Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 13:31:42 -0500 From: "Anthony McCann" <mccannat-AT-si.edu> Subject: RE: social construction & realism Be aware that the dissertation on the website is maybe not directly directly related to the stuff you are dealing with, you can see for yourself though, but I have been thinking about these issues a lot in relation to the other work I have been doing. Also, usual caveats about PhD dissertations, particularly ones that came with a word limit!! :) All the best Anthony >>> will-AT-thinkingsuccess.com 11/17/02 01:27PM >>> Thanks Anthony I will check out your website Will -----Original Message----- From: owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu [mailto:owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of Anthony McCann Sent: 17 November 2002 18:17 To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Subject: RE: social construction & realism What I mean is that I agree with the postmodern critique of the idea of an unchanging self inasmuch as I can see how we construct and re-invent ourselves all the time through our personal narratives etc. However I think that this approach goes too far if it denies any usefulness or validity to the notion of a meaningful continuity of the self. The common human experience of a sense of authenticity seems to suggest a 'centre of gravity' at least.> I eschew the centre of gravity idea if only because I have issues with Newtonian thinking on gravity :) , in that the discursive 'construction' (sorry!) of gravity is almost identical to the discursive 'construction' of quantitative/behavioural power, but I do adhere to the concept of disposition, which I understand as a consistency of relationship to uncertainty, a composite of the various structures of expectation that we negotiate in the working assemblies of our experience. Without going into details, which are on my website, I do not myself use the concept of self or centre, but I do understand my experience as adaptative, associative, structured, cumulative, and individually-negotiated in social interaction. In that sense, I don't think in terms of construction, as that pretty much relies on a Subject, or in terms of Creation, likewise, or in terms of reception, rather in terms of 'negotiation' in ways that seek to bypass the subject or the object as the basis of experience. Continuity and its partner disontinuity constitute a discursive binary that I am wary of. Anyway, even if you do allow no essential reality to the self, it would be theoretically possible to hold a realism about the external world, ie that there really is something 'out there', that intuitions against idealism or solipsism should be taken seriously, that reality is more than simply 'consensual'.> By understanding consciousness, knowledge, and whatever I refer to as reality as a constant and dynamic experience of expectation I take it that there is a there there, but that the there is never a matter of the elimination of uncertainty, never solely a matter of 'objective' or 'subjective' experience, never a matter of 'presence' without a constant balance of uncertainty which is also experienced as dynamic, always experienced as a tension of fluidity. Solipsism and idealism are two philosophical standpoints that for me seek to eliminate uncertainty. Seeing as how a basic position of mine is that there is a balance of certainty (not certitude) and uncertainty in the experience of expectation, then for me to seek to eliminate uncertainty in these ways is to grossly misrepresent our experience of experience. Reality and the social interactional quality of our experience I understand in terms of, among other things, not consensuality but varying degrees of expectational dissonance and resonance, both always a part of our experience. What I suppose I'm seeking to find out is whether, when the word 'realism' is used in social science, it has a more limited/specific usage than it does in philosophy as a whole - so that someone might be a non - realist (constructivist) view of self but a realist with respect to the world.> I haven't yet managed to read any of the literature on critical realism so I can't say. My own position is quasi-pragmatist in some ways. I take consciousness, existence, god, for example, each as unproblematic, neither requiring a yes or a no, for either answer requires a rhetorical position of certitude. I am interested in appropriate responses to 'what is actually going on' which for me requires us to beat back all of those rhetorical devices and deployments that, often in the cause of the elimination of uncertainty, take us away from acknowledgment and understanding of 'what is actually going on' in terms of power relations and effects of power. That may be a sort of realism, possibly. I was called a realist to my face over dinner once, so perhaps yes! :) Not sure if any of this is in line with anything you are thinking, but the long version, in terms of first principles, is to be found on my website, chs 7-9 of the dissertation. Nor sure if I communicated any of that properly, but you can ask me questions if you're curious :) All the best Anthony http://www.beyondthecommons.com
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