Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 22:48:52 -0400
From: Ruth Groff <rgroff-AT-yorku.ca>
Subject: BHA: causal bearers in the social world


Hi Mervyn, all,

Okay, this is a really basic question, but I am genuinely unsure of the answer.

Mervyn, you wrote that according to Bhaskar's current thinking,

>nothing whatsoever can happen except in and through
>the activity of people. Only people and their ideas and activities are
>the active force (efficient cause) in history.

What I want to know is whether or not Bhaskar thinks or has ever thought that social structures are causal bearers.  

Benton early on charged Bhaskar with falling into methodological individualism ... and the charge is understandable, given certain passages in PON.  Nonetheless, given that the analogy between causal mechanisms in nature and social structures (an analogy that is itself unmistakably and explicitly distinguished from a parallel analogy between causal mechanisms in nature and individuals' essences)  --  given that the analogy makes no sense if social structures are not actually things that bring about effects, I have so far interpreted Bhaskar as ... well ... not really meaning it, when it sounds as though he is saying that it is only individuals who are causal bearers.  Individuals are the only bearers of intentions, yes, but electrons aren't *intentional* actors, so not being capable of  *intentional* action isn't necessarily enough to preclude structures being analogues to causal mechanisms in nature.

I haven't been completely happy with this reading, but again, it is the only way I can figure to make sense of the analogy between causal mechanisms in nature and social structures, upon which the extension of transcendental realism to social science rests.  [I appreciate that social structures are themselves reproduced by individuals, but, as noted above, Bhaskar is clear in PON to affirm two different analogies:  natural causal power - social structure (chapter 2), natural causal power - individual essence (chapter 3).  The former authorizes (critical) naturalism with respect to social science, the latter authorizes it with respect to psychology. 

Given that I am right this moment writing a chapter in which I attribute to Bhaskar the view that social structures are causal mechanisms (and thus by extension causal bearers), and  argue against Ellis (not to mention all methodological individualists) that such a view is defensible, I am really, really, REALLY keen to hear how other people read Bhaskar on this point.  Is it only individuals who effect consequences, according to Bhaskar, or are social structures also causal bearers?  

[One reading, come to think of it, might be to say that it is only individuals who can effect *change*, which is a very specific kind of consequence.]

Thanks all,
Ruth



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