From: "jamie morgan" <jamie-AT-morganj58.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Re: capitalist social structures are false, Ruth
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 09:44:06 -0000


Part of the problem here is nuance in false and true - we tend to conflate
true-real
false-unreal
and often use them interchangeably - this produces endless confusions

for example, we talk about true/false belief - when one might add the furher
distinction (amongst others):

1) false belief genuinely held i.e. truly believed causally real but false
in its grounds and outcomes (potentially diachronically false to the
believer subject to rational explanation of the falsity of genuinely held
belief; false to third persons under the possibility of judgementally
rational explanatory critique)

I'm not using this e.g. because I advocate belief-structure solely  as the
viable split on true/false but one must ask in what sense structures are
false in quite a different way than beliefs:

human structure as cause and outcome of action is surely only false in the
sense of:

1) functional failure
2) normic (ontological) expression of human potential
3) constraint in 1 & 2 failure of enablement in 1 and 2

my point on Phils comment was that the way of talking about the subject
seemed to simply cut across debate that harks back to the whole point of
analytical distinctions between agency and structure ontology and
epistemology - issues that have a thorough grounding in CR

if the capitalist whole is false - for puproses of nuance we need a better
semantic division -  false1 2 3 etc or something a bit more elegant.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh-AT-jaspere7.demon.co.uk>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:24 PM
Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Re: capitalist social structures are false, Ruth


> Of course it's real (what isn't?), but it's also false, like a mirage,
> and that's an important distinction. Perhaps I got you wrong, but you
> seemed to be supporting the view that only beliefs/ propositions can be
> false. I took Phil to be basically agreeing with Adorno (inverting
> Hegel) that 'the [capitalist] whole is the false'. I'm not sure why this
> amazed you. If you are agreeing but saying there are further
> distinctions to be made, sure.
>
> jamie morgan <jamie-AT-morganj58.fsnet.co.uk> writes
> >in which case the wage form as part of capitalism is real
> >what is important is the ways in which thigns are real and the
distinctions
> >that can be made
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh-AT-jaspere7.demon.co.uk>
> >To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> >Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:27 AM
> >Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Re: capitalist social structures are false, Ruth
> >
> >
> >> If Marx is being invoked, he surely ungainsayably held that the wage
> >> form is false and that the wage form is not the same as (not exhausted
> >> by) beliefs about it. I.e. the source of beliefs, not just beliefs, is
> >> false.
> >>
> >> In more fundamental support of Phil's position, cf the Marxist Chris
> >> Arthur, _The New Dialectics and Marx's *Capital*_, p. 165:
> >>
> >> ~~~~~~~
> >> His [Hegel's] concern is with truth (the usual philosophical topic) and
> >> since truth is the whole, only the whole truth retrospectively explains
> >> the transition [from Being to Becoming]. But if we deconstruct Hegel's
> >> dialectic, a certain 'prejudice-for-truth' is revealed. Occluded is
> >> another possibility: a world of falsity, where everything is inverted.
> >> This would be a 'downward' spiral, the concretisation of nothingness,
> >> the apotheosis of the false, insofar as 'Being' is denied, and demoted
> >> to the other of 'Nothing'. No doubt such a hellish dialectic, in which,
> >> contrary to the vision of 'the whole as the true', the whole is the
> >> false, could not occur to Hegel. But it is precisely the case in
> >> capitalism, we argue. Living as we do in the belly of the 'rough beast'
> >> born in Manchester, this possibility must be taken seriously.
> >> ~~~~~~~
> >>
> >> Cf Bhaskar's concept of the 'demi-real'.
> >>
> >> Mervyn
> >>
> >> jamie morgan <jamie-AT-morganj58.fsnet.co.uk> writes
> >> >I'm slightly amazed Phil has brought this up since Marxists and most
CR
> >> >would argue the useful distinction is between belief and what beleif
> >> >reproduces:
> >> >
> >> >1) Capitalism is real
> >> >2) Beleifs about capitalism are causally efficacious
> >> >3) CapitLISM is itself causally efficacious in socialisibng beleif
> >> >4) Beliefs may be false
> >> >5) It may be true that capitalism is real and that the beleifs by
which
> >it
> >> >is reproduced are false therefore it is is possible to make true
> >> >determinations about false beleifs in capitalism and also true
> >> >determinations baout those aspects of captialism that are also held
truly
> >in
> >> >beleif (since one cannot assume that all aspects of society are false
> >> >beleif - contingent but not false)
> >> >6) The link in terms of critique and investigation is explanatotyr
> >critique
> >> >from beleifs but bnot restricted tot hem
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >----- Original Message -----
> >> >From: "Howard Engelskirchen" <howarde-AT-twcny.rr.com>
> >> >To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
> >> >Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 7:37 AM
> >> >Subject: BHA: Re: capitalist social structures are false, Ruth
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >> Phil,
> >> >>
> >> >> How am I supposed to read the statement that capitalist social
> >structures
> >> >> are false?
>
>
>
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>



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