File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2002/bhaskar.0211, message 77


Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 11:41:35 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: nature of the split in Critical Realism


Hi Phil,

I don't think your original comment was very appropriate (though of
course I understand the anger you feel at what's happened) and I support
the thrust of what John had to say about it. There's lots of creative
work being done by people working within the earlier framework. There is
of course careerism/ instrumentalism within the critical realist
movement but you have to be a careerist up to a point to survive in
academia nowadays and I'm sure you'll find careerists within all the
phases of critical realism.

I think what Bhaskar's intentions were is probably beside the point,
though it's surely legitimate to form a view about them. Once he's
finished a book, he 'let's it go' - it's in the public arena and people
can demolish it, develop it, apply it in their own work or whatever.
Let's keep in mind his own plea for tolerance and understanding in the
section of the interview I posted a little while ago. In the case of the
dispute re the editorship, it's not CR vs (T)DCR as such. I enjoy
working with people from any of the different phases of TDCR. It's only
when critical realists become intolerant of what other critical realists
are doing that there is a problem - and the 'earlier' critical realists
don't have a monopoly on that.

I don't think we should be talking of a split - the political/
theoretical issue is only one among a number, and in any case the fat
lady hasn't sung yet. It's more important than ever to try and keep the
movement together rather than divide it. I don't btw see my founding a
new CR journal as necessarily divisive (whether it is will largely
depend on the approach taken by IACR) - I believe that the view that
there should only be one CR journal, representing all the phases, and I
should be its editor is widespread in the movement. If it can't happen
within IACR, then it must happen without it. IACR could then have its
own newsletter and, if it wanted, supply the membership with copies of
the journal (which would be very little different from JCR).

Mervyn


Phil Walden <phil-AT-pwalden.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>John,
>
>Despite what you say I think that most people on this list will have a sense
>of the split I am identifying.  Just for clarification, what is your
>evidence that Roy Bhaskar intended his early critical realism to be used in
>social scientific research in the way that it actually generally has been?
>Has Roy told you that himself?
>
>Phil
>
>
>I would like to comment on Philip's views about the use of CR, as
>summarised from his post
>
>"  It is the difference between those who are merely
>instrumentally using Critical Realism as a frozen dogma which is forced
>into
>a mould they need for the pre-determined purposes of their research, on
>the
>one hand, and those who are genuinely intellectually struggling to
>develop
>Critical Realism (including examining how it compares with rival
>approaches)
>on the other.  I hope that clarifies what I said."
>
>I don't know if it is intended but I find this incredibly patronising
>and arrogant towards people, like myself, who find CR useful in their
>own work but are not themselves particularly contributing to its further
>development.
>
>Bhaskar himself began by seeing his work  developing as a philosophical
>underlabourer for the (social) sciences not replacing the sciences in
>themselves. I don't know if he still holds to that, or now sees CR as
>having some greater purpose. For myself, I think that to have created a
>philosophy that is useful, and being used increasing, in a whole range
>of disciplines is a major achievement and that people who use it as it
>was originally intended should not be denigrated in this way.
>
>We came to CR, generally in its earlier forms, because it addressed
>genuine problems in our disciplines and has provided fruitful solutions.
>We are "creative" and we do "struggle intellectually " but the struggle
>is one of interpretation and application rather than development.
>
>As to why we (I) tend not to be so interested in the later work, then I
>would echo Doug - we have just not yet found it so helpful and necessary
>for our particular problems.
>
>For myself, I have spent much time struggling with DPF and Plato etc
>and I have to say that marginal returns set in. They seem generally to
>provide an exceptionally complex terminology together with arguments
>that are so sweeping and yet so gnomic that one hardly knows where to
>start with them. And at the end of the day I am not sure of what the
>great intellectual insights are over the earlier work.
>
>Bhaskar has now moved on again and had his "spiritual" turn. If people
>want to follow him there that is fine but I wouldn't like them to think
>they are the only true followers and everyone else is simply an
>"instrumental" consumer.
>
>Many great thinkers have had major shifts in their work (eg Heidegger,
>Marx, Foucault, Habermas etc) and sometimes history has judged the
>earlier  work to be more substantive that the later. We will have to see
>with Bhaskar.
>
>In the meantime let's value all the ways in which his insights are
>contributing to the development of human knowledge and well-being rather
>than scorn those not part of the magic circle.
>
>We should perhaps remember what  Edward Said said:
>
>"It is not practising criticism either to validate the status quo or to
>join up with a priestly caste of acolytes and dogmatic metaphysicians...
>the realities of power and authority - as well as the resistance's
>offered by men, women, and social movements to institutions,
>authorities, and orthodoxy's - are the realities that... should be
>taken account of by criticism and the critical  consciousness."
>
>John
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Dr. John Mingers
>Professor of OR and Systems
> Warwick Business School
> Warwick University
> Coventry CV4 7AL UK
>phone: +2476 522475
>fax: +2476 524539
>email: j.mingers-AT-warwick.ac.uk
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

-- 
This e-mail is intended for the named recipient only and may be privileged 
or confidential.  If you are not the intended recipient please notify me 
immediately.

Mervyn Hartwig
13 Spenser Road
Herne Hill
London SE24 ONS
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 7 737 2892
Email: <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>

There is another world, but it is in this one.
Paul Eluard




     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005