Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 21:16:57 +0100
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: The Group


Hi Brendan

A really good question.

On the one hand, Bhaskar amends Marx to the effect that society doesn't 
consist of individuals or groups but expresses the sum of the relations 
within which individuals and groups stand. The TMSA is a relational 
model, not a collectivist or holist one.

On the other hand, Bhaskar upholds emergence and holistic causality, 
both at the level of agency I would say (groups--and Margaret Archer has 
developed a notion of corporate agency you might care to consult, in 
*Realist Social Theory*) and at the level of the whole show 
(totalities).

I don't think there's anything inconsistent in this. On the contrary, 
all the forms of causality involved are real and find unified expression 
in Bhaskar's MELD schema: structural causality (1M), causality as 
such--absenting (2E), holistic causality (3L) and human intentional 
causality (4D).

So yes, I think a realist theory of the group is possible, and Archer 
(and Sean Creaven who has built on her work from a Marxist point of 
view--and doubtless others) have made a good start... But it's probably 
true to say that CR is a theory of structures first and groups second.

As for properties not shared by 'both a group and an individual', why go 
past the collective labourer in Adam Smith's pin factory (or the one on 
the building site down the road)?

Mervyn


In message <016601c34ca2$734aca00$f64afea9-AT-demon.co.uk>, Brendan Murphy 
<brendanm-AT-eboli.demon.co.uk> writes
>Emerging or should that be disemerging from lurkdom
>I have been, trying, reading Bhaskar for the past few years.
> 
>I have a particular interest in Group Psychotherapy.
>The writers in this field include Freud, Bion, Foulkes, Lewin and many
>more. They have tried to distinguish between Groups and Individuals.
>They argue for example that the size of the group alters the sought of
>dynamics that one will witness in the group.
> 
>In trying to define or describe group dynamics they often refer to
>emergence and dialectics and various other ways of theorising what they
>see and experience.
> 
>I am wondering if a realist theory of the group is possible?
> 
>What would Bhaskar say about the status of the different theories and
>definitions of what is a group formed in?
> 
>Is the TMSA applicable to such formations? 
> 
>Is there a group and an individual component to small groups, so that
>they can be regarded as having different attributes as in societies and
>individuals, structure/agent?
> 
>My problem, I think, is in trying to think of properties that are not shared
>by both a group and an individual.
> 
>Any suggestions or indications of papers, books or other resources
>would be most welcome.
> 
>Thank you
> 
>Brendan Murphy




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