Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 10:15:30 -0500
From: iversteg <iversteg-AT-temple.edu>
Subject: BHA: Causality


I have been wondering about Bhaskar and causality too.  When I looked at him 
and Harre and Madden, I see mostly the ontological affirmation that there are 
causal powers, pitted against the Humean conjunction view.  Part of the 
disengagement with contemporary thinkers that Ruth talks about relates to the 
discussion of a different opposition to Hume, the linear view of causality 
exemplefied in the two billiard balls.  I was hoping to see Bhaskar or Harre 
talk about 'contemporaneous causation, a functional relation between ongoing 
events as when a gas expands with heating, etc.  Mandelbaum talks about this 
at length in his *Anatomy of Historical Knowledge* and other works.  It is 
another way of bringing back causality, not by affirming that we must discuss 
powers, which it more or less takes for granted, but by trying to demonstrate 
the actual process.  What is more, there is common sense support (as well as 
scientific) support for this view.

Ian

>
>>
>>
>>How about the following, then:  can anyone tell me what they see as the
>>major difference(s), if any, between *RTS* and Harre and Madden's *Causal
>>Powers*?  I am about to order *Causal Powers*, so that I can read it over
>>carefully, but I'd love to get a jump start by hearing what others think.
>>
>>Also, there is and has been a fair amount of debate, actually, within
>>academic philosophy, over Locke's conception of real essences, the
>>existence (or not) of natural kinds and how these issues relate to the
>>conceptualization of causality.  The lack of engagement in RTS with
>>contemporaries involved in these debates is kind of striking, really.  I'm
>>curious about it.  Is it just that philosophers of science in the
>>mid-1970's never crossed paths with metaphysicians and/or philosophers of
>>language?  [For that matter, does anyone know if Bhaskar did his degree in
>>a philosophy department?]
>>
>>r.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

Ian Verstegen
Department of Art History
Temple University
8th Floor Ritter Hall Annex
Philadelphia, PA 19122
tel: (215) 204-7837
fax: (215) 204-6951
http://astro.temple.edu/~iversteg


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