File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2002/bhaskar.0203, message 75


Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 11:02:39 -0600 (CST)
From: viren viven murthy <vvmurthy-AT-midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: BHA: Emergence


Hi Mervyn:

Thanks for the clarification.  I think that I came to a spurious
conclusion about ontological difference as I compared beliefs as emerging
from physical matter to Kantianism giving rise to Hegelianism.  As Ruth
said, in the first case beliefs occur at an ontologically different level
than the biological, and the two are irreducible.  Now, I see that you are
saying that Hegelianism is at a different ontological level than is
Kantianism.  Hence by completely breaking with the dualistic framework, we
can say that Kantianism is to Hegelianism was biology is to beliefs.  The
key here seems to be that we should not think of concepts as all on the
same ontological level.  This is somewhat counter-intuitive, but then my
intuitions are probably overly Cartesian. The key question is then how do
we determine the ontological level of a particular entity or class of
entities?

Viren

On Sat, 23 Mar 2002, Mervyn Hartwig wrote:

> Hi Viren
> 
> Just one comment on your post, which raises a number of important
> issues.
> 
> >Does for example, Hegelianism emerge from Kantianism?  Of
> >course, here we are not dealing with ontologically different levels, but
> >I am not sure whether ontological difference is an essential part of
> >conceptual emergence, in Bhaskar's view.
> 
> I think the answer to your question is Yes, but of course not just from
> Kantianism, and human creativity is always involved in conceptual
> emergence. But I don't know why you say that ontological difference
> isn't involved. On the Bhaskarian conception everything is real or
> within ontology, including conceptual emergence and stratification.
> Concepts are distinct from the world, but are constellationally included
> within it.
> 
> Mervyn
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> viren viven murthy <vvmurthy-AT-midway.uchicago.edu> writes
> >Hi Ruth and other friends:
> >
> >Your comments were extremely helpful.  I had clearly misunderstood
> >Bhaskar's concept of emergence and need to spend some time with it.  In
> >DPF, he succinctly defines emergence in the manner you describe:
> >
> >"A relationship between two terms such that one term diachronically or
> >perhaps synchronically arises out of the other, but is capable of reacting
> >back on the first and is in any event causally and taxonomically
> >irreducible to it."(397)
> >
> > I think that I was confused because in his chapter on emergence,
> >Bhaskar seems constantly to associate it with novelty:
> >
> >"In emergence, generally, new beings (entities, structures, totalities,
> >concepts) are generated out of pre-existing material from which they
> >could have been neither induced nor deduced."(49)
> >
> >So on this reading, to say morality is emergent is to say that it is new
> >with respect to the pre-existing material from which it is generated.  I
> >suppose, here the pre-existing material is the body.
> >
> >I had interpreted emergence in a more simplistic manner as "to come to
> >being through evolution."  Now I would like to inquire about the
> >relationship between these two conceptions of emergence or the
> >relationship between emergence and change. Bhaskar links the two in the
> >following manner:  
> >
> >"Emergence entails both stratification and change.  But if, as I have
> >argued, all changes are spatio-temporal, and space-time is a relational
> >property of the meshwork of material beings, this opens up the phenomena
> >of emergent spatio-temporalities."(53)
> >
> >So in Bhaskar's view, time and space, which are the conditions for change,
> >themselves emerge from material beings.  He later goes on to note that
> >conceptual change exploits the past or exterior cognitive
> >resources.  Hence I wonder whether he would say that new ideas emerge from
> >old ideas and that the present emerges from the past.  Clearly the present
> >is causally irreducible to the past, but I wonder whether Bhaskar would
> >say that the present arises out of it.  If he agrees to this, the only
> >thing preventing us from saying that the present emerges out of the past
> >would be the idea of the present causally affecting the past.  More
> >specifically, with respect to ideas, could one morality emerge from
> >another.  Does for example, Hegelianism emerge from Kantianism?  Of
> >course, here we are not dealing with ontologically different levels, but
> >I am not sure whether ontological difference is an essential part of
> >conceptual emergence, in Bhaskar's view.
> >
> >Viren
> >
> >On Thu, 21 Mar 2002, Ruth Groff wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Viren:
> >> 
> >> I only have a minute, and I'm going to HAVE to resist really getting into this 
> >debate ,,, but I wanted to say that I'm not sure that we are using the term 
> >emergence in the same way.  When I say that I think that moral beliefs, like 
> >other beliefs, are "emergent," what I mean is that they are predicates of 
> >persons and not of physiological or biological processes.  Another way to say it 
> >is that beliefs only come into existence at a given ontological level; they 
> >presuppose and are contingent upon, but are neither equivalent to nor reducible 
> >to, the physiological entities upon which they supervene.  Same with entities 
> >like "society" vis-a-vis individuals.  You seem to mean by the term something 
> >less technical, more like "develops out of, over time," or something along those 
> >lines.
> >> 
> >> Not sure if this changes anything in terms of your position, but at least it 
> >might clarify mine.
> >> 
> >> Gotta go -- sorry not to engage more substantively with your post.  I'm sure 
> >others can do it more justice anyway.
> >> 
> >> Warmly,
> >> Ruth 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >>      --- 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>
> 
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> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 



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