File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2003/bhaskar.0305, message 73


Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 22:51:02 +0100
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: [fyi] Baudrillard: The Violence of the Global


Shiv,

You haven't engaged with my argument or Baudrillard's at all. If you're 
really not interested in philosophy, social theory, or social science, I 
think you should take your scientistic dogmas and prejudices elsewhere. 
It's all in our genes - how illuminating!

Mervyn

In message <20030523164316.55126.qmail-AT-web21206.mail.yahoo.com>, shiv 
kumar <iconoclast2050-AT-yahoo.com> writes
>Terrorism has nothing do with 'society's own judgment and penalty'.
>There is no society which can keep each and every one content and least
>of all the one which indulges in appeasement.
> 
>The problem with social scientists is that, to paraphrase Bourdieu
>himself, they like to study in mutual isolation, mutual ignorance, and
>mutual contempt. This then is reflected in their analyses, which are
>inadequate. In science, there are ultimate causes and proximate causes.
>Insofar as ultimate causes are concerned, terrorism can be ascribed to
>purely biological mechanisms. Social science stumbles when it comes to
>ultimate causes.
> 
>It is astonishing how some realists (?) rubbish ascription of genetic
>reasons on ground of reductionism. This is a specious understanding of
>reductionism. The fact of the matter is that reductionism and
>emergentism go hand in hand. One has to uncover the first layer to go to the second and so on. Thus from a realist perspective, there is a strong
>case for biological mechanisms playing their powers and properties out.
>They antecede  the humans and have autonomous powers and
>properties. We only need to think of the hunter gatherer thousands of
>years ago, with a spear in his hand. In 2003, instead of the spear, there
>are B-52 bombers, Cruise missiles et al. The mechanisms are intact. A
>sagacious realist is one who knows that these mechanisms can't be
>altered, nor are they easily accessible; they can only be deactivated. For
>instance, capitalism has deactivated, in parts of the West, mechanisms
>associated with passions, honour, revenge killings, and so on.
> 
>The 'subject' has hitherto been taken for granted, whereas it is precisely
>this that 'claims being'. Husserl too had taken the subject for granted. But
>these philosophers can't be blamed--science in their times had not
>progressed as it has now. The future belongs to science and not
>philosophy. The last 500 years of development in both the disciplines is a
>testimony to that. Whereas a scientist will rarely (only for embellishment)
>make a refrain to men of antiquity, philosophers keep parroting the men
>of antiquity.
> 
>The biologists can take heart from the fact that Galileo, Newton, Darwin
>were ridiculed by many in their times and all were proven correct. The
>Martin Horky's (the one who belittled Galileo) are still there when the
>issue of genetics comes up, it is just that they do not know, they are one!
> 
>And when a realist denies the powers and properties of genes, he commits epistemic fallacy in reality as distinct from a text-book.
>Superficial basis of incredulity can never be the basis of science. And, if
>this be reductionism, so be it. Reductionism is the chief triumph of
>science. Every single victory over disease, aetiology, man going to
>space are all reductionist. As said, a new interpretation of reductionism
>and emergentism is required. We should not be moving with fads, but
>think about them.
> 
>Shiv



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