Subject: RE: BHA: PON ch. 3 question
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 01:29:06 -0000


Mervyn, Ruth, and all,

Well, Mervyn that was a humdinger of a post of yours.  I'm not sure whether
Roy would agree with every aspect of your interpretation of what he said,
but as someone who was also present at that meeting I am very grateful for
your methodical run-down of what Roy offered us.  I am not sure that you
have satisfactorily answered Ruth's question about the difference between
"persons" and "people", but I would like to hear what Ruth has to say about
this before I decide whether to comment about this.  However, I do have one
question to ask of you Mervyn.  Is the ego you refer to Freudian, and does
Freud exhaust this ego, in other words is this ego only Freudian?

Phil


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> [mailto:owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of Mervyn
> Hartwig
> Sent: 29 November 2001 23:02
> To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: BHA: PON ch. 3 question
>
>
> Hi Ruth,
>
> > this would seem to
> >suggest, though, that the philosophy of psychology (or of
> agency, within social
> >science) that Bhaskar is working out in this section is limited
> (consciously
> >so?), in that it doesn't get at whole embodied selves (but rather at
> >"psychological units").
>
> 'Unit' is my term, not Bhaskar's, and perhaps unfortunate - 'core' would
> perhaps be better. I don't think this entails limitation - rather, it
> gets at the key dimension of the embodied self, which also includes a
> 'physiological' dimension, as well as 'sociological' inputs (see e.g.
> third para of the Chapter). In DPF this becomes, precisely, 'a
> stratified model of the self' (149, etc) and shows I think the direction
> in which the PON thought was pointing.
>
> In the recent CCR seminar, in a talk entitled 'Who am I?', Bhaskar spoke
> of three dimensions of the person:
>
> 1) The ego, as atomised and separate from other people. This is an
> ideological illusion.
>
> 2) The embodied personality (a phrase which suggests that the
> personality is in the ascendant, so to speak - but it includes the
> unconscious and preconscious, so presumably is not all cognitive), which
> he spoke of as 'through and through contextual and relative' (to the
> material and socio-historical context).
>
> 3) The transcendentally real self - our true or alethic selves, what we
> essentially are.
>
> These correspond to:
>
> 1) demi-real relative being   2) relative being  3) absolute being -
> what it is possible for us to be in virtue of the way that the universe
> fundamentally is. And:
>
> 1) the empirical  2) the actual   3) the real
>
> It is essence in the sense of 3) that is perhaps missing from PON, but
> I'm speaking a bit off the top of my head. In PON our essence seems to
> reside at 2).
>
> Dunno whether this helps, but hoping so,
>
> Mervyn
>
>
> Ruth Groff <rgroff-AT-yorku.ca> writes
> >Hi Mervyn,
> >
> >Thanks a lot.  Would you have a minute to say a word or two for
> me about the
> >difference between "person(s)" and "people."  You distinguish
> between the
> >"psychological unit" and the "whole embodied self" -- this would seem to
> >suggest, though, that the philosophy of psychology (or of
> agency, within social
> >science) that Bhaskar is working out in this section is limited
> (consciously
> >so?), in that it doesn't get at whole embodied selves (but rather at
> >"psychological units").  Do you think he would have meant to
> delimits things
> >that way at the time, even if he would now?  This is not meant
> to be a loaded
> >question; I genuinely appreciate any insights you or others have.
> >
> >Thanks again,
> >Ruth
> >
> >
> >
> >     --- 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
>
>
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