Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 10:45:55 +0100 From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: BHA: Religious sensibility?? Hi again Tobin >Agonizing as it may be, I'd rather have a tough reader than a >soft one -- that's *real* charity. I agree with this. Toughness is of course most effective when it's applied to the strongest possible interpretation. >I think for him >> consciousness is both present at all levels of the cosmos and emergent >> in roughly the following sense. Absolute being (God), among whose >> infinite attributes is consciousness, suffuses (creates and sustains) >> all levels of the finite world of relative being qua 'pure >> dispositionality' (possibility) and 'ultimate categorial structure'. >> Consciousness is thus present at all levels *as possibility* - which is >> entirely compatible with emergence. > >This seems partially tautological and partially paralogical. Since X exists >at some level, it obviously *must* be a possibility at lower levels. But >from this RB concludes that it is also *present* at the lower levels?? If >so, we can equally argue that murder is present at all levels of existence. >And chocolate eclairs. (If only!) To conflate possibility with presence is >basically a form of actualism. There is a difference between presence *as possibility* (i.e. at the level of the Real) and presence as actuality (level of the Actual - your sense.) It is possibility that Bhaskar imo worships - think of his God as above all that. Best, Mervyn Tobin Nellhaus <nellhaus-AT-gis.net> writes >Hi Mervyn-- > >> >Perhaps it's not *all* of TDCR, but certainly it's the most important >> >element in it, the aspect in which it most differs from DCR (which, in >turn, >> >made CR dialectical). >> >> It could only be the most important element if, as you suggest, it >> *transforms* DCR. I argue, however, that it is *by and large*, not a >> transformation, but a consistent dialectical *development*, of it. I'm >> now in print in detail to this effect in JSTB 31:2 June 2001, so won't >> repeat myself any further here. If I'm right, the T is no more the most >> important element in T-D-CR than the recent growth is the most important >> element in a maturing tree - it presupposes and embraces most of what's >> gone before. I could of course be wrong... > >I suppose I'll have to dig up the JTSB to get the story of why you think the >T is consistent with the D-CR, and doesn't make for a great change. But I >for one, and I suspect many others, see the T as a rather big step. (Is >marxism a natural and consistent linear development of hegelianism? You >decide.) Without question the T has been more controversial than the D ever >was. And I must confess, your image of the T as a natural growth makes me >wonder how you personally can consistently remain an agnostic. > >> >when it comes to critical analysis, charity may be in the mind of >> >the beholder. >> >> Charity is a key principle of immanent critique - ie putting the most >> favourable or strongest possible construction on the position being >> critiqued if you want your critique to carry much weight. > >Maybe. On the other hand, a theory that can withstand serious pounding >*has* weight. Agonizing as it may be, I'd rather have a tough reader than a >soft one -- that's *real* charity. > >> No, I don't accept reductionism. But it's not me - I'm trying to present >> a plausible interpretation of what Bhaskar's saying. I think for him >> consciousness is both present at all levels of the cosmos and emergent >> in roughly the following sense. Absolute being (God), among whose >> infinite attributes is consciousness, suffuses (creates and sustains) >> all levels of the finite world of relative being qua 'pure >> dispositionality' (possibility) and 'ultimate categorial structure'. >> Consciousness is thus present at all levels *as possibility* - which is >> entirely compatible with emergence. > >This seems partially tautological and partially paralogical. Since X exists >at some level, it obviously *must* be a possibility at lower levels. But >from this RB concludes that it is also *present* at the lower levels?? If >so, we can equally argue that murder is present at all levels of existence. >And chocolate eclairs. (If only!) To conflate possibility with presence is >basically a form of actualism. > >> Whatever you think of its >> premises (that possibility + categorial structure = God) > >Just what is RB's rationale for this assertion, anyway? It strikes me as >either deflationary (of God) or inflationary (of RB's own thinking), but in >any case I don't get it. > >Gotta go. Cheers, T. > >--- >Tobin Nellhaus >nellhaus-AT-mail.com >"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce > > > > > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- -- Mervyn Hartwig 13 Spenser Road Herne Hill London SE24 ONS United Kingdom Tel: 020 7 737 2892 Email: mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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