Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 01:13:41 +0000 From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: BHA: On the question of how to read Hey Ruth! >I will leave aside the question of my dialectic credentials, but >will say that it is just as important not to rush to explain away every >inconsistency by saying that it fits into a larger, developing unity. Yes, I agree one shouldn't rush to explain away, it should be a genuine resolution. I'm not sure you should leave aside your dialectical credentials. I am genuinely puzzled as to how you (among others) can espouse such a full- blooded marxist position e.g. on the issue of alienation and yet seem to operate within the analytical rather than the dialectical problematic in some/many? other respects. If ever there was a dialectician it was Marx! (You didn't comment on my point that your espousal of Marx's account - admittedly not consistently carried through - of species being and social being and their interrelationship is at odds with your rejection of the fundamentally similar Bhaskarian account of the interrelationship of core universal human nature and four-planar nature, or psychology and social science, (distinctions within a unity)). Best, Mervyn Ruth Groff <rgroff-AT-yorku.ca> writes >Hiya Mervyn, > >You wrote: > >> > When an important thinker seems to be drawing an odd conclusion, I think a >> > wise rule is to consider seriously whether the fault is not in oneself. > >Yes. I think that this is true, and that many, especially in academia, where >points are so often awarded for arrogance and cleverness, would do well to take >it to heart. > >But listen, it is also good to consider that an important thinker may actually >get stuff wrong from time to time, or change his or her mind about things, or >try out formulations that don't quite work, or whatever. Whenever I point to >what seems to me to be a tension or contradiction in Bhaskar's work -- the >exploration of which might reveal something interesting about what is going on >with the theory -- you tell me that I only see a tension because I do not think >dialectically. I will leave aside the question of my dialectic credentials, >but >will say that it is just as important not to rush to explain away every >inconsistency by saying that it fits into a larger, developing unity. > >[For what it's worth, I actually tend toward the latter fault, in my off-line >thinking. I always want to reconstruct the person's position in as coherent a >way as possible. Adorno's Lectures on the Critique of Pure Reason helped me >to >see this. He talks there in a way that really made an impression on me about >how important it is to not ... well, rush in an explain away every glitch. >Whether his insight will reform me in this regard is yet to be seen, however.] > >Warmly, >Ruth > > >>I'm not sure the above pearl of wisdom takes us very far!! :) >> >>Thanks, >> >>Andy >> >> >> --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > > > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- -- Mervyn Hartwig Editor, Journal of Critical Realism (incorporating 'Alethia') 13 Spenser Road Herne Hill London SE24 ONS United Kingdom Tel: 020 7 737 2892 Email: <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk> Subscription forms: http://www.criticalrealism.demon.co.uk/iacr/membership.html --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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