Bhaskar is a fraud. I do not understand the cult around him. As a philosopher of science, the field in which I was trrained and which I practiced for almost 20 years before going into law, he's a joke. It's rather said, since the generic sort of positions he seems to want to defend are pretty sensible. But they are much better defended by the likes of the early Hilary Putnam and his Marxist students, Peter Railton, Richard Boyd, Michael Devitt, Richard Miller, et al. But these much clearer and better writers do not attract the attention that B--quite mysteriously--seems to. There is no "Boyd" list. Go figure. Anyone interested in the questions of truth. meaning, sientific raelism, etc, would be far better off and more enlightened by reading, e,g., the essays in Jarret Leplin's anthology Scientific Realism than anything by B. --jks
On Sat, 20 Jun 1998, Rob Schaap wrote:
> Hello again,
>
> Gary writes:
>
> >But I will point out that the best thing on truth is of
> >course Roy Bhaskar's model outlined in his magnum opus _Dialectic: The
> >pulse of freedom_ and truly he presents there a solution ot the truth
> >problem. Of especial interest is his concept of Alethia _ the reason for
> >things not simply propositions.
> >
> >Comrade Brown's problems are compounded by her implicit empiricism. Her
> >concept of reality is very reduced indeed. Again Bhaskar's depth realism
> >is the way forward.
>
> Bewdy! Please tell me you'll find the time to explain this in English,
> Gary. Bhaskar remains a mystery to me, but I sense great significance at
> the root of it.
>
> Yours hopefully,
> Rob.
>