From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: Re: BHA: nature of the split in Critical Realism
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 19:32:25 -0500


Mervyn wrote:

> 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.

Personally, not only do I agree with the with Mervyn's more or less
"strategic" point, I also feel that the idea of a CR vs DCR split is neither
informative, nor accurate.  Perhaps it's that I think this way of thinking
about things may inflate differences unnecessarily.  RTS and PON2 offer a
lot of useful concepts for my work; DPF provides perhaps somewhat fewer, but
the ones I've taken are vital indeed, and they seem quite continuous with
the earlier books (just as PON2 continues RTS -- does anyone bother with the
"split" there?).  (Incidentally, of what hasn't been immediately valuable,
I'm starting to test using the concept of absence, which is a tough
cookie.).  It's a bit like knowing how to use some but not all of the tools
in a growing toolbox.  In speaking of "useful concepts," however, I don't
think one slides into an instrumentalist mentality: Bhaskar himself holds
that we produce new knowledge by using our prior knowledge.  FEW is a bigger
jump because it introduces some positions that are highly controversial
anyway, such as the existence of God (even granting Bhaskar's widening of
that idea), but I continue to think the main problem with FEW is that its
arguments don't hold up logically -- which does not exclude the possibility
that there may be better arguments for its claims, so it's not unreasonable
to remain agnostic about them and to accept its supporters as part of
critical realism (broadly conceived).  Likewise, I think one may be agnostic
about dialectics but part of CR.  Finally, on the political front, I don't
see that CR, DCR or TDCR as such give any guidance whatsoever on tactics,
and only a little on strategies; they're better at overarching goals, but
critical realists can be liberals, and conceivably even conservatives.  In
short, when there are limits to what critical realism by itself can
accomplish, I don't see the point of fetishizing the differences among its
historical developments.  So long as you're on the right frequency, how much
does the phase really matter?  A little reflexivity, folks (dialectical as
the concept may be!).

Needing a holiday, T.

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




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