Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 18:43:36 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: The tall poppy syndrome within CR


Hi Günter

>What we need is more people to do the job that Collier's done so
>brilliantly for the earlier work: make RB's thought more accessible to
>those who probably, for lack of philosophical training, couldn't read
>Bhaskar's later work anyway.


I agree entirely. But meanwhile why go out of one's way in the
mainstream journals etc to *discourage* people who do know some
philosophy from reading him? (Not you, I know).

Before it could be made Collieresquely accessible, DPF had I think first
to be written as the complex, difficult and creative book that it is.

Mervyn



 Günter Minnerup <g.minnerup-AT-unsw.edu.au> writes
>Dear Mervyn,
>
>on Sunday, 26 October 2003, you wrote:
>
>> Yes, but it doesn't seem to occur to the detractors.
>
>Well I'll stick my head above the parapet and admit that I think Bhaskar's
>writing style leaves something to be desired. But then you knew that
>already :-)
>I think what is at issue here is the difference between thought and
>exposition. Read as a stream of consciousness kind of thing, RB's
>writing is wonderfully economical, dense and deep. But as anyone in
>higher education knows, if you want to help the students you better not
>talk as you think.
>But then nobody's perfect, not even a new age spiritual guru (that, I
>admit, was a gratuitous provocation...). What we need is more people to
>do the job that Collier's done so brilliantly for the earlier work: make
>RB's thought more accessible to those who probably, for lack of
>philosophical training, couldn't read Bhaskar's later work anyway.
>
>Regards,
>Günter
>




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