Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 20:28:39 -0500
Subject: BHA: Address Correction


        Michael, it turns out, is correct:  The address I posted for the
Center for Critical Realism was wrong.  As Michael suspected, the uk and co
had been transposed.

        So, again, the correct address is ccr-AT-criticalrealism.demon.co.uk

        While I have the floor, I might as well respond to a few things.
First, Tobin posed the following question:

>I'm curious about the ambiguity of your phrase, "its own production."  Does
>this refer to a theory's historical emergence, its social basis, its logical
>foundations, its process of generating ideas, or its output?  All of those?
>Is this ambiguity yours or Bhaskar's?  Is there any way to demonstrate
>conclusively that a theory "is able to" make such an account if (for whatever
>reason; perhaps it is a new theory) none of its theorists happen to have done
>so?  And what need such an account consist of (e.g, regarding a theory's
>historical basis, is a "history of ideas" adequate?)?

        I don't know if the ambiguity originates with me or Bhaskar or the
transmission.  I interpeted what Bhaskar said as a straightforward point
relating to logical foundations:  A theory cannot deny what is conceptually
necessary for it to be uttered at all.  Instead, any theory must encompass
what is logically or conceptually necessary for its meaningful
articulation.

       If we interpret Bhaskar's remark in this more modest way, as I did,
then perhaps it might apply to the physical sciences as well.  Michael
argues:

>Apropos of RB's reported comment on the necessity for a theory
>to account for its own existence, this can only occur in the
>social sciences, I'd have thought, since one surely cannot account
>for the coming into existence of classical mechanics by means
>of physical theory itself--now THAT really would be reductionism
>carried to an absurd length!

        Whatever physical theories we come up with, they cannot be such as
to preclude our having formulated them. That consideration tends to strike
against certain varieties of reductive materialism that deny the types of
conscious processes required to formulate reductive materialism in the
first place -- eliminative materialisms, for example, that dismiss first
person accounts.

        In response to Ralph, I would generally endorse Hans D's response.
CR's  conception of causality is certainly distinct and original.
Especially when you consider that most everyone else, including pomo,
construes causality in a positivist way.

        Although I don't think a critical realist must necessarily be a
Marxist, I do think there is such a strong affinity between the two as to
almost consider CR the philosophical foundation of Marxian analysis.  I
don't think that philosophical foundation had been so well identified
before.

        Finally, some lingering thoughts for Tobin, who says:

>So with a category like "men" or "women," once you start looking at all the
>variations of build, body hair, chromosomal oddities, genital mismatches,
>organ removals, mastoid developments, sexual desires, social positions, table
>manners, etc etc etc, one does begin to wonder how a rigid category can
>possibly be concocted, and whether it's even worth the effort.

        I haven't read Lakoff in ages.  Can you cite some specific references?
I do recall Hilary Putnam addressing this issue of natural kinds in a way I
thought was convincing by way of paradigmatic cases.  According to Putnam,
we conventionally do and analytically should think more in terms of
paradigmatic cases of a natural kind than in terms of necessary and
sufficient conditions for category membership.

        Fuzz or precision, I think, is always a matter of intents and
purposes.  If we distinguish cultural gender from biological sex, then i
would not think that for most intents and purposes, sex is usually fuzzy.












doug porpora
dept of psych and sociology
drexel university
phila pa 19104
USA

porporad-AT-duvm.ocs.drexel.edu




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