From: Marshall Feldman <marsh-AT-uri.edu>
Subject: RE: BHA: Mainstream Philosophy of Science
Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 11:26:15 -0400


Hi all,

Thanks for chiming in Ronny. This is very helpful.

I'm more interested in engaging some arguments from what I called
"mainstream philosophy of science" than in figuring out why RB has not done
more to further the cause. Here are two comments.

1. Coincidentally, I came across this quote from Adorno this morning. (It's
in an article about quantitative economic geography, something that's more
of my home turf.) "Genuine refutation must penetrate the power of the
opponent and meet him [sic] on the ground of his strength; the case is not
won by attacking him somewhere else and defeating him where he is not"
(_Against Epistemology_, Blackwell 1982, cited in Plummer and Sheppard,
"Must Emancipatory Economic Geography be Qualitative?" _Antipode_ 2001:
195). One has to wonder about how serious a critique is if it doesn't engage
the enemy seriously. As an outsider it certainly seems much easier for RB or
at least his philosophy students to be taken seriously by Philosophers than
for economic geographers (and other radicals) to be taken seriously by
mainstream economists. At least the philosophers seem to be interested in
the same issues, use some of the same ideas, and refer to the same dead
white men. The economists and economic geographers generally do not share
even this in common, yet we've made them take notice (admittedly because
their aspatial irrealism was and is so out of touch with reality that at
least some of them may have been embarrassed).

2. Issues in the mainstream seem critical for CR. Take for example "truth
realism." Papineau nicely describes realism as being based on two
propositions: 1) The world exists independent of our knowledge, and 2) It's
possible to have knowledge the world. "Truth realism," as I understand it,
focuses on the second proposition and claims that most scientific knowledge
is true in that it approximates a correct picture of the world. CR, on the
other hand, seems to side-step the issue by using the epistemic fallacy to
deflect much discussion about how true scientific theories are. As we all
know, "knowledge" in the transient dimension is fallible. This claim, which
I accept, often seems to license avoiding serious discussion of truth and
knowledge. Yet how can CR claim to be emancipatory if we have no strong
concept of truth (alethic truth aside, which as I understand it is truth in
terms of the world rather than in terms of human knowledge)? On what grounds
would we, for instance, justify any difficult political action by light of
scientific research when CR provides no substantial grounds for believing
what that research says to be true?

BTW, whatever Papineau's own leanings, the particular collection I'm reading
does seem to have authors of various points of view. The two things I've
seen that they have in common are: (1) virtually all their examples come
from physics or, at best, chemistry, and (2) they all seem to suffer from
what Bernstein calls "the Cartesian Anxiety" in that the fate of realism
hinges on the philosopher's ability to provide a good, logical argument for
believing science to be true.

	Regard,

	Marsh Feldman

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> [mailto:owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of
> rsmyhre-AT-frisurf.no
> Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 9:13 AM
> To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Cc: ronnym-AT-stud.ntnu.no; rsmyhre-AT-frisurf.no
> Subject: Re: BHA: Mainstream Philosophy of Science
>
>
> Hi,
>
> Mainstream Philosophy of Science. Is there such an animal?
>
> I think this thread is highly interesting and as a wannabe philosopher of
> science I feel I have to respond.
>
> I dispute that there are any mainstream philosophy of science
> today. I also
> disagree with the claim that most philosophers of science is
> positivists. In
> the 1950s and the 1960s maybe there was such a beast as
> 'mainstream philosophy
> of science' but certainly not today. On the contrary,
> contemporary philosophy
> of science (now I am talking about specialists in philosophy of
> science not
> other academics) is a highly disputed terrain. I can't think of
> any central
> interesting topic that most philosophers of science agree on.
>
> Another question is why Bhaskar is almost unknown among professional
> philosophers. I think some have made to much about this. For two reasons.
> Firstly, RTS is certainly a original book but it is nothing of
> the watershed
> in philosophy of science as some on this list has made it into.
> An underground
> tradition of aristotelians have defended causal realism all the
> time, also
> during the heyday of positivism. Several philosophers,
> contemporary with the
> RTS, developed a realist theory of causal powers - Milton Fisk's
> 'Nature and
> Necessity' (1973), Sydney Shoemaker's 'Causality and Properties'
> (article)
> (1980), Michael Ayers' 'The Refutation of Determinism' (1968)
> etc. Several
> others on this list have mentioned Rom Harre & Edward Madden's
> 'Causal Powers'
> (1975), a work, to my mind, more impressive in some ways than
> RTS. Secondly,
> there have been some critical engagement with RTS among philosophers of
> science. Take Alan Chalmers book 'What is this thing Called
> Science?' a widely
> used introduction to philosophy of science, for instance,
> Chalmers discusses
> Bhaskar and defend him against the alternative realist account
> developed by
> Nancy Cartwright. I discovered Bhaskar through Marxism but one of
> my friends
> started reading Bhaskar through Chalmers.
>
> In any case we have to reflect on any other reasons why Bhaskar
> is not more
> widely discussed among philosophers of science. I can think of
> some reasons.
>
> 1) As Ruth notes, to establish oneself as an important
> philosopher of science
> takes hard work. You will have to attend to conferences and
> participate in
> discussions in journals (especially such as Philosophy of
> Science, British
> Journal for Philosophy of Science and Synthese). It seems that
> Bhaskar has not
> done any original work in metaphysics and philosophy of (natural) science
> since RTS. It seems that DPF is more influenced by his reading of
> Derrida,
> Hegel, Heidegger and other 'continental philosophers than analytic
> philosophers. What he writes about philosophy of science in Plato Etc is
> simply a restatement of what he said in RTS and the artcles
> published in the
> 1970s.
>
> 2) Bhaskar's style. Bhaskar's books (even RTS but to a lesser
> degree) is noted
> by the absence (sic) of critical engagement with other philosophers, both
> living and non-living. Bhaskar can refute a whole position in one
> paragraph.
> This is alien to analytic philosophy, if not 'continental'
> philosophy. Most
> philosophers like books where they can learn something through particular
> arguments. With Bhaskar it is in some way opposite, you will have
> to accept
> the whole packet before the particular arguments make sense.
>
> 3) Several philosophers have developed positions than
> transgresses Bhaskar.
> Bhaskar was undoubtably one of the first to develop a realist account of
> causal powers and something like realism about possibilities.
> Today several
> other positions compete, Cartwright, Salmon, Ellis, Tooley defends causal
> power realism if not full blown modal realism. I think that
> Bhaskars account
> in some ways are superior to those mentioned above, but Bhaskars
> position need
> to be enriched and developed by a critical engagement with contemporary
> metaphysics and philosophy of science. This is a condition of
> necessity for
> its survival as a tenable position today in contemporary
> philosophy of science.
>
> 4) This topic has been widely discussed earlier but I have to mention it
> again. Most analytic philosophers are either reductive or non-reductive
> (emergent) physicalists. FEW and the books to be published this
> summer seem to
> be spiritualist or something like spititualism. Not suprisingly, most
> philosophers would be put off by this turn. In any case it seems that the
> project launched in RTS (a philosophy FOR science) looks to have
> exploded in
> favour of a philosophy of wisdom, more in commom with Krishnamurti
> and 'eastern wisdom' than topics discussed by philosophers of science.
>
> Maybe I have formulated myself to harsh regarding Bhaskar. But
> that will be a
> misunderstanding of my position. RTS, PON is to my mind great
> works that would
> enrich contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of science if it
> became more
> widely known. But that means that CR need to renew itself by engaging in
> contemporary philosophy of science.
>
> Mervyn:
>
> > I think the crucial thing is that Papineau comes out of the positivist
> > tradition (which as you know Bhaskar submits to withering critique), and
> > is still fundamentally operating within it in many respects, as are many
> > who call themselves 'realists' of one kind or another. Even Ellis, e.g.,
> > in his reductionism is still operating within it. Politically, too, this
> > kind of approach is supportive of the status quo, and the 'critical' in
> > critical realism is just too radical for them. The whole tradition
> > accepts Hume on facts and values.
>
> I think this is unfair. Ellis seems to be something like a social
> democrat, or
> at least a critic of neo-classical economics. Maybe he would be
> interested in
> Lawson's book? Bhaskar's 'withering critique of positivism' would
> in no way
> hurt Papineau's position. (Interestingly Papineau supervised Psillos
> dissertation at the LSE, and Psillos as Howard has mentioned is
> in some ways a
> critical realist). It is correct that Papineau is a naturalist and a
> reductionist but not a positivist. He defends theoretical entities. Some
> philosophers of this 'tradition' is also committed  to moral
> realism (Richard
> Boyd, Mario Bunge) but theirs have been a minority position. Most
> philosophers
> of science, I believe, don't have neither time nor strenght to develop
> systematically their views on ethics. Bhaskar's 'synoptic vision'
> is in such a
> perspective highly admirable.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Ronny S. Myhre
>
>
>
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