Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 13:51:22 +0000
Subject: Re: BHA: scientific realism,


Howard/James/All

There are a number of things in relation to the representation of 
'scientific realism' that has caused me some amusement and which in some 
sense could allow me to think of myself as a 'realist' but for 
consistencies sake let's maintain my normal anti-realist stance. Some 
clarification of the use of the word 'ideological' i've taken to using 
it in this discussion because it blatently foregrounds the 
political/social/material aspects whereas phrases such as 'historically 
situated activity' can be quite happily used without the militant 
relationship I am endaevoring to foreground.

It seems clear that the representation of 'realism' is on the softer end 
of the range, that is the notion of 'approxiamation' and 'approxiamate 
truth' which allows for mutually contradictory scientific theories to be 
accepted and probably ignored, whilst the engineering operations 
continue to develop and build the actual objects being constructed. 
However it does seem somewhat excessive to then claim that the science 
(which is a very different thing from engineering in that engineering is 
obviously always ideological)  is consequently a realism. The problem 
here is that science is endlessly making claims that do not fit within 
the range of  available options at least as far as both Howard and James 
have defined Scientific Realism raised thus far - to give a few examples 
'Quarks' (including the mythical 'Charm' which is my personal favorite 
mythical particle), the phantasmagoria of the 'Gay Gene', Genetics 
generally,  Cyborgs and Artificial Intelligence.  Let us not forget to 
rephrase Stengers recent question 'Is psychoanalysis a science ?' (Which 
I'd like an answer to..) How then as Scientific Realists do you 
understand these entities and the work that the scientists are carrying 
out ? 

 From an anti-realist perspective some of the above examples work quite 
easily because they are either empirically adequate (and consequently 
True) or not. However more directly these entities are mostly 
understandable as ideological phantasies which are mere social 
constructs with no connection to the real at all, even though the 
Scientists are still maintaining that they are operating within the 
scope of the real. What is being tentatively explored here is whether an 
anti-realist argument is necessary to invert the sense of the argument 
contained in "...There is nothing in the realist argument that would bar 
the proposition that a historically specific mode of production sets 
limits to what science can know...."  This anti-realist would state 
rather the opposite that - Science is so deeply ideological that it can 
never be understood as something seperate from the mode of production it 
exists within and that the very entities that it proclaims really exist 
are so deeply ideological that only with extreme difficultly can one 
penetrate the fog to get at the 'real'.

I especially like the Hegel/Kant note - but with the caveat that Science 
does not claim to know the Hegelian 'real' but rather the 'real' that 
underlies this. However I would tend towards thinking the objective and 
the subjective through the human subject as dervied from psychoanalysis.

Are you claiming then that Bhaskarian Realism is representative of  
mainstream Scientifc Realism ?

regards
steve


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