File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2003/bhaskar.0311, message 186


Subject: BHA: RE: Re: RE: Re: Against "primacy"
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 15:52:53 -0500
From: "Moodey, Richard W" <MOODEY001-AT-gannon.edu>


Hi Tobin,

I think that the Wittgenstein contributed in a major way to the development of explicit recognition of fuzzy categories, like family resemblances.  I think this recognition is very important.  Thanks for calling attention to it.

On materialism-idealism, you wrote: "If there is no such thing as primacy, where does theorization start, what are the appropriate analytical methodologies, what counts as evidence, and what constitutes proof?  The position seems wide open to an "anything goes" approach."  I can answer each of these questions to my ownsatisfaction (but not, of course, to everyone's) with getting into primacy.  Thus, I believe that theorization starts with questioning my own experience, guided, it is true, by my reading and conversations, and with trying to formulate answers to my questions.  For, me, the appropriate analytical methodologies are those which work best for me in attempting to raise good questions about my experience, to formulate them clearly, and to formulate them in ways that can be subjected to critical reflection.  I have to engage in critical reflection about the greater or lesser probability of the truth of my formulations, and an important part of that critical reflection is coming to grips with the question of criteria of validity, of evidence, of proof.

Perhaps this sounds too subjective, as if I am setting myself up as some kind of infallible philosophical pope.  My only response to that is that I expect you, and others, to base your philosophical quest upon your own experience, guided by ... Etc.  One of my objections to Shiv's objections to reflexivity is that I cannot know what my criteria of judgment are without reflecting upon the criteria I actually use in making judgments of truth and falsity.  

I believe that many, if not most, of the criteria I actually use to make judgments of truth and falsity, right and wrong, lie in the realm of my tacit knowledge.  It is only by reflecting upon my practices in this regard that I can know what criteria I am actually using, and can begin to be critical about my own standards of judgment.

So, back to the "primacy of practice," I suppose.  But here, "practice" refers to actually making judgments, rather than to taking some kind of overt action to change the world.  I have to make some judgments before I can reflect upon how I do this.

So, what are the criteria I use to make the judgment that I really don't want to spend much time trying to figure out whether reality is "primarily" material or not.  A major criterion is that most of my judgments about reality do not depend upon, or bear upon, the question.  Thus, I am persuaded that Bhaskar's distinctions between the real, the actual, and the empirical are true, whether or not I cross-cut these distinctions with the material/non-material dichotomy.  Six categories seem to me no more heuristically valuable than three.   In contrast, I find Michael Polanyi's distinction between the tacit and explicit dimensions of my knowledge to be extremely fruitful, as is evidenced by my use of that distinction a couple a paragraphs ago.

Best regards,

Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: Tobin Nellhaus [mailto:nellhaus-AT-gis.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 2:56 PM
To: Bhaskar list
Subject: BHA: Re: RE: Re: Against "primacy"


Hi Dick--

It's true about the fuzziness of the real world, and our attempts to frame it with clear categories.  On the other hand, a great many of our categories aren't so clear either, having multiple meanings often clustered around a "best example" or a network of "family resemblances."  For instance, "mother", a term that gets very complicated when you consider divorce, remarriage, adoption, foster parenthood, egg donors, surrogates, and the
like: biological mother? birth mother? a women who takes care of a child over a long period? a woman who has legal guardianship over a child?  Etc.

But back to the materialism/idealism issue, one of the things that bothers me about the argument that the distinction is non-existent or doesn't matter is that it isn't at all obvious what's supposed to stand in its place.  If there is no such thing as primacy, where does theorization start, what are the appropriate analytical methodologies, what counts as evidence, and what constitutes proof?  The position seems wide open to an "anything goes" approach.

Thanks, T.

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


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Moodey, Richard W" <MOODEY001-AT-gannon.edu>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, 19 November 2003 9:42 AM
Subject: BHA: RE: Re: Against "primacy"


Hi Tobin,

Well, since I continue to keep at it, I guess I don't regard the primacy question as a complete waste of time.  On the evolutionary question of a "non-chicken" laying an egg from which a "chicken" hatches, I don't see this as an ontological issue so much as a labeling issue.  Ontologically, I don't think there was ever a sharp line between the "non-chicken" and the "chicken."  I think that the "chicken" in question would still be inter-fertile with the birds whom some human observer might say were still "non-chickens," because they were more like the maternal egg-layer than the fowl hatchling.

Our words often draw sharp lines around "things" in a fuzzy world.  We create a "coloring-book" world that misrepresents a world in which "things" are constituted by their relations with other "things."

Regards,

Dick




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


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

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005