File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2004/bhaskar.0405, message 4


Subject: BHA: RE: foundationalism; a priori; PON
Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 10:10:19 -0500
From: "Groff, Ruth" <ruth.groff-AT-marquette.edu>


Hi Howard, all,

We had a Mayday/book party last night (hey everybody, the book's out!  It only costs a million dollars, but maybe your library would like to order it!) so I am not yet entirely awake as I write this.  But there are two things that you say that I think I disagree with.  I'm not sure how crucial either is to your thinking.

The first is just the definition of "foundationalism."  My understanding is that those who regard themselves as advancing foundationalist theories of knowledge (and note that in context what these are are theories about what distinguishes true beliefs from false beliefs -- i.e., they are always in some sense theories of justification as well as demarcations thereby of which beliefs will fall into the "true beliefs" (now re-named "knowledge) category and which will not.)  -- people who take themselves to be advancing such a theory do not think that the criteria that they identify are, as you put it, "just chosen or accepted a priori with no further justification required."  On the contrary, they think that what they have done is to *establish* a foundation.  That's why it's called a foundation and not a dogmatically asserted first principle, or something.  See what I mean?  Everyone always accuses the other guy of just pulling the foundation out of his (in this case it's all he's) sleeve; but they don't think that about their own position.  

The second point has to do with RB's philosophy of philosophy.  My understanding of the position in the texts that you are working with is that while philosophy is an activity (largely cognitive, but presupposing material engagement with the world) that embodied human beings do (yes, yes...), and while it is itself part of the on-going social, historical life of human beings (yes, yes), it is different from science.  Look at the quotations you've pulled:

(2)  "But it is knowledge of the necessary conditions for the production of
knowledge -- second order knowledge, if you like" (10).

(3)   following the Kantian road, philosophy considers what can be
established about the same world that science studies "by a priori argument,
where it takes as its premises generally recognized activities as
conceptualized in experience" (8).



Okay, so philosophers and scientists both study the general features of the world, but philosophers do it in an a priori fashion.  



4)  "for transcendental realism, what is presupposed in any given
scientific activity is at once a possible object of scientific explanation .
. . ; that is, what is synthetic a priori is also (contingently) knowable a
posteriori" (8).



So, the reverse: the scientists study the world too, but they do it in a a posteriori fashion.  Scientists and philosophers study the same thing; they just do it differently.  

(NOTE: I don't know if the full logic of the RB's position was even apparent to him at the time, but the target here is Kant.  Kant makes a division between metaphysics and science that Bhaskar wants to undo via Kantian-esque argumentation; even at this stage you can see that the ultimate show-down will be over Kant's claim that in order for a claim to be a knowledge claim (and not be a matter of speculation or faith) the referent has to fall, in principle, within the realm of phenomenal, or empirical, experience.  For this reason, Kant thinks that we can have knowledge of, e.g., god.



(5)  "on this conception, then, both the premises and conclusions of
philosophical argments remain contingent facts, the former (but not the
latter) being necessarily social, and so historically transient" (7);


This is very interesting.  The former -- i.e., the premises of philosophical arguments -- are social and historically transient.  But not the latter, i.e., not the conclusions.  The conclusions of philosophy (presumably only philosophy done correctly) are NOT socially and historically transient.  The claim here is that transcendental realism itself - which is a metaphysical position, not a position within natural science - is on qualitatively different epistemic footing than are the contingent claims of the particular sciences.  

This is where RB is most vulernable to a charge of scientism, because the "experience" upon which the deduction rests in these early works is the highly local one of experimentation.  You can see, though, that already in PON (because he wants the account of science from RTS to extend to the social world) he tries to broaden th category of "experience" (upon which a deduction to transcendental realism as a metaphysics is made) to mean "living in a society" (and later "using language").   The category is less local, but the argument that it's condition of possibility is captured uniquely by transcendental realism is weaker.  This is the exact point at which the Durkheimian case for the exisitence of social structures is introduced.  The suggestion is that this is in fact a transcendental deduction, of the same sort that got us TR from experiments.  I personally think that it is a mistake to argue it this way.  


(6)  a critique of empiricism is achieved by noting that knowledge of real
essences is possible, but a critique of rationalism also is made "by noting
that such knowledge is produced a posteriori -- in the transitive,
irreducibly empirical, process of science."

Yes.  By scientists.  

Shoot -- now I have to go, right when I see that you raise half the points that I've just made.  Man, what a dumbass I am.  NEVER START RESPONDING BEFORE YOU READ THE WHOLE THING!!!  O well.  

r.


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