Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 10:57:31 -0500
From: Richard Moodey <moodey001-AT-mail1.gannon.edu>
Subject: Re: BHA: Causality and essence


Hi Ruth,

Yes, I would like the reference to that Copi article.

Thanks,

Dick

At 09:46 AM 03/01/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi Dick,
>
>Thanks for your post.  I have always thought about these issue in very 
>much the same way as you, though in my case it was not that I was taught 
>by Jesuits but just that I never knew all that much about science -- if 
>you don't know a lot about science, then Aristotle's physics is by far the 
>most compelling.  Add to this having been introduced to philosophy via a 
>semester-long critique of Ayer and Hume, carried out by the world's most 
>charismatic professor ever ... and voila!
>
>In any case, you wrote: "Causality seems to me to be intimately related to 
>essence or natural kind."
>
>I agree with this, and I take it to be the view that is advanced in 
>RTS.  Bhaskar says that the concept of "causal mechanism" rests on the 
>concept of "the exercise of a power."  This concept of a causal power, in 
>turn, is necessarily connected to that of "real essence."  Objects 
>(entities or relations -- later, absences thereof (i.e., "de-onts'," which 
>for the record I am skeptical of)) have the powers they do, according to 
>Bhaskar, in virtue of their real essences.
>
>I was perfectly content with this until Ronny put us on to that Irving 
>Copi article  (I will check the reference for you, if you'd like, and you 
>probably would), and to Ellis' book [*Scientific Essentialism*, Cambridge, 
>2001].  Before reading these pieces, I had kind of thought that Bhaskar 
>(or maybe Bhaskar and Harre & Madden) was unique in making this kind of 
>argument.  But it turns out that there is and has been all kinds of 
>discussion within mainstream philosophy about each of the components of 
>the model!  Big debates pro and con about the existence of natural kinds, 
>arguments about what KINDS of kinds there might be, nuanced discussions 
>about dispositional powers and how they relate to other properties ... 
>etc.  [Given that I'm basically working within the discipline of 
>philosophy, I feel kind of silly that I wasn't aware of this -- but also 
>excited, to realize that there is all of this work out there on the 
>foundational concepts which figure in Bhaskar's work and which I find so 
>interesting and persuasive.]
>
>Anyhow, I'm not sure what to say more than that I am now trying to figure 
>out for myself *precisely* what I think causality is, once we've shifted 
>to working within the essentialist, neo-Aristotelian metaphysics that you 
>describe.  I really appreciate your comments on the issue.
>
>Warmly,
>Ruth
>
>
>
>
>
>has in Aristotelian terms, Because I received my philosophical training in 
>a Jesuit seminary, in which neo-Thomistic thought was dominant, I never 
>really accepted the total modernist rejection of Aristotle.  One could, I 
>was taught, accept the successive revolutions in physics, without 
>rejecting the Aristotelian four causes.  The linear view of causility is 
>"essentially" a truncated view of efficient causation, leaving out 
>material, formal, and final causes.  Talk of human agency is a way of 
>bringing final causation back into the discussion.  "A functional relation 
>between ongoing events" pertains to formal causality, understood as the 
>intelligibility inherent in those events.  But there are other kinds of 
>intelligibility in events, such as the kind of developmental process so 
>dramatically illustrated by embryonic development, the combination of 
>random variation and environmental selection illustrated not just by 
>biological evolution but also by the selective survival of economic 
>enterprises and of operant behaviors in operant conditioning theory.  And, 
>of course, the dialectical processes examined in DPF provide another way 
>of describing essences as a generative (causal) mechanism  In dialectic, 
>imo, essences cannot be thought of as inhering in windowless monads.  The 
>"monads" would have to have constitutive internal relations with one 
>another, and these relations would have to include "negation" and "absence."
>
> >I am suggesting connections between "real essence" and the combination 
> of material and formal cause that the Aristotelians and Thomists call the 
> essence of material beings.  I am further suggesting that the various 
> kinds of intelligibility developed in the modern sciences, social as well 
> as natural, expand the traditional notion of formal causality.
> >
> >There is also a whole realm of scientific work that does not fit into 
> any of the four causes -- statistical science.  This has to do with the 
> probability of events, or the relative frequency of their 
> occurance.  There is no direct intelligibility, no intrinsic connection, 
> between successive tosses of a coin.  But the relative frequency of heads 
> and tails in a series of sets of coin tosses will oscillate around .5.
> >
> >It seems to me that catastrophe theory is a way of getting at the 
> increasing probability of an event -- the straw that breaks the camel's 
> back -- and that chaos theory spells out patterns of oscillation of 
> events around much more complicated "attractors" than the .5 of the toss 
> of an unbiased coin.  These both deal with statistical probabilities, and 
> provide a kind of indirect intelligibility quite different from the 
> direct intelligibility of "essences."
> >
> >Regards,
> >
> >Dick
> >
> >At 10:15 AM 02/27/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> >>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 ---
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
>
>      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---




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