Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 21:36:35 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: The premises extracted


Hi Hans,

Yes, let's go forward.  (I have a whole dissertation for the purposes of
getting bogged down, after all!)  But I can't resist a quick reply to your
guess about my thinking on just what it is that has been established in the
argument from experimentation.  

Actually, I *hadn't* thought about it in the interesting way that you
suggest!  It's more that I just think that the argument is very strong as a
demonstration of what people who hold certain beliefs about the nature of
experimentation must hold as their philosophical ontology, and yet not
especially strong as a demonstration that said ontology is actually a true
claim about the world (at least, not stronger than scientific knowledge
itself - though of course different in kind).

Really I just like to play it safe.  I always stop with a thinker at what I
think is their strongest argument.  Bhaskar, meanwhile, always writes as
though he has definitavely resolved every question worth asking, so I have
to be the voice of moderation!

I agree with you about critical realism for high school students.

Warmly,
Ruth       


At 06:55 PM 2/5/01 -0700, you wrote:
>
>Ruth,
>
>I'd like to take a guess why you consider the facts about
>the world which Bhaskar infers by transcendental or
>second-order arguments from experimental activity etc. as
>"ways of thinking about things":  because they cannot
>directly be confirmed or disconfirmed by empirical evidence.
>Any sequence of events which we experience in our world
>could also be experienced in a properly programmed
>hyper-deterministic world, or in a society in which
>methodological individualism is the right approach, or in a
>flat empirical world in which God causes all events to
>happen, etc.  These second-order arguments are a different
>approach to knowledge: it is a knowledge which is impossible
>to obtain by passive observation of the world.  It is a kind
>of knowledge which allows us to get a perspective on the
>empirical facts, and therefore you like to view it as a "way
>of thinking about things."
>
>Am I guessing right?
>
>
>This irreducibility of philosophical ontology to the
>substantive sciences has very important implications for
>ideology, which I am trying to heed in my undergraduate
>classes about Marx's Capital:  if people are not told by
>someone that methodological individualism is wrong or even
>that there are alternatives to it, chances are slim that
>they will discover this by themselves.  This is why so many
>people who are very knowledgeable about the facts still
>cannot see capitalism.  I think Critical Realism should
>be taught in High Schools.
>
>
>Shall we go in in the readings?  If we do, this does not
>preclude you from sending something to the list which ties
>into some of the unfinished business which we still have,
>and it might give is new material for answering those
>questions.
>
>
>Hans.
>
>
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