File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2002/bhaskar.0205, message 53


From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: Re: BHA: path dependence, critical realism and marxism
Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 21:55:19 -0400


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Hi Brian--

It's true that texts have constraining and enabling features, and so there are limits to what can be argued as valid interpretations of a particular text.  The play *Hamlet* cannot plausibly be taken as a thesis on quantum mechanics.  But the question remains about how we see the propagation of a text as a causal element in social or cultural change.  I've read the New Testament, for example, but it didn't lead me to believe in the divinity of Jesus and to take him as my personal savior.  Lots of people (like history students) read *Mein Kampf* but aren't turned into Nazi sympathizers.  The ideas spread, but to what effect?  Walter Ong's book *Orality and Literacy* had a profound impact on my research, but at least as much (and probably more) through the ways I disagreed with it than through the parts I thought were on the mark.  An ordinary book on astrology probably sells far more than anything by Bhaskar, but I'm not sure what one should say about their relative social impact.  In any case, once a book is "out there," the author's agency is (more or less) over, advertising or in-person pummelling notwithstanding: any social impact it may have really starts from how readers respond to it (if they do, and if they even read it).  My comment about the primacy of the reader was meant in that respect.  There is of course an analogy here with TMSA, or maybe more clearly with Archer's morphogenesis, since it emphasizes the agent's action undertaken within historical preconditions.  Anyway, all I'm doing is underscoring the difficulties facing a proposition like "CR -> spread of idea -> emancipation" and, as Marsh recommends, subjecting it to just a little research.

T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce


  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Brian Dick
  To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
  Sent: Tuesday, 07 May 2002 7:37 PM
  Subject: Re: BHA: path dependence, critical realism and marxism



  Hi Tobin

  Perhaps the TMSA can help in this matter.  The TMSA gives two diametrically opposed positions, which it attempts to unite.  One the one hand, we have society determining the individual (Durkheim), while on the other we have the individual determining society (Weber).  Now Bhaskar shows that to hold one or the other of these positions alone is to commit the fallacies of reification and voluntarism respectively.  Rather, we have to see society as both constraining and enabling the individual as the individual (normally) reproduces and (sometimes) transforms society (with society and the individual mediated by a set of positioned-practices).

  Now, as regards the causal efficacy of writing a book, I see that the same two fallacies can arise.  If we say that only the author/book has causal efficacy we fall into the trap of reification, while if we say that only the reader does we end up with a form of voluntarism.  Thus, holding onto the 'primacy of the reader' may lead to voluntarism.  It might be better said that the reader is constrained and enabled by the book (whether that be in cognitive or other terms), while, as you point out, it is up to the reader to change (or reproduce) the world.

  *Note: Please take my comments with a grain of salt, as Im a bit new to the server, but this seems to make sense.

  Best,

  Brian




HTML VERSION:

Hi Brian--
 
It's true that texts have constraining and enabling features, and so there are limits to what can be argued as valid interpretations of a particular text.  The play *Hamlet* cannot plausibly be taken as a thesis on quantum mechanics.  But the question remains about how we see the propagation of a text as a causal element in social or cultural change.  I've read the New Testament, for example, but it didn't lead me to believe in the divinity of Jesus and to take him as my personal savior.  Lots of people (like history students) read *Mein Kampf* but aren't turned into Nazi sympathizers.  The ideas spread, but to what effect?  Walter Ong's book *Orality and Literacy* had a profound impact on my research, but at least as much (and probably more) through the ways I disagreed with it than through the parts I thought were on the mark.  An ordinary book on astrology probably sells far more than anything by Bhaskar, but I'm not sure what one should say about their relative social impact.  In any case, once a book is "out there," the author's agency is (more or less) over, advertising or in-person pummelling notwithstanding: any social impact it may have really starts from how readers respond to it (if they do, and if they even read it).  My comment about the primacy of the reader was meant in that respect.  There is of course an analogy here with TMSA, or maybe more clearly with Archer's morphogenesis, since it emphasizes the agent's action undertaken within historical preconditions.  Anyway, all I'm doing is underscoring the difficulties facing a proposition like "CR -> spread of idea -> emancipation" and, as Marsh recommends, subjecting it to just a little research.
 
T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Dick
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Sent: Tuesday, 07 May 2002 7:37 PM
Subject: Re: BHA: path dependence, critical realism and marxism

Hi Tobin

Perhaps the TMSA can help in this matter.  The TMSA gives two diametrically opposed positions, which it attempts to unite.  One the one hand, we have society determining the individual (Durkheim), while on the other we have the individual determining society (Weber).  Now Bhaskar shows that to hold one or the other of these positions alone is to commit the fallacies of reification and voluntarism respectively.  Rather, we have to see society as both constraining and enabling the individual as the individual (normally) reproduces and (sometimes) transforms society (with society and the individual mediated by a set of positioned-practices). 

Now, as regards the causal efficacy of writing a book, I see that the same two fallacies can arise.  If we say that only the author/book has causal efficacy we fall into the trap of reification, while if we say that only the reader does we end up with a form of voluntarism.  Thus, holding onto the 'primacy of the reader' may lead to voluntarism.  It might be better said that the reader is constrained and enabled by the book (whether that be in cognitive or other terms), while, as you point out, it is up to the reader to change (or reproduce) the world. 

*Note: Please take my comments with a grain of salt, as Im a bit new to the server, but this seems to make sense.

Best,

Brian

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