From: Fredrik Liljeros <fredrik.liljeros-AT-sociology.su.se>
Subject: RE: BHA: RE: cr and social science
Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 15:06:43 +0100 


 
Hi again,

Thanks Tone for your clarification of my bad formulated second question
about the possibility of isolating mechanisms in experiment, sorry about
that. Your are of course right when you are saying that Bhaskar's idea is
that the purpose of an experiment is to isolate single mechanisms (or at
least we share the same interpretation about what he is writing).

But I still think it is an interesting question whether there is any example
of true isolation of mechanisms in experimental situations. Is it not a
question about more or less isolated systems?

And also, if we assume that it is not possible to do create totally closed
systems, would that make any difference for his ontological conclusions?

I myself am very attracted to Bhaskar's picture of philosophy functioning as
a midwife for the scientific practice, without any ability to generate
positive ontological statements, without reference to scientific practice.
If there are no examples of closed experiments, I think it is wrong to say
that randomisation is unscientific even though I of course think that many
experimental studies sucks :-)

Best Fredrik


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