> Roy Bhaskar Interviewed
> A. What critical realism does is that it allows us to sustain and to argue
> the mutual implication of ontological realism in the intransitive
> dimension, epistemological relativism in the transitive or social dimension
> of science and judgement rationalism in the intrinsic aspect of science.
> This means that there is no conflict between seeing our scientific views as
> being about objectively given real worlds, and understanding our beliefs
> about them as subject to all kinds of historical and other determinations.
Ye gods, this is the most half-baked theory-porridge. Ontology is an early 20th century German existentialism. The Goddess only knows what realism is supposed to be, or what "intransitive dimension" is, either (a Kantian a priori?). Epistemology is the formal logical structures of thought, this has nothing per se to do with relativism. "Judgement rationalism" is just incomprehensible.
> Now, what lies behind the truth of a well attested scientific or moral
> proposition - e.g., the fact that emeralds reflect light of a certain
> wavelength - is a higher order proposition, the truth of that truth - the
> reality that generates it, that is, the atomic structure of the crystal,
> the nature of the wavelength of light that is reflected in a certain way.
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> So truth at this higher level just is reality, and it is the reality that
> grounds or accounts for the mundane realities that we invoke in the
> absolute conception of truth, and it is that absolute conception of truth
> that backs our epistemological or social conception of truth.
Purest Hegelianism. But without Hegel's depth of insight into the totality. The reality of reality is what, precisely? Bhaskar seems to want a gold standard or solid currency of truth to back up his speculative claim; the thought must be realistic before it is critical. I'd side with Adorno: thought must question any and all forms of realism. The truth is concrete, but this concreity, just like the human beings which carry it, is also immensely fragile.
-- Dennis