Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 17:17:39 +0200
From: Par Engholm <Par.Engholm-AT-soc.uu.se>
Subject: Re: BHA: Traditional table of opposition


Hi Mervyn and others,
I think you might find some clues on this page:
<http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/archives/fall2001/entries/square/>http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/archives/fall2001/entries/square/

The general thrust of modern logic, which dialectic seeks to transcend is 
the law of excluded middle - of things being either false or true, present 
or absent etc and not both. In Bhaskar, we find the idea of level-specific 
gaps, of something in fact possibly being really present, but actually 
absent. The law of gravitation is really acting on us irrespective of 
whether we actually tumble through space towards the centre of gravitation 
or we are not moving thanks to the countervailing mechanisms provided by 
the solidity of the material structures of the world (this solidity is then 
to be explained by reference to underlying properties of the 
electromagnetic structures of the atoms composing the material and the 
chemical bonds between these atoms). Perhaps this way of formulating the 
problem might be a little careless, because the really present mechanism is 
not the same thing as the actually absent outcome, but we could see the 
hierarchy of being as inhabited by just such an hierarchical order of real 
structures and mechanisms (ultimata, universals) which on every stratum 
produces the actual flow of things (particulars) and events.
          One of the further questions Bhaskar seeks to solve is the 
question of identity through change. If we follow strictly logical 
principles something can only be identical with itself at a given point in 
space-time (strict identity, see e.g. Armstrong, D.M. (1989) Universals. An 
Opiniated Introduction, Boulder: Westview Press). The problem which 
traditional, and especially positivistic philosophy encounters, is the 
strict adherence to nominalism, to the very refusal to speak of types. In 
their apprehension there are only particulars, tokens. In this way they 
cannot rationally explain identity through change, nor can they explain the 
behaviour of things with reference to a common structure, common real base 
of causal mechanisms. Similarity, likeness, cannot be scientifically 
explained, nor could the identity of a thing with itself at time t0 and t1 
be rationally explained. This inability is a general outcome of its view of 
the world as a world without riddles, of no depth etc, which Bhaskar 
captures in the concepts of the epistemic fallacy, ontological monovalence, 
extensionalism and ultimately in blockism.

Bhaskar is addressing these questions in DPF in the discussion on Hegelian 
dialectic, in which the process of understanding is undergoing such a 
transition in which a new theory, a new concept etc is formed out of the 
clash between two positions which previously has been in contraditiction, 
but which now have been ‘reconciliated’ or sublated in an Aufhebung, 
incorporating each others insights in a new emergent position. Bhaskar here 
speaks of nodal points, transitions, of limit situations etc. This is 
further elaborated in an ontological dialectic, in which this reference to 
Aufhebung is transferred to the formation of new entities in the evolution 
of the world (diachronic emergence, take e.g. the formation of emergent 
evolutionary entities and forms in the appearance of life or in the 
evolution of different forms and levels of consciousness) but also in the 
explanation of the structuration of the world – the stratification of the 
world from the subatomic, atomic, molecular, biotic etc up to the social 
levels (synchronic emergence). At each such nodal point we are faced with 
the question of how to reconcile the desiderata of analysis and of synthesis.

          Completing the table or the square would be just to counter 
ontological monovalence which is most manifest in analytical philosophy and 
its inability to conceive of negation as anything other than spatiotemporal 
absence; and reinstating the bottom part of the square into the discussion.

Best,
Pär


At 22:42 2004-09-05, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>Pardon my ignorance, but can someone please explain, re the following 
>quote from PE (and similar in DPF), which addresses the resolution of 
>anomalies and contradictions in theory development:
>
>1. What 'the traditional table of opposition' is.
>
>2. What is meant by 'completing' it.
>
>"At the point of transition, as the conceptual field is enlarged by the 
>introduction of a new sublating notion, model or metaphor, positive 
>contraries (actual and present) become negative sub-contraries (actual and 
>absent), so completing the traditional table of opposition." Plato Etc 81
>
>Thanks,
>
>Mervyn
>
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

-----------------------------------------------------------
Par Engholm; Par.Engholm-AT-soc.uu.se
Uppsala University, Dept. of Sociology
Box 624; SE-751 26 Uppsala; SWEDEN
Phone: +46 18 471 7399; Fax: +46 18 471 1170
Home: Botvidsgatan 14 B; SE-753 27 Uppsala
Phone: +46 (0)18 696348; Mobile: +46 709 783546
http://www.soc.uu.se/staff/par_e.html


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