridge that is out, etc., but I don't follow how this cuts one way
>or the other in regards to the ontological question.
> 
>5.   The reality of absence is not established by logical
>abstraction from presence, e.g. "But there is no logical
>incoherence in totally no-being. . . . if there was an originating
>Absolute, nothing would be its being or form . . . " (DPF 46).
> 
>6.   To my understanding the reality of absence must rest on an
>argument from change, causality and human agency as developed at
>DPF 43-45:  "All causal determination, and hence change, is
>transformative negation or absenting."  By acting Sophia changes
>what she works on and changes herself.  It is not that absence is
>causally efficacious, but that we cannot understand causal efficacy
>except in terms of negation.  Nuclear disarmament means negating
>the causal efficacy of a presence.  Piloting a boat means negating
>the negation of causal possibility of an absence.  These negations
>are themselves causally efficacious processes and not absences
>which are causally efficacious.
> 
>At the limit this argument itself depends on the transcendental
>argument for an open rather than a closed universe.  If we had
>Laplacean determinism in a closed system, then everything could be
>choreographed without gaps or absences.  But where the universe is
>open and in process then these must exist.  So the argument for
>absence seems to run back ultimately to the argument for an open
>universe which we reviewed in RTS.  This was drawn together at
>pp116 and 117 of RTS and turned also on our understanding of human
>agency and ability to identify cause in open systems.  
> 
>7.  We can test these propositions against examples.  Caroline's
>reference to lack of child care in the workplace is an important
>one.  "Capital" as a social relation offers a similar example. 
>Marx says that private property as capital depends on the "not
>property" ("Nichteigentum") of the worker.  This is an absence.  Is
>it causally efficacious?  Because the worker doesn't have property
>he or she is unable to reproduce her existence and must make some
>arrangement with whoever controls the means of production.  But the
>absence is a negation of causal possibility: the worker without
>access to the objective conditions of labor cannot produce.  Thus
>the worker must negate the negation of causal possibility.  There
>is no generative mechanism of absence.  Not being able to produce
>food, means the worker is not able to replenish her physical body. 
>The effective operation of the biological mechanisms left intact
>causes starvation, unless their operation can be overridden by some
>other causal mechanism.
> 
>Howard
> 
>Howard Engelskirchen
>
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>



     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---