Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 14:15:40 -0500
From: Richard Moodey <moodey001-AT-mail1.gannon.edu>
Subject: Re: BHA: What scientists tell us


Hi Mervyn,

> >But I find neither historical evidence nor convincing philosophical
> >arguments for the ontological priority of good over evil.     I believe in
> >it, but that's a matter of faith.
>
>No arguments at all? I thought the theological thing to do nowadays was
>to provide arguments for matters taken on faith?

That's not my theological thing.  I see the things I take on faith as a 
context which I can struggle to reveal, but much of which  I hold 
tacitly.  I know the things in focal awareness only in terms of this 
background of faith.

>  Doesn't religious belief ultimately have to be conpatible with science?

Clearly, some people have religious beliefs that are incompatible with 
others' scientific beliefs.  I really don't know if all of my own beliefs 
are compatible with one another.  Perhaps there are such things as 
"dialectical" compatibilities?

> >> >I have a very  hard time accepting that the "social cube" really 
> expresses
> >> >the "alethic truth" of our human nature or "species being."  I think 
> it is
> >> >an interesting heuristic device.
> >>
> >>That is the opposite of what I said, which was that the alethic truth
> >>*of* the [current] social cube, i.e. our four-planar human nature (i.e.
> >>current master-slave-type society) is our species being, i.e. our
> >>essential or core universal human nature.
> >
> >I apologize for distorting your meaning.  I must confess that I am really
> >having to reach (perhaps beyond my grasp) to get it right.  Are you saying
> >that what you and Bhaskar write about the social cube or four-planar human
> >nature is not a true statement about our species being, but somehow *is*
> >our species being?  How can our species being *be* the words and diagrams
> >in a set of texts?  Isn't our species being something other than things
> >written about it?
>
>No need for apologies, but nice of you. Let me try again. Try and forget
>about statements, texts and the problem of expressing ontological truth
>in language - 'bracket' this problem;

My objection, for I am convinced that it is an objection rather than a 
failure to understand, is to that very strategy of bracketing.  We cannot 
refer to anything in the intransitive dimension without statements, texts, 
and attempts at linguistic articulation.  Once you bracket this, you must 
remain silent.  Is "alethic truth" ineffable or unspeakable?

>what we seek to refer to in the intransitive dimension is in general quite 
>independent of our efforts to refer to it.

I agree.  What I insist upon is that any effort to refer to it may be more 
or less true, or false.

>Bhaskar's ontology of human nature looks roughly like this
>(paralleling a distinction found in Marx - see e.g. Sean Creaven,
>MARXISM AND REALISM: materialistic application of realism in the social
>sciences):
>
>1. At the level of the Real we have species being or our essential 'core
>universal' (transhistorical and translocal) human nature (DPF), the
>locus of our essential Self (FEW). This is fundamentally a psycho-
>biological concept, referring to our basic needs and capacities as a
>species (what we have the potential for at birth), but of course it has
>been profoundly influenced socially in the course of human evolution,
>and is still (relatively slowly) evolving.

I have no argument with this.

>The alethic truth of 1 is of course ultimately the open structure of
>possibility the metaphor for which is 'God'.

What is added to 1 by saying "the alethic truth of 1"?   Why not simply say 
that our species being is "the open structure of possibility the metaphor 
for which is 'God'"?  I'm not convinced that 'God' is the metaphor for the 
open structure of possibility which is our species being, but it is 
certainly something worth pondering.  When you say that this is "alethic 
truth," it seems to take it out of the realm of something which might be 
more-or-less true, and into the realm of something which is absolutely 
true, by fiat.  Ipse dixit -- he has spoken.


>1. is in turn the alethic truth of 2:
>
>2. At the level of the Actual and Empirical we have human social or
>historical being ('four-planar human nature'). This is the mediated
>manifestation of 1. in particular historical situations.
>
>Bhaskar thinks, with Marx, Rousseau, etc that 1. is basically 'good' and
>the locus of 'the pulse of freedom' which is at the heart of Bhaskar's
>conception of the good, i.e. non-alienation, autonomy; and that 2., in
>master-slave-type societies or 'demi-reality', is fundamentally a warp
>on or distortion of 1, resulting ultimately from categorial error, in
>particular the absenting of ontology in the epistemic fallacy, and the
>absenting of the concept of absence itself in the doctrine of
>ontological monovalence; both these errors mean that we take human
>nature as manifest at 2. as the only reality, forgetting the deeper,
>'truer' essential nature that underlies it, and the whole open structure
>of possibility. In order to flourish and realise their potential as a
>species, humans need autonomy, recognition, and a sense of oneness (or
>non-alienation) from their labour, nature, each other, the social nexus,
>and themselves. So they must now 'shed' or leave behind their alienated
>and unfree existence at 2., and all its supporting structures, thus
>bringing their existence into line with their essence, their socio-
>historical nature into line with their species being. This is
>eudaimonia, or in theological terms, the kingdom of God on earth.
>
>This I think is the fundamental picture, but of course the brush strokes
>are necessarily broad and crude.

If all this depends on accepting the notion of "alethic truth," I have to 
dissent.  Some of these propositions, however, do not seem necessarily 
connected to "alethic truth."   So, perhaps, I am still free to think about 
ways to realize human potential.

> >mostly when Bhaskar speaks of 'four-planar
> >>human nature' he means the one that you're likely to bump into in the
> >>supermarket.
> >
> >I had never bumped into four-planar human nature until I started reading
> >postings to this list and DPF.
>
>Don't you go to the supermarket? Just because you've only just learnt
>Bhaskar's concept doesn't mean that you haven't encountered that to
>which the concept refers.

I go to the supermarket all too often, and do bump into people there.  I 
belief that they all are essentially human.  The question is whether or not 
Bhaskar's concept of their essential humanity is true, which goes back to 
our criteria for judging a proposition or set of propositions to be true or 
false.  The argument for "alethic truth" seems to bear a family resemblance 
to the ontological proof for the existence of God.  By the very nature of 
the concept, it has to exist.

Best regards,

Dick






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