File spoon-archives/seminar-14.archive/marx-bhaskar_2001/seminar-14.0103, message 25


From: "Greg Hall" <gregoryjayhall-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Similarities
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 10:47:28 -0700


Where does the knowledge come from which Bhaskar uses to
criticize methodological individualism?  Is it scientific
knowledge, or what else could it be?

	The knowledge that Bhaskar uses to criticize methodological individualism 
seems transcendental realist knowledge.  There seem to be two main arguments 
in the last reading section.  The first is that individual actions cannot be 
understood without understanding the social context.  Bhaskar writes, 
“Explanation, whether by subsumption under general laws, advertion to 
motives and rules, or redescription (identification), always involves 
irreducibly social predicates” (28).  He comes to this conclusion by asking 
what must be the case for things like a tribesman or a cheque to be 
intelligible.  Similarly, in RTS he asked what must be the case for 
scientific activity to be intelligible.  The result was a transcendental 
realist ontology that makes possible scientific activity.  In PON, the 
answer to his question is that there must be a society that is made up of 
relations between individuals.  These relations are real causal factors in 
explaining social phenomena.  It is only within this ontological type of 
society that concepts that seem to pertain to individuals can be understood.

	The second argument is that rationality does not explain any human 
behavior.  Methodological individualism claims that all social phenomena are 
reducible and solely explainable in terms of actions of individuals.  
Bhaskar points out that the traditional attribute that makes humans 
different from other animals is rationality.  Hence, one must explain social 
phenomena in terms of how people apply reason to their feelings or desires.  
Bhaskar points out that rationality may explain how humans do things, but it 
does not explain what they do.  This explains nothing but is rather a 
presupposition of investigation (29).  This similar to Bhaskar’s conception 
of laws or nature in RTS.  In RTS, laws of motion, thermodynamics, etc. 
explain how physical reactions and bodies function, but it has no predictive 
ability.  They prescribe limits on bodies, but do not prescribe what they 
do.  Similarly, human rationality will explain how humans do things, but not 
exactly what they will do.  This type of knowledge seems to be 
transcendental realist as well because they both explain how must underlying 
principles (reason or natural laws) function for surface level phenomena 
(behavior of humans or objects)to make sense.

	Is this knowledge scientific?  I would say no.  It is philosophical.  It 
tries to discover knowledge about what we cannot empirically verify through 
our understanding of what we think we know.


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com



     --- from list seminar-14-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005