File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2003/bhaskar.0312, message 286


Subject: BHA: RE: Re: Objective existence
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 09:56:05 -0600
From: "Groff, Ruth" <ruth.groff-AT-marquette.edu>


Hi Howard,

Yes.  I say it in just exactly that way in the conclusion of the book.  

In terms of the initial comment -- that it is causality itself/the relationship of causality itself that is mind-independent -- I don't know who else besides me puts it in just that way.  But that's why I like to describe the position as realism about causality.  

Of course realism about causality implies other things, first and foremost of which is a commitment to natural kinds ... but I think that it is helpful to focus on what causality is.  (Note that this kind of approach makes Harre and Madden, and now Varela, nervous.  They want to stay focused on the particulars part of powerful particulars.  In *CAUSAL POWERS* Harre and Madden seem to regard any talk of "causality itself" as just so much reification.)  

r.


-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU on behalf of Howard Engelskirchen
Sent:	Fri 12/19/2003 7:46 AM
To:	bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
Cc:	
Subject:	BHA: Re: Objective existence
Damn!  another incomplete post.

Sorry to clog everyone's mailbox.

Anyway, here's the end of the sentence:

then there's no where to go but to idealist forms of thought of one sort or
another.

Howard


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Groff, Ruth" <ruth.groff-AT-marquette.edu>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 6:42 PM
Subject: BHA: Objective existence


Hi all,

For me the thing about scientific essentialism that is the most helpful, in
the discussion about which things exist non-socially, is that it shifts
attention away from objects and onto certain kinds of processes, as the
things that we pick as examples of things that are "objective" IN THIS
SENSE.  I think that this is really just to tweak what Howard is saying.

Yes, houses are weight-bearing, etc., and this fact about them is (a) one
that Bhaskar's version of scientific essentialism helps us to notice and (b)
not social -- though HOW much weight they are built to bear, etc., is) but
they are also clearly social products.  For me the thing that is so helpful
about scientific essentialism is that it leads me to point to
photosynthesis, rather than to houses, as things that exist "objectively."
This is important, as people like Horkheimer and Adorno will make a lot out
of the inherently social character of almost any made object that you can
think of.

The difference between what I'm saying here and what Howard said is the
difference between saying that things are real because they have causal
powers and saying that the causal relationship is real.  These are not
incompatible claims; the empasis is just on a different sy-LAH-ble.

r.



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