Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 02:26:22 +0100
From: Jan Straathof <janstr-AT-chan.nl>
Subject: Re: BHA: negativity wins


dear All, some scattered remarks,

for Caroline:
a better, more obvious, example of structural absence might be the
structural underrepresentation (and manytimes complete absence) of
women in the ruling circles of corporate, governmental and scientific
organizations - at least that's the case here in Holland-, a phenomenon
which subsequentially seems linked to (and consequential for) the
structural underrepresentation (and manytimes complete absence) of
men in householding, childcare etc.

Mervyn wrote:
>evil, and I think Bhaskar is very wise to suggest that evil is basically
>parasitic on the good and that we should 'let go and let God' i.e.
>forget about the spooks, *shed* them, and get on with our lives and
>flourish (I don't mean 'let God' literally - I'm an agnostic).

but Mervyn do you really believe, a la Nietzsche's active forgetting,
that "forget about the spooks" will be just enough to let them disappear
by themselfs ? -- i think the spooks are real, and we will have to expose
fight them whenever we can !

Howard wrote:
>5. "A purely positive world could not move, change."  I have never
>understood this argument.  It is just as much a *logical* possibility
>that there could have been a purely positive world where everything
>moved and changed because it was exquisitely choreographed by the
>Grand Ballet Master in the Sky as it is to assume the corresponding
>*logical* possibility that there could have been just nothing.

leaving aside speculations on alleged exotic powers of divinities, but
imagine a full box of matches (as an example/metaphor of a purely
positive world), in such a box it is *impossible* to move one match
form place A to place B, *at minimum* there must be some free room
(i.e. absence) to allow for moving (around) of the matches; thus logically
in a purely positive (i.e. full) world movement (in space) and change
(in time) are impossible; to obtain the possibility of difference and
change in united space-time (cf. Einstein) one has to co-invoke the
reality of absences (emptiness, open-endedness, indeterminacy etc.)

yours,
jan

ps. (contra to RTS) i tend to view DPF less as a full-fledged theory,
yet more as a systematic protest against neglected ontological issues
(i.e. absences and her relatives) and deceptive epistemologies
(the family of positivisms) ?




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