Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 09:03:01 -0700 (MST)
From: Hans Ehrbar <ehrbar-AT-econ.utah.edu>
Subject: Norm's posts and plan for further discussion



Dear Norm:

If I understand you right, you are taking a
regularity-determinist stance in at least some of your
posts.  Well, according to Bhaskar, RTS2:106, such a stance
cannot be refuted.  There is no experience or logical
argument which could lead to its conclusive refutation.  But
Bhaskar continues: it can be refuted metaphysically.
Because if regularity-determinism is right, then science is
impossible.  Now I have the impression, Norm, that you think
science is possible, since you are engaging in logical
arguments with us, presumably in the interest of scientific
insights.  Therefore I'd be curious to know why you are
arguing with us.  Please don't misunderstand me, this is not
a rhetorical question, I am not trying to tell you to shut
up.  I can think of several things which you might say as an
answer to my question, and I'd like to know what your actual
answer is.


Emergence is a huge issue, and we are only beginning to
explore it.  The examples given so far have been very
striking examples of emergence, examples from which we can
learn that the concept of emergence should be taken seriously.
But these examples are so complex that it is difficult to
get a deeper understanding of the concept of emergence from
them.  I'd be interested in simpler examples, examples which
we can hope to analyze here.


What do you all think about the following argument:
If emergence is the birth of something new, then
it is impossible to explain emergence.  Because an
explanation of something is the identification of
the mechanisms which bring it about, and an emergent
entity cannot be reduced to its conditions.
Here is the Bhaskar quote again from DPF:49:

> In emergence, new beings ... are generated out of
> pre-existing material from which they could have been
> neither induced nor deduced.

It is therefore not our lack of knowledge which prevents us
from explaining emergence, but emergence can not be
explained from pre-existing beings as a matter of principle.
Now this is unsatisfactory because it seems to underestimate
what we can say about emergent entities and the world in
general.  Perhaps Bhaskar's emphasis on absences in DPF can
come here to the rescue.  Newly emergent things are often
the reaction to an absence: to a need or a lack or a desire.
On the bhaskar list, Ruth has been asking for arguments why
the category of absences is necessary, why we cannot do with
presences.  I am forming my thoughts as I am following these
discussions, and it is all tentative right now, but perhaps
the answer is: we need absences (and therefore dialectics
instead of analytical thinking) in order to explain truly
new things, i.e., emergence.


Here are my plans: from now until Saturday let's continue
the general discussion which we are having now.  On
Saturday, I will send some readings to the list from the
Possibility of Naturalism, so that we can see what Bhaskar
says about societies.  Ruth already gave you a synopsis,
which was much appreciated, and we already have some
interesting questions to ask about it.  While discussing
PON I'd like to compare it with what Marx says about
societies.


Then I'd like to read Marx, for a change, instead of
Bhaskar, and look at two examples where Marx discusses
emergence in some detail: the emergence of money from
commodity production, and the emergence of capital from
money.  Marx does use dialectics here.  Perhaps this brings
us to the point where we can discuss DPF itself, and for
many things which Bhaskar says in DPF in general I will try
to bring examples from Marx.


All this is taking longer than originally planned, but I
don't think it is possible to do that stuff much faster.
There is only one enrolled student here who needs a grade at
the end of this Semester, and he will get this grade.


All this is a proposal only; if you have suggestions
I am open to them.


-Hans.






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