Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2002 12:58:03 -0400
Subject: Re: BHA: Mainstream Philosophy of Science


Hi Mervyn,

At 12:14 PM 06/04/2002 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi Howard (and Ronny),
>
> >The answer to the question you ask, how they reject OS, is this:  "essence
> >must appear."
>
>Can I chip in and ask why this is held to defeat ontological
>stratification? On Bhaskarian premises there is a sense in which essence
>must appear, because it ultimately accounts for everything and once
>activated necessarily has an effect (i.e. concepts of natural necessity
>and 'ubiquity determinism' are sustained). Cf PE 164: "the generative
>mechanisms of nature ... [are] the true world of [Platonic] forms, which
>account in all their complex, manifold and mediated determinations for
>all the phenomena of what identity theorists are pleased to call the
>sensate ... and non-sensate world."
>
>In an open world of conjunctural determination, this is quite compatible
>with OS. Imo the necessity for essence to appear only defeats OS if you
>assume a constant conjunction between the two, and then you've got some
>kind of closed system.
>
>Mervyn

It seems useful to me to distinguish between the essence of something 
actual and an essence of something that remains  potential.  When the 
probability of an event is 1, the generative mechanisms -- essences -- 
producing that event "appear" in the occurrence of the event.   Is it 
legitimate to ask the question in terms of the probability of events?  Do 
the generative mechanisms for events with low probabilities also have low 
probabilities of appearing?

It is one thing to say that there are essences which ultimately account for 
all that occurs, quite another to say that every possible essence must 
ultimately "appear."  Isn't this equvalent to saying that all possible 
worlds (universes, pluriverses) will ultimately be actual?

Regards,

Dick



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