Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 09:29:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: RE: Emergence


Hi Norm,

As a rule, I think that it is important to try to figure out as precisely as
possible what a thinker under consideration is saying, even if I disagree
with it, or think it's useless.

I was saying that I would have thought that Victor had got Bhaskar wrong on
his, Bhaskar's, views about the emergence relationship between societies and
individuals.  Bhaskar, for better or for worse (and it sounds like you would
go with the latter), differentiates very sharply between the concept of a
society and the concept of an individual.  I was saying that there is
unequivocal textual support for the idea that, in Bhaskar's view, it is
society that is the emergent totality, but that Victor's post had made me
think that, interestingly, there is other textual stuff that *possibly*
could be used to argue the reverse. Since I can't recall any instance of
Bhaskar claiming that any two levels of being are mutually emergent, one
from the other -- let alone that this is the relationship between
individuals and society -- I suggested that it probably is NOT Bhaskar's
view that, with respect to societies and individuals, it is both ways at once.

But I'm not really sure what your point is.  Is it that in your view Marx,
unlike Bhaskar, is not interested in the issue of emergence as Bhaskar
defines it?  Is it that in your view Marx, unlike Bhaskar (if I'm right
about Bhaskar) thinks that societies and individuals are simultaneously
emergent from eachother?  Is it that in your view the way that Marx studies
societies is importantly different from the way that I study philosophical
texts?

Sorry if I'm being cranky.  I still have my dumb cold and I have to grade a
huge stack of exams.

r.
At 08:29 AM 2/26/01 -0500, you wrote:
>i don't find the either-or statements below (societal behavior causing
>individual behavior or vice-vers) helpful to my thinking about how the world
>works.  i see billions of people acting alone and in groups of common
>interest ("nations", "clubs", "interest groups", "classes", etc.) as
>jostling for survival, power, expression, etc.
>
>then try to make some "sense" of this world-wide jostling around!  Marx
>tried to do that, it seems.
>
>norm
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ruth Groff [mailto:rgroff-AT-yorku.ca]
>Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 2:04 AM
>To: seminar-14-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: Re: Emergence
>
>
>Hi guys,
>
>This is just a small point, but the question of whether, on Bhaskar's
>technical definition of "emergence," individuals emerge out of society or
>society emerges out of individuals is an interesting one.  
>
>I haven't thought a lot about this stuff, but I guess that I have always
>thought that it's the latter -- that, for RB, it is society that is the
>emergent reality.  I think there's probably some textual support for this.
>In ch 5 of *Reclaiming Reality* for sure, which means in PON too.  
>
>But Victor's post made me think about how RB very specifically says that
>social structures are the material causes (very much in the Aristotelian
>sense) of individual agency.  This might be all it takes to make a case for
>it being individuals that emerge out of social relations, rather than the
>reverse.  I don't know.  I don't think it can be both ways, though.
>
>r.  
>
>
>
>
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