Subject: BHA: Re: WHITHER CRITICAL REALISM?
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 23:03:30 -0500


Ralph--

It seems to me that if Bhaskar is right--if in fact realism is inexorable and
Bhaskar's concepts of the stratification of reality, the transitive/
intransitive dimensions and so forth are (and must be) implicit in
scientists' (and everyone else's) actual activity--then there is no reason to
expect it to offer earth-shattering revelations, and no reason why a
reasonably bright 15-year-old couldn't intuitively grasp the fundamentals of
critical realism: more than any other theory of knowledge and existence, it
makes sense of our experience.  Since I endure continual barrages of both
positivism and especially conventionalism (poststructuralism), I find that
pretty refreshing and enlightening all by itself.

As for CR's details and refinements, whether they are innovative or not, I
find Bhaskar's use of causal efficacy (entities' powers and susceptibilities)
to define the real, his rejection of deductive-nomological laws in favor of
tendencies, the transformational model of social activity (TMSA), the
concepts of emergence, referential detachment, and (to a small but increasing
extent) absence, plus a number of other points, to be useful, stimulating,
and sometimes challenging.  A few of these I find explicit in Marx, a few
others implicit, and others are so far as I know Bhaskar's; but like Hans D,
I'm less concerned with Bhaskar's originality than with his making the ideas
explicit and so more usable, if for nothing else, then for beating back
positivist and conventionalist arguments.

CR is a general philosophy, which (as Bhaskar often repeats) aims to be an
"underlaborer" for the sciences: in itself it can provide few insights into
specific dynamics within society, nature, etc.  Have there been interesting
applications of critical realism?  I'm not sure what you would consider
interesting or profound, but I was intrigued by Tim Dayton's effort to use
Bhaskar's levels of critical realism in order to sort out the differently
valid points made by Bloch and Lukacs, and I like to think that my own work
on communication practices introduces some new understandings (you're welcome
to retrieve my RM paper from the Bhaskar archive for a small sample); here I
speak only of some efforts in an area I'm acquainted with, cultural theory. 
If marxism is a version of CR, then all marxist work is available for your
consideration.  (Jukka--I'd be very interested in hearing about whatever
impact you see CR having in Europe.)

But from another perspective, the notion of "applying" CR may be
inappropriate: Bhaskar doesn't provide ready-made ideas or a manual for
analyzing this or that, so much as ways of seeing and strategies of thinking
through the dynamics of the object of study, such that one may find it
necessary to develop new concepts specific to that object.  From that
perspective, it's not surprising that there aren't a lot of "Bhaskarians."

I must confess to being puzzled by your reference to critical realism's "big
ambitions."  The suggestions for a conference, a journal, a Web site have yet
to attract much of a bandwagon, so these ideas scarcely amount to "plans";
and such as they are, they seem rather modest.  But being able to communicate
to the many people with doubts about poststructuralism that there *is* a
viable alternative would, I think, serve a useful purpose.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-gwi.net
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce


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