From: "Greg Hall" <gregoryjayhall-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Below the surface
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 08:59:40 -0700
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<P>Second Assignment</P>
<P>Bhaskar’s attempt to put ontology back into philosophy parallels Marx’s critique of capitalism. I will try to make these parallels explicit. </P>
<P>The surface level activity in a capitalist system such as the buying and selling of goods is the phenomena that we observe in the world. It is like the phenomena that natural scientists observe that motivates them to do science. In an effort to explain and predict behavior of people in the marketplace economists have constructed a social science that we call economics. </P>
<P>Economists look at historical events and data as if they were experiments in discovering how the economy works. Although economics is by no means an exact science, it has been somewhat successful in explaining and predicting behavior of agents and economic variables in the capitalist system. Similarly, natural scientists construct experiments from which they try to explain and predict the phenomena that they observe in the world. They have been even more successful than economists have. </P>
<P>However, the fact that economics does have some ability to explain and predict the surface phenomena tells us something about the underlying structure of capitalism. It tells us that the social phenomenon that we call capitalism has a substructure of relationships and mechanisms that manifest themselves in the surface phenomena. Similarly, in natural science the fact that scientists are successful in science tells us something about the natural world. There is an ontology that makes science possible. It is this underlying structure that gives rise to the phenomena that scientists study. Marx in <EM>Das Kapital </EM>brings out the underlying structure of capitalism that is hidden if one only looks at the observable phenomena. He shows how the observable phenomena are the product of subsurface social relationships and individual activities. Bhaskar’s project is similar because he wants to revise the notion of ontology and the nature of causality entailed therein in order to explain how the surface phenomena operate. Marx and Bhaskar both look below the surface to the unobservable phenomena in order to get a greater understanding of surface-level observable phenomena.</P>
<P>Gregory</P></FONT></DIV><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href="http://explorer.msn.com">http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p></html>
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