Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 07:54:24 +0100
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Identity - another thought....


Hi Andy,

Yes, identity involves a relation of sameness. But as you say here 'two 
things can be both identical and non-identical simultaneously'. Yet your 
argument has been that a) mind and object are non-identical; b) 
therefore mind cannot achieve identity consciousness with object. It 
doesn't follow, because it ignores (on your own showing) what mind and 
object may have in common, as well as the specific powers and means mind 
has and may come to have. This does seem to me an example of either/or 
and fixist thinking. In 'Developing realist philosophy' you pay 
obeisance to identity relations and necessary connection between 
emergent strata, only to ignore them in your main argument -- on the 
grounds that there is a 'sense' in which strata are externally related, 
which turns out to depend on human conceptions of them. You hang your 
whole argument on this 'sense'. Only thus can you 'demonstrate' that 
'critical realist articulation of stratification and emergence collapses 
into (essentially Humean) scepticism' -- with the aid of a Humean 'time 
bomb' that might go off in the future and 'cause present scientific 
"laws" to *cease to exist*'  (CR and Marxism, pp. 168, 176). So the 
Humean construal of laws and the problem of induction live on too.

This definitely has to be my last in this thread!

Mervyn

In message <3EF1A44D.7607.37B3C4-AT-localhost>, Andrew Brown 
<Andrew-AT-lubs.leeds.ac.uk> writes
>Hi Mervyn,
>
>Have been thinking further about the following:
>
>> >No. What I have in mind is a very basic and fundametal notion of
>> >identity: two things are identitical if they are the same.
>>
>> What do you mean, No? - - This notion of identity is at the heart of
>> the analytical problematic (formal logic, identity-thinking) -- 'an
>> ideology of an admittedly very nice set of formal logical techniques'
>> (RMR 90).
>>
>
>I note also that you repeat this view regarding the 'analytical
>problematic' to Ruth.
>
>Basically, I wonder if you might reconsider what you are saying
>here? On reflection I really don't think there is a meaning of
>'identity', relevant to our discussion (where we are talking about an
>identity relationship), which does not include, one way or another,
>the relation of sameness. I certainly deny that this has anything to
>do with a favouring of the analytical philosophy problematic
>(however we might define that problematic). Rather, it is part of the
>dictionary definition, a part of our common discourse. Consider, for
>example, your discussion of 'constellational identity'. Here you say
>that we have a 'basic fine structure common to all being'. This is an
>identity (commonality) of fine structure: all beings share, in some
>sense, the *same* fine structure.
>
>Dialectics cuts agains our common sense discourse, not by
>simply denying all meanings of words (which would make
>dialectics nonsense). Rather, dialectics insists two things can be
>both identitical and non-identical simultaneously. Both the same
>and different. It denies the 'law of the excluded middle'. We can
>have an identity of opposites, and identity-in-difference. But these
>phrases would be deprived of all meaning if you are to insist that an
>'identity' relationship does *not* carry a connotation of sameness.
>There are many ways in which we can interpret the identity relation
>but they all share this connotation one way or another. So I don't
>see it as a dialectical point to say 'identity of things does not mean
>they are the same, and anyone who thinks so betrays pseudo-
>dialectical tendencies!' Indeed I don't believe the most thorough
>reading of RBs latest works (or any other works) are going to
>substantiate your point. Rather, I can only think that you are not
>expressing what you want to say accurately, here.
>
>What do you think?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Andy
>
>
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