Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 11:41:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Ruth Groff <rgroff-AT-yorku.ca>
Subject: BHA: another go at the DPF intro


Hi guys,

Thanks Andrew, Gary and others for getting going on DPF.  After your post,
Gary, I re-read the Introduction too.  Sorry for the length of this post.  I
hope at any rate that it is clear.  (Also, I tried to format the paragraphs
in a way that would be helpful, but I don't know if that will be retained in
the delivery process.)

Here's my stab at it:

The Intro is a combination of big-picture stuff (objectives, the outlines of
analytic frameworks, definitions, etc.) and a more detailed discussion of
Hegel.  Let's start with the objectives.

I.

Bhaskar sets out the purpose of the book in a couple of different ways.  

The first way that he does it is that he tells us right off the bat that
he's got three aims:  1) to integrate dialectical categories into critical
realism, 2) to formulate a general (non-Hegelian) theory of dialectical
processes and 3) to set out the parameters of a "totalizing critique of
Western philosophy" -  one which will shed light on the current "crisis of
socialism."  

The second way that he does it is that he tells us that Parmenides
introduced into Western philosohy two major metaphysical errors: the
epistemic fallacy and ontological monovalence ("a purely positive...notion
of reality").  Bhaskar notes that he has dealt with the first of the errors
in his earlier works.  Having already addressed the problem of the epistemic
fallacy (and the actualism to which it is linked), he is now going to turn
to the problem of ontological monovalence.  To put it differently, having
revindicated *ontology* in RTS, he is now going to revindicate *negativity*.

On to frameworks and definitions.

II.

A. "Dialectic"
Bhaskar tells us that a dialectic is a certain kind of process.  Dialectical
processes have the dynamic, or logic, that they do in virtue of (a) their
structure and (b) the norms of truth and freedom - which, according to
Bhaskar, dialectical processes incorporate.  Bhaskar doesn't pursue (b) in
the Introduction, but with respect to (a), the structure of dialectical
processes, we are told that a dialectical process is one that involves
oppositions and interconnections which lead to a transformation of some
sort.  The substantive components of a dialectical process can be
conceptual, social or natural.  [Bhaskar of course has names for each of
these possibilities, as well as for different combinations thereof, e.g.,
"ontological dialectics," "epistemological dialectics," "relational
dialectics."]


B. "Negativity," or "negation."  
Bhaskar starts off with three different classes of negation.  Each of the
second two is a sub-set of the one that precedes it.  The three categories
are: real negation, transformative negation and radical negation.  "Real"
negation designates absence.  "Transformative" negation designates ... well,
"transformation," Bhaskar says; change. "Radical" negation designates
self-transformation.  Again, each of the second two is a sub-set of the
previous category.

There are a few things to note here: one, Bhaskar tells us that the
dialectical *social* process modelled in the TMSA is an example of
transformative negation - so this is a point of entry for dialectical theory
into cr; two, Bhaskar says that central to the success of his revindication
of negativity is the idea that "absence" (and/or "absences" -- he is unclear
about the distinction between universal and particular) is a proper referent
- this of course is a major point that he will need to argue for later, and
not just assert; three, for those who know their continental philosophy,
Bhaskar comments that his conception of absence, or real negation, is not at
all like Hegel's notion of "nothing," but that it is a bit like Sartre's
notion of "negatite."

C. Levels of analysis
Finally, Bhaskar tells us that the transcendental realism propounded in RTS
in fact represents only one aspect of the far more comprehensive theory that
he is now going to advance.  Dialectical critical realism, Bhaskar says,
operates at four different levels of analysis, each of the first three of
which, at least, involves the resolution (or so Bhaskar claims) of a
different philosophical problem.  As noted earlier, the first level of
analysis, that expressed in the "general theory of science" set out in RTS,
is a response to the problem of actualism.  The second level of analysis,
"prefigured" by the TMSA, is a response to the problem of monovalence.  The
third level of analysis is a response tothe problem of extensionalism.
Bhaskar does not, in the Introduction, specify the specific problem,
philosophical or practical, that is associated with the fourth level of
analysis.  

For some reason (does anyone know the reason?), Bhaskar labels these four
levels of analysis as follows: "first moment," "second edge," "third level"
and "fourth dimension."   1M, 2E, 3L and 4D for short.  Again Bhaskar
emphasizes that these aspects of the theory that he will be advancing do not
correspond to any divisions or levels of analysis in Hegel's philosophy.

All of this for starters.

I'm going to leave the detailed comparison with Hegel to others, but there
are a few last general issues worth touching on.


III. General Comments on Philosophy, the Philosophy of Science, Science and
Hegel
 
A.
Just before he turns to Hegel, Bhaskar comments on the relationship between
the philosophy of science and philosophy more generally.  The question he's
responding to is "Why should we think that a philosophy of science is of
anything but the most limited significance?"  Here's what he says: (p. 14-5)

1. "(S)cience provides a hidden `analogical grammar' for the metacritical
analysis of philosophies." [And then there's a footnote citing Buchdahl, a
interesting commentator on Kant, among other things -- but nothing further
on precisely what is meant by notion of "analogical grammar" that is being
attributed to Buchdahl.  Is anyone familiar with the referenced text,
*Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science*?]  

2. Working out what the implicit accounts of science are that are carried by
"philosophical theses of an epistemological kind" can illuminate flaws in
the latter.              

3. In this work, he is going to treat science as simply one instance of
"engaged concernful human activity."  [In so doing he understands himself to
be "taking up the challenge of Heideggarian existential phenomenology."]

4. All of this said, science - and by extension the philosophy of science -
*is* of only limited import.   That is, scientific knowledge is only one of
a range of human values.  It is neither the supreme value, nor the value
according to which the relative weights of others may be judged.  The
[intransitive] objects of science do not "exhaust reality."  The
[transitive] objects of science, i.e., the theories that we adopt at any one
time, "afford only a particular angle or slant on reality, picked out
precisely for its explanatory scope and power." (p. 15)  

5. Finally, in keeping with the idea that science *is* only of limited
importance, in a funny inversion of Kant [because Kant too wanted to leave
room for faith], Bhaskar insists that "what is (and what is not)" cannot be
identified with "what lies within the bounds of human cognitive competence."
Note that this is not simply the argument against empiricist phenomenalism
that we get in RTS.  I.e., it is not about the error of equating "the real"
with "the empirical," to use the RTS language; rather, it is about the error
(according to Bhaskar) of equating the real with that which in principle can
be cognized.  Bhaskar's explicit formulation of this is is quite important
in my view.  At a minimum, it is a clear indication (if we needed one) of
how much more open to speculative metaphysics is Bhaskar than was Kant.   

  
B.
As I said, maybe someone else can help us with the details of the Hegel
discussion.  I got two main things from it:  (1) like Adorno, Bhaskar is in
favor of what he, as did Adorno, calls "negative" dialectics -- an account
of dialectical processes in which there is no presumption that such
processes end in closed totalities -- or, more precisely, no presumption
that they end ultimately in one closed totality; (2) the rational kernel of
Hegelian dialectics is the sense in which it captures the logic of
scientific development.

That's what I got, anyway.

Ruth 


           



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