Subject: Re: BHA: Re: body-cosmic and body-actual
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 14:46:51 -0000


boring? no. important yes - how meta-theory connects itself is part of what
meta-theory is empricially oriented work and meta-theory are not sisters
they are strands in a coding or DNA of ontology - mathematics is not
abstract Mervyn - one of the great challenges of matghematics philosophy of
the 20th century was hopw to produce an abstract of mathematics - proofs of
mathematical pricnip,es and operations (mathemtical principles are neither
self-evident nor self-substantiating) - Frege, Godel and a host of others
tried to produce abstract proofs of mathematics and al highlighted the
limits of the method by which they did so - how tos ubstantiate a
mathematical theorem remains a problem of meta-theory for maths.

the meta-tgheory of quantum mechanics does connect with the real world
quantum mechanics is the most successful predictive theory known to
science - no sub-molecular process has ever contradicted it - at the same
time it is limited since it does not unify gravity em and the strong and
weak nuclear forces - hence the competing string theory account

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 12:31 PM
Subject: Re: BHA: Re: body-cosmic and body-actual


> Hi Jamie
>
> >My concern is that most of the argument is conducte din an abstract
fashion
> >that fails to substantiate itself
>
> I think this is getting to be a pretty boring refrain in CR (it's a
> putdown of meta-theory, which leads us back to what started this
> thread...). What would 'substantiating itself' look like for you? Do you
> say of an abstract mathematical theory that it fails to substantiate
> itself? Or that there's a problem about it's being abstract? Of course
> CR philosophy needs to go hand in hand with empirically oriented work,
> and that needs to be linked with emancipatory movements, but that is
> precisely what DCR both calls for and seeks to promote and is promoting.
> What's the problem?
>
> >you'll note that there are a number
> >of analytical ambiguities in the problem as CR poses it.
>
> I haven't found what you've had to say about these alleged ambiguities
> very clear, also I've sought to provide some answers, so perhaps they
> can't be taken as read. Perhaps part of the problem is that you're
> applying the logic of stasis to dialectical arguments about process.
> (Phil's point about truth as concrete, relating to the whole. Whatever
> happened to the concrete universal as distinct from the abstract one?)
>
> >A CR that cannot address context dilemmas and doesnot connect to real
social
> >conditions is not concernd with the real world
>
> Which CR is that?!? Does the meta-theory informing quantum physics
> connect with the real world?
>
> Mervyn
>
>
>
>
>
> jamie morgan <jamie-AT-morganj58.fsnet.co.uk> writes
> >Hi Phil, there is nothing Rortian in asking what do critical realists
mean
> >by 'a condition of' nor is there anything Rortian in suggesting that
> >decisions are part of ethics - the question really should be reversed -
what
> >is it about the human that generates Andrew's comitment to the good of
being
> >and how does this good of being become ethical conduct in real situations
in
> >real societies - this is a realist concern not a postmodern
supericiality.
> >My concern is that most of the argument is conducte din an abstract
fashion
> >that fails to substantiate itself - if you refer back tot he points I put
> >forward in response to Mervyn's question you'll note that there are a
number
> >of analytical ambiguities in the problem as CR poses it.
> >A CR that cannot address context dilemmas and doesnot connect to real
social
> >conditions is not concernd with the real world as anything other than a
> >possibility that cannot be argued from tarnscendence with quite the level
of
> >authoirity as a real;ist arguyment for other aspects of reality. I
wouldn't
> >suggest that AC or RB are not cocnerned 'about' the real world but your
> >brief dichtomisation of the issues would tend to makre it seem so.
> > I fail to see how universal and objective matter in motion sheds any
light
> >on the problem of ethics. Please expand.
> >
> >Jamie
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Phil Walden" <phil-AT-pwalden.fsnet.co.uk>
> >To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> >Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 3:41 PM
> >Subject: BHA: body-cosmic and body-actual
> >
> >
> >> Hi Jamie, Hi Ruth,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Then where do you both stand on Andrew Collier's distinction between
the
> >> body-cosmic and the body-actual?  (First chapter of his IN DEFENCE OF
> >> OBJECTIVITY, Routledge, 2003).  It would appear that your positions
> >> entail the view that only the body-actual exists and that the
> >> body-cosmic is a redundant piece of metaphysics.  For if the ethics of
> >> freedom is to be about actual context dilemmas and only about that,
then
> >> you seem to be somewhere around the position of Richard Rorty
> >> (PHILOSOPHY AND THE MIRROR OF NATURE) in which he argues that ethics is
> >> just about decision-procedures.  This is the hegemonic pragmatist
> >> conception of ethics.  The view that the body-actual is sufficient to
> >> uphold realism is a version of what Roy Bhaskar has called the
> >> anthropomorphic fallacy, in that human social activity is defined by a
> >> human-centredness that denies a meaningful objective relation to the
> >> wider independent reality of nature and the universe.  (DPF 394
passim).
> >> In the book to celebrate Andrew's life that is shortly to appear I have
> >> a chapter in which I reinterpret the body-cosmic/body-actual
distinction
> >> in a dialectical materialist way.  Materialism creates a more credible
> >> conception of the body-cosmic and body-actual relation because it has
an
> >> ontological starting point in the universality and objectivity of
matter
> >> in motion.  On this objective basis, it is possible to establish the
> >> interconnections between the primacy of a non-human body-cosmic and its
> >> relation to the specificity and dynamism of the body-actual of human
> >> society.  (Engels, ANTI-DUHRING, Moscow, 1954, section entitled:
> >> "Natural Philosophy: Cosmogony, Physics, Chemistry).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Phil
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >
> >
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