My point was that his reputation in his professional peer group has a bearing on whether he is a thinker worth taking seriously. The consensus--not universal, but widespread--is that he is not.
Btw, Alex Callinicos has written a good article I have in typescripot, maybe he published it somewhere, and Andrew Collier has written a boon (Critical Realism) which to my mind explain why there is no there there.
Anyway, go read him if you like, you are young and have time to waste.
--jks
In a message dated Fri, 31 Mar 2000 12:54:38 PM Eastern Standard Time, Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> writes:
<< Rakesh, Justin, Sam, etc.:
>Justin, doesn't Rom Harre take Bhaskar quite seriously? Haven't read much
>Bhaskar at all. Just going by his intro to the philosophy of science, Harre
>is obviously a very serious and accomplished thinker--so his opinion, if
>indeed favorable of Bhaskar, should count. And there's that excellent book
>on Method in the Social Science by Andrew Sayer who is influenced by
>Bhaskar. Peter Manicas' imposingly erudite History and Philosophy of the
>Social Sciences is also influenced by Bhaskar.
If one thinks that the criterion of truth of X is that X is taken seriously by philosophers one likes, though, one indeed ends up confirming Rorty-like pragmatism. What matters is a local consensus!
Yoshie
>>