Subject: RE: BHA: criteria of judgment -oughts - learning
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 13:37:10 -0500


Hi Shiv and Mervyn,

This gets at a major meaning of "reflexivity" -- consistency between theory and practice.  By our capacity for reflexivity, we can modify practice to conform to our theories, and vice-versa.  

As an aside, to hell with the "primacy" of either theory or practice.

Best regards,

Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: Mervyn Hartwig [mailto:mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk] 
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 7:14 AM
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: BHA: criteria of judgment -oughts - learning


 shiv kumar <iconoclast2050-AT-yahoo.com> writes

>there is only appearance of reasoning and
> reflexivity.

In that case, why go through the motions of reasoning? In particular, why put so much effort into appearing to be reasoning on this list? You can give it up as redundant. Nobody's going to take you seriously anyhow, because you're not serious: what you affirm in your theory you deny in your practice.

Mervyn


>
>Hi Dick,
>
>
>
>As usual, your questions are incisive and subtle.
>
>
>
>Let us begin with a thought experiment - Envision a debate between a 
>postmodernist and a realist in which the realist reveals the 
>shortcomings in the postmodernist's arguments. Now my question is: why 
>does the postmodernist still cling to his/her views? And there are 
>multitudes of them despite the onslaught of realism! How would you 
>comment on this state of mind, on this 'reasoning'?
>
>
>
>2. In PON, RB makes a reference to 'double monitoring', i.e. people can 
>monitor their monitorings. I am interested in probing this further. 
>According to a commentator, the only way a person can know his mind or 
>'instrument of analysis' is by employing the 'instrument of analysis'. 
>It is like asking the eye to see the eye itself! Don't you think this 
>is asking for the impossible? There is an impossible dilemma here. And, 
>where exactly is this 'homunculus' located?
>
>
>
>3. 'Reflexivity' should ideally mean ability of humans to reflect upon 
>all their actions, thoughts, etc. and then be able to change them, 
>wherever desirable. However this is asking for the impossible. Concrete 
>instances abound - Heidegger's Nazi-turn, Paul de Man's Nazi 
>sympathies, Jean Bodin et al. believing in witchcraft and so on. Our 
>own actions will be reconstructed a few decades hence. By the way, how 
>do you construe reflexivity to be?
>
>
>
>As for your more concrete posers, given the fact that all languages are 
>pre-scientific, my idea is somewhat inexpressible in words. (It is 
>another matter as to how it has been conceived of (somewhat) 
>independently of language; it is a matter of 'biography', due to 
>certain incidents whence hitherto opaque structures give way and one 
>can interpret things differently, but this is not the place to go into 
>these details). In the available lexicon, I would rather say that 
>humans are 'observers' who are aware of their thoughts and actions with 
>the parenthetical remark that to know something is not to realize it. 
>More crudely but without any loss of meaning, there is a complete 
>association with what occurs in one's cranium and the being at time t1. 
>I have inverted the causality here. Furthermore, the 'doctrine of 
>incorrigibility' is irrefutable. I would be interested in enquiring 
>whether there is a single stream of movement which gives the appearance 
>of a double movement. You have on  ly to  look at these postmodernists 
>(amongst many other segments of
>people) who tenaciously hold on to 'their' views despite the onslaught 
>of realism. The point of enquiry is - do they have a choice in this?
>
>
>
>The central question is: why is x, x? What makes x, x and not y? To 
>exemplify, what makes a realist a realist and not a postmodernist or 
>vice versa? Do these people read every fragment of information on 
>planet earth? If we were to respond to these questions ourselves, it 
>possibly could be an enlightening exercise. My own enquiries have 
>revealed that responses to these puzzles do not entirely lie in social 
>practices. Here too the causality is inverted. A series of experiments 
>with focus on - why infants, children respond differently to the same 
>data, phenomena. How is their thought process structured and why in 
>manner x and not y? - are required. It is likely that such experiments 
>have already been conducted, but I am not aware of them, though I would 
>be interested in their results.
>
>
>
>You say:
>
>Again, I agree that millions of years of evolution have gone into the 
>creation of genetically programmed mechanisms that influence our 
>behavior. What I contend, however, is that these more often serve as 
>"predispositions" than as "dispositions." Predispositions set 
>constraints as to what a human can learn to do, and make some learnings 
>more probable than others, but they are incomplete generative 
>mechanisms.
>
>
>
>Don't you think the dividing wall between predispositions and 
>dispositions is tenuous; becoming and being are one and the same.
>
>
>
>
>
>You say:
>
>It seems to me that you would have either the microbiologists, or the 
>political or corporate masters doing the advance legislation. I trust 
>them no more than I trust the metaphysicians.
>
>
>
>I agree none of these is trustworthy. Though a significant issue, this 
>is not of immediate concern to me.
>
>
>
>I appreciate your engaging the issue than superficially rejecting it. 
>As Bhaskar (PON) says: to posit an object as unknowable is already to 
>hypostatize it. If philosophy consists of 'an irreducible discourse' 
>and not 'constitute an autonomous order of being', there is a 
>philosophical reason too to enquire into the ('tyrannical') power of 
>the 'replicators'. As RB says (again in PON): philosophy, like any 
>science ought to be able to tell us something we did not already know; 
>it ought to be able to surprise us.
>
>
>
>Shiv
>

>"Moodey, Richard W" <MOODEY001-AT-gannon.edu> wrote:Hi Shiv,
>
>Sorry to have taken so long to reply -- I have been out of town and 
>then have been playing catch-up with my classes. My comments are 
>inserted in your text.
>
>You wrote:
>
>"You have raised an interesting question. My response can be stated
>thus: My argument does not engage the 'mind', 'introspection', 
>'reflexivity' et al. per se. It is not moving in the circuitous route 
>of a (ceaseless) thought-process. [There is a linguistic constraint 
>here which I cannot transgress, and have to employ the same words to 
>convey a different meaning]."
>
>I comment:
>
>I agree that linguistic constraints, or constraints imposed by other 
>systems of symbols (e.g., mathematical symbols, graphic expressions), 
>make it difficult for us to express just what is on our minds. I like 
>Polanyi's little sound bite -- "We always know more than we can say." 
>Anything that we articulate explicitly depends upon a much larger 
>context of tacit knowledge. But I question the possibility of what you 
>claim to be doing -- aguing without engaging the 'mind,'or without 
>'reflection' (I hope I am interpreting your rejection of 'reflexivity' 
>correctly). Whenever we engage seriously in argument, we have to be 
>aware of the criteria of judgment we are using. I can only know what 
>criteria of judgment I am using by reflecting upon my actual judgments 
>of (more or less probably) true and false. So, let me ask you this:
>
>How do you know the criteria you use to make judgments of truth and 
>falsity other than by reflecting upon the way you actually do make such 
>judgments.
>
>You wrote:
>
>"I am attempting to step outside this and thereby posit that if we want 
>a change in human behaviour then we should alter the mechanisms that 
>produce those behaviour.
>
>I comment:
>
>Here you are not making a judgment about truth or falsity, but a 
>practical judgment about how best to achieve a goal. Who do you think 
>should get to specify the kinds of behaviors you want these 
>microbiologists to eliminate or to foster? It seems to me that your 
>practical judgment carries with it the spector of totalitarian rule.
>
>You wrote:
>
>"No realist can doubt the presence of antecedent mechanisms (since 
>millions of years), or the biological substratum in humans. I expect 
>agreement on this at least."
>
>I comment:
>
>Again, I agree that millions of years of evolution have gone into the 
>creation of genetically programmed mechanisms that influence our 
>behavior. What I contend, however, is that these more often serve as 
>"predispositions" than as "dispositions." Predispositions set 
>constraints as to what a human can learn to do, and make some learnings 
>more probable than others, but they are incomplete generative 
>mechanisms. They are completed only through interactions with the 
>environment.
>
>Is it really controversial to argue that humans adapt to their 
>environments through learning?
>
>You wrote:
>
>"Now what their powers are can be defined and possibly be manipulated 
>by microbiologists over a period of time. This is what I mean when I 
>paraphrase Bhaskar that metaphysicians cannot legislate in advance."
>
>I reply:
>
>It seems to me that you would have either the microbiologists, or the 
>political or corporate masters doing the advance legislation. I trust 
>them no more than I trust the metaphysicians.
>
>You wrote:
>
>"For instance, if a microbiologist manipulates some mechanisms of both 
>Saddam and Bush wher eby they simply cannot 'think' or act in terms of 
>aggression, then the argument would be clinched. This would be achieved 
>minus reflexivity or a vision for global peace, yet produce the same 
>results. I understand this is unlikely in 2003 but I place my optimism 
>for the future."
>
>"In short, biological reductionism is empirically 
>verifiable/falsifiable, as distinct from 'states of mind'."
>
>I reply:
>
>What are your criteria of verification/falsification? How do you know, 
>without reflecting upon how you actually verify or falsify 
>propositions? (A possible alternative to personal reflection much be 
>blind submission to some authority, but I do not get the sense that 
>this is what you want.)
>
>Best regards,
>
>Dick
>



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