To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Date:          Thu, 28 Aug 1997 15:24:38 GMT +0200
Subject:       Re: BHA: BASIC QUESTION ON READINGS


Hi Ralph,

I'd like to chip in with Colin, which is easy since he seems to be 
agreeing with something I said once before. If we think of Bhaskar in 
terms of an analogy with Kant then RTS is his KdRV. Even though a lot 
is added in later work, starting with PON, with the next high point 
being Dialectic, and SRHE being a significant medium-sized peak, the 
foundation remains, in a sense, the argument that stratification can 
be transcendentally deduced from the fact of differentiation, and 
that philosophy of science is both irreducible and ideological.

[About 4.5 years ago I taught a graduate philosophy of science course 
centred on RTS and PON, with various other texts in supporting roles. 
It worked very well with the students, some of whom had no real 
background in Philosophy of Science, although they did know some of 
the great hits of western epistemology.]

I should also confess that I find it helps me navigate to see where a 
new strand of argument is added as new works come out. I don't know 
how I'd have coped with Dialectic without having read most of the 
earlier work.

Having said that, some of the essays in Reclaiming Reality amount to 
close and neat summaries of the arguments of RTS and PON, so Colin's 
suggestion of RR as an opening bid is more than defensible.

Cheers,
David

Department of Philosophy,
University of Natal, Durban, 4041, South Africa.
Tel: +27 (0)31 260 3248. Fax: +27 (0)31 260 3031.
----------------------------------------------------------
"People who feel no need for transparency in their
arguments are lost for philosophy."
- Wittgenstein.


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