From: "jamie morgan" <zen34405-AT-zen.co.uk>
Subject: BHA: BHa: criteria for ascription of reality
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 10:11:44 +0100


Hi Howard, a priori justifications are not the same as the plausibility of a priori to knowledge as a necessary stage in comprehending a world that is more than that which is percieved - Boyd seems to have conflated this. The arguemnts for cause and percepetuion are of course linked in many ways but are bnot collapsible one intot he other without serious conceptual problems - there seems to be two implicit uses of percieved in your thinking - real as percieved and percieved and scientific method - they are not the same and arenot argued in the same way (that reality is more than percieved though wecannot be definite about it is different than the adequacy of diffferent perceptually linked or non percpetually linked (since the scope of perception is constantly moved by technology and new cocnepts that look in old place sin new ways)causal explanations in science and other forms of knowledge - one oproblem comes when we started using rationalist philosophy to argue about science in a way that is not in dialoguie with science or empirical arguments of any kind - this can lead to the fairy problem - but it is a problem of unengaged philosophy or acritical method or bad argument or the limits imposed by a historical period rather than a necessary issue of perception and causation as analytically nonequivelant cocnepts). Consider also that reliable percepetion is not the same as adequate explanation or genuine understanding - see Wiliam Alston The REliabilioty of Sense Perception for varietie sopf arguments on all these issues.

Jamie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Howard Engelskirchen" <howarde-AT-twcny.rr.com>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 12:41 AM
Subject: Re: BHA: criteria for ascription of reality


> Hi Jamie,
> 
> I'm concerned with Bhaskar's use of causal criteria for the ascription of
> reality to unobservables generally -- gravity, social relations, fairies at
> the bottom of the garden.  While Bhaskar's use of RRRE* in the last chapter
> of PON does include a comparison of a proposed explanation against other
> alternatives, this is not systematically carried through in discussions of
> ascribing reality according to causal criteria.  I mean I have no problem
> whatsoever with the use of causal criteria as well as perceptual.  The
> problem is the ready assumption that either stands on its own.  If I am
> persuaded by causal criteria of the existence of subatomic particles, how
> can I distinguish this from the person who is persuaded that a witches'
> spell was causally effective?
> 
> As for Kant, yes, of course, but, much scientific realism considers all
> knowledge to be a posteriori, Kant notwithstanding.  Harre and Madden make
> observations of that sort in their critique of Hume in Causal Powers and
> Richard Boyd develops a sustained argument on the point in a series of
> papers.  You can check, for example, his entry on scientific realism in the
> Stanford Encyclopedia online:  "In light of these challenges, there is a
> strong case to be made that any defense of scientific realism must rest on a
> conception according to which both scientific methods *and* methods in
> philosophy of science must lack a priori justifications."
> 
> *RRRE:
> 
> 1.    Resolution of a complex event into its components (causal analysis)
> 2.    Redscription of component causes;
> 3.    Retrodiction to possible (antecedent) causes of components via
> independently validated normic statements; and
> 4.    Elimination of alternative possible causes of components.
> 
> Howard
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "jamie morgan" <zen34405-AT-zen.co.uk>
> To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 4:55 AM
> Subject: Re: BHA: criteria for ascription of reality
> 
> 
> > Howard
> >
> > "it is important to note that science employs two criteria for the
> ascription of reality to a posited object:  a perceptual criterion and a
> causal one."
> >
> > is this intended in PN to be a description of how science percieves what
> it does? in which case it wouldn't be an endorsement of  adequacy but a
> precursor of the critique of its adequacy entailing some form of depth
> realism.
> >
> > for the necessity of a priori (pun intended) I'd read Kant's critiqueof
> pure reason - not because he is necessarily correct but because it
> highlightas the problems in assuming that somethings must be necessary to
> knowing i.e. the universe and cognition must have forms of (dis)order that
> enable intelligibility to be possible at all. It is true however that a
> priori is bandied around in a rather loose way, confusing the particular
> conditions of knolwedge in social situations i.e. that knowledge has a
> history because it is socially mediated, with the problem that knowing
> itself presupposes something to be known and a means of knowing built into
> the world andf the human  within the world to make the effective human - a
> non-regularised ontology that critiques actualism must surely aford a place
> to such a cocnept of  a priori
> >
> > jamie
> >
> > --- StripMime Warning --  MIME attachments removed --- 
> > This message may have contained attachments which were removed.
> >
> > Sorry, we do not allow attachments on this list.
> >
> > --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- 
> > multipart/alternative
> >   text/plain (text body -- kept)
> >   text/html
> > ---
> >
> >
> >
> >      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

--- StripMime Warning --  MIME attachments removed --- 
This message may have contained attachments which were removed.

Sorry, we do not allow attachments on this list.

--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- 
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
---



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