#roy bhaskar

[zwischenstadt]

The oppressed, dominated, exploited, repressed, denied have an interest in knowledge [i.e. an explanatory critique] which their oppressors lack, in the straightforward sense that it facilitates the achievement of their wants and the satisfaction of their needs. And their oppressors, or more generally the oppressing agency, inasmuch as their (or its) interests are antagonistic to the oppressed, possess an interest in the ignorance of the oppressed. [Human sciences] cannot be regarded as equally ‘a potential instrument of domination’ or of ‘the expansion of the rational autonomy of action’. The human sciences are not neutral in their consequences in a non-neutral (unjust, asymmetrical) world. And it is just this which explains their liability

Roy Bhaskar.  Critical Realism: Essential Readings. Pg 419.

[kritilektwal]

Roy Bhaskar’s Qualified and Non-positivist Naturalism*

Roy Bhaskar, a British philosopher, was known for Critical Realism. He stated three fundamental qualitative differences between the topics of interest of the social and natural sciences:

1. “social structures, unlike natural structures, do not exist independently of the activities they govern”

2. “social structures, unlike natural structures, do not exist independently of the agents’ conceptions of what they are doing in their activity”

3. “social structures, unlike natural structures, may be only relatively enduring (so that the tendencies they ground may not be universal in the sense of space-time invariant)” (Bhaskar 1989: 79)

These statements attempt to clarify the limits of social scientific endeavors in emulating the natural sciences in adjudicating and determining the truthfulness and nature of the knowledge(s) that they claim.

__________

* From Colin Hay’s Political Analysis: A Critical Introduction

[markalanfoster-blog]

Truly fascinating

Dialectical Libertarianism, i.e. the construction of a pseudo–Bhaskarian libertarianism, namely, a form of U.S. libertarianism (Chris Matthew Sciabarra)

It reminds me of of my late best friend telling me that, in his teens, he was simultaneously a Randian Objectivist and a Zen Buddhist. Eventually, he recognized the problem.

[markalanfoster-blog]

Claude Lévi–Strauss vs. Roy Bhaskar

The sociology of storytelling is a useful methodology. Regrettably, the two authors of “The Sociology of Storytelling,” while pointing to its compatibility with structuralist cultural sociologies, do not specify which ones. I have discovered three of them.

The first, and most likely, contender may be Jeffrey C. Alexander’s strong program. It makes mechanistic quā interactionist modifications to Claude Lévi–Strauss’ structural anthropology. Contrā the Lévi–Straussian linguistic model of structure, Roy Bhaskar’s and mine differ considerably.

The two additional, and apparently unrelated, structuralist cultural sociologies are included in my compilation on the sociology of storytelling. But the issue may be moot. The sociology of storytelling works quite well, in my view, with critical realism.

A Project in Bhaskarian Critical Realism

[edwordsmyth]

David Wengrow: THE THIRD FREEDOM - 3rd Annual David Graeber Memorial Lecture

[jcgosj]

ARE YOU LEADING A DOUBLE LIFE?

ARE YOU LEADING A DOUBLE LIFE?

This reflection is based on Luke 16:10-13. Today’s Gospel warns us against leading double lives. We’re accustomed to the term “double life” as referring to people with secret lives: The nerdy newspaper photographer with an alter ego hidden in that superhero costume underneath his shirt; the well-respected public servant engaged in an extra-marital affair; the closeted anti-gay activist; or the…

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[stuartelden]

Graham Scambler on Roy Bhaskar (1944-2014)

Graham Scambler on Roy Bhaskar (1944-2014)

Graham Scambler has a good discussion of the work of Roy Bhaskar, who died recently.

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[lashawill]

Roy Bhaskar - A Realist Theory of Science

The second point to stress is that propositions in ontology cannot be established independently of an account of science. On the contrary, they can only be established by reference to such an account, or at least to an account of certain scientific activities. However, it will be contended that this essential order of analysis, viz. science→being, reverses the real nature of dependency (or, we could say, the real burden of contingency). For it is not the fact that science occurs that gives the world a structure such that it can be known by men. Rather, it is the fact that the world has such a structure that makes science, whether or not it actually occurs, possible. That is to say, it is not the character of science that imposes a determinate pattern or order on the world; but the order of the world that, under certain determinate conditions, makes possible the cluster of activities we call ‘science’. It does not follow from the fact that the nature of the world can only be known from (a study of) science, that its nature is determined by (the structure of) science. Propositions in ontology, i.e. about being, can only be established by reference to science. But this does not mean that they are disguised, veiled or otherwise elliptical propositions about science. What I shall characterize in a moment as the ‘epistemic fallacy’ consists in assuming that, or arguing as if, they are.