Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 09:56:26 -0500 (EST)
Subject: BHA: Transitive & intransitive



               State University of New York at Stony Brook
                       Stony Brook, NY 117777

                                            Michael Sprinker
                                            Professor of English & Comp Lit
                                            Comparative Studies
                                            516 632-9634
                                            19-Dec-1996 09:46am EST
FROM:  MSPRINKER
TO:    Remote Addressee                     ( _bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu )
 
Subject: Transitive & intransitive

I found Colin's most recent post extremely entertaining--the
thought of Zizek's making a contribution to international
relations amused me (as doubtless it would him as well).
But one small point.

Colin said that descriptions of science are transitive, while
science itself is intransitive.  I think this is a slight--
but decisive--misformulation.  Bhaskar takes Rorty to task for
writing that "physics gives a fair account of reality" (this
is an approximate quotation from memory).  Bhaskar retorts, rightly,
that the sentence is ambiguous, since, presumably, "physics" can
either refer to physical reality (in which case it is an
intransitive object of knowledge), or to the scientific practice
of physics (in which case it is a constantly changing, humanly
produced transitive object).  Hence, in my view (and I think
in Bhaskar's), science can never be an intransitive object; only
that which science attempts to describe (reality) can be.  This
is one instance of the confusion between epistemology and ontology
that Bhaskar has spent his career clarifying.  So, I think we
need to be equally careful in our own usage, lest we be found
guilty of just the sort of dogmatism that has given the sciences
a bad name, and deservedly so.  In my experience, most scientists
talk like positivists when they pronounce on the nature of their
practice, although their practice is anything but positivist.
Bhaskar is right:  the tendency to secrete positivism as the
"spontaneous philosophy" of science is very widespread.

Fraternally,

Michael Sprinker


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