Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:56:16 -0500 (EST)
From: Ruth Groff <rgroff-AT-yorku.ca>
Subject: Re: Response to Ruth


Hi Matthew, everyone,

I don't think that we actually disagree here, at least not about very much.
Let me try to respond.  Sorry in advance if I sound, um..., imperious or
know-it-all-y, or anything.  When I'm trying to clarify things, I can sound
that way.  But I don't mean to. 

You wrote:

>Bhaskar¹s project is not to lend Œepistemic credence¹ to science.  I am not
>really too sure what you mean by this. 

Sorry about the terminology.  As people may or may not know, in the
sub-field of epistemology (and probably analytic epistemology at that),
there is a very specialized use of the term "epistemic," as an adjective, to
mean something like "having to do with whether or not a given "truth-bearer"
is actually valid, or true.  [People argue about what should count as a
"truth-bearer": sentences, propositions, theories, social forms, etc. --
though the analytic types would never go for a social form counting as a
truth-bearer.)  

What I meant was that Bhaskar's philosophical project is not that of
*establishing* the validity of the body of claims that we call science.  As
I said, I think that he *assumes* this, at the outset.  

But it really sounds as though you and I agree on this.  

You wrote:
>I don¹t see how this position can be possible without (implicitly)
supporting and >therefore giving credence to science.  

I guess, then, that whether or not we do agree hangs on what exactly you
mean by "therefore giving credence to science."  If you mean "therefore
implicitly weighing in on the `science-is-true, at-least-provisionally' side
of a debate over the validity of science," then I think we do agree.  Yes,
Bhaskar believes that science is a provisionally valid set of claims.  

But if you mean "therefore undertaking in some way to *argue* for, or
establish philosophically, the soundness of the belief that science is
valid," then no, I don't think that we do agree.  I think that Bhaskar
*assumes,* but does not himself attempt to *establish* (at least not in the
text that we are reading; it gets less clear with *Dialectic*), the validity
of the natural sciences.    

You continue:
>I would even go so far as to say that perhaps there is a problem with the
reification >of science over all other forms of understanding.

I don't know if the term that I would use is "reify," but no bother.  The
charge that you're considering making, it seems to me, is that of
"scientism" -- the view that science is the only true form of knowledge.  Or
at least that it's the *best* form.  My own view is that Bhaskar is not, in
the end, a proponent of scientism.  But it's not the simplest matter in the
world to sort out, I don't think.  Maybe we will be able to come back to it.
I do think that Bhaskar is not terribly critical, or reflexive, in his
analysis of science.  [Whether he needs to be or not is a different
question, though.]   
Finally, you wrote:
>However I find it difficult to understand your first objective ­ a real
>definition of natural scientific knowledge?  What can this mean, and I am
>sure that it is subjugated under the second objective of stating how the
>world must be given the advance of science.  

"Real definition" is a term that Bhaskar uses, but we haven't got to it yet
in the reading, and it's a controversial concept anyway, within the
discipline of philosophy, so let's bag it for the time being.  Sorry I
introduced it.  

What I meant was not very fancy.  I meant that Bhaskar thinks that no one
has yet come up with a proper characterization of (a) the process of
scientific change and (b) the conceptual structure of scientific theories. 

*This* task, the task of properly describing both the logic of scientific
development and the character of scientific theories *is*, I think,
importantly different from the task of identifying what the general features
of the natural world must be -- given that we believe ourselves to have
developed a reliable way of learning about it.  To put it in terms that we
have just now moved onto, the first is a philosophical task to be carried
out in relation to what (for no good reason) RB calls the "transitive
object" of science; the second is a philosophical task to be carried out in
relation to what he terms the "intransitive object" of science.   

I disagree with you that the former task(s) is/are "subjugated under the
second," as you put it.  Sure, "the world" includes scientists and
scientific theories, and even philosophical analyses of structure of
theories.  And sure, "the natural world" includes many things, depending on
how you describe the things in question -- including human beings.  

But none of this implies that a philosophical (as opposed to scientific)
account of the general features of the natural world is or ought to be the
same sort of thing as a philosophical account of either the logic of
scientific development or the character of scientific theories.  I maintain
that they are different (albeit - as I did say in my post - related), and
that Bhaskar is engaged in the elaboration of each.  (In fact, it might be
best to phrase it as "all three.")

Is that any clearer, at least?

Warmly,
Ruth



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