Quetzil here is the well anticipated backlash response. Oh the naivety of some.
Quetzil, returns to a thread that was never settled. I can already here the
groans!!! 'Oh no not this again! Still, I will use his own words to
illuminate his own humanist arrogance and his conflating of epistemology
with ontology, as an instance of what somewhat quite rightly asserted,
Bhaskar calls the 'epistemic fallacy'. I think I will even quote Bhaskar
here just to throw some light on Quetzils proto-positvism.
"Empirical realism is underpinned by a metaphysical dogma, which I shall
call the epistemic fallacy, that statements about being can always be
transposed into statements about our knowledge of being. As ontology cannot,
it is argued, be reduced to epistemology this mistake merely covers the
generation of an implicit ontology based on the category of experience; and
an implicit realism based on the presumed characteristics of the objects of
experience, viz. atomistic events, and their relations, viz. constant
conjunctions." (Roy Bhaskar, 'A Realist Theory of Science', Harvester, 1978)
Does Quetzil commit this error?
>its not the existence of trees that makes wooden tables. nor houses made of
>wood. nor the existence of quarks that makes atom bombs, nor does it make
>the theories of quarks. it is humans in forms of social collectivity that
>make these "things".
If this isn't Russell's 'subjectivist madness' I don't know what is. What
about the things that make possible these things? Humans in their social
collectivities do not 'make' quarks, they utilise quarks and other things to
make certain other things. By reducing the real to that which humans make
Quetzil displays his lack of ontological depth and implicit empirical realism.
I also still didn't get a reply about the bombi-ness of feathers. Still,
this won't worry Quetzil, he's probably convinced himself I don't exist. A
sociological theory of Disneyworld Murphy has called it recently. Good ploy
for those in power though, as anyone in Britain watching the debate on
poverty will tell you. Did you know there is no such thing as poverty in
Britain now. Why? because government ministers decreed it so. The 'speech
act' has been uttered. We have made it go away. Good isn't it. Quetzil
supplies the final nail in the coffin though when he uses as an example a
piece of _science fiction_ to bolster his arguments (if this is the right
word). As one of my colleagues is prone to remind us theorists and amateur
philosophers: 'all this theory and the bodies keep piling up'. Again, won't
worry Quetzil though. They aren't 'really there'.
Bye!
--------------------------------------------------------
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------
Quetzil, returns to a thread that was never settled. I can already here the
groans!!! 'Oh no not this again! Still, I will use his own words to
illuminate his own humanist arrogance and his conflating of epistemology
with ontology, as an instance of what somewhat quite rightly asserted,
Bhaskar calls the 'epistemic fallacy'. I think I will even quote Bhaskar
here just to throw some light on Quetzils proto-positvism.
"Empirical realism is underpinned by a metaphysical dogma, which I shall
call the epistemic fallacy, that statements about being can always be
transposed into statements about our knowledge of being. As ontology cannot,
it is argued, be reduced to epistemology this mistake merely covers the
generation of an implicit ontology based on the category of experience; and
an implicit realism based on the presumed characteristics of the objects of
experience, viz. atomistic events, and their relations, viz. constant
conjunctions." (Roy Bhaskar, 'A Realist Theory of Science', Harvester, 1978)
Does Quetzil commit this error?
>its not the existence of trees that makes wooden tables. nor houses made of
>wood. nor the existence of quarks that makes atom bombs, nor does it make
>the theories of quarks. it is humans in forms of social collectivity that
>make these "things".
If this isn't Russell's 'subjectivist madness' I don't know what is. What
about the things that make possible these things? Humans in their social
collectivities do not 'make' quarks, they utilise quarks and other things to
make certain other things. By reducing the real to that which humans make
Quetzil displays his lack of ontological depth and implicit empirical realism.
I also still didn't get a reply about the bombi-ness of feathers. Still,
this won't worry Quetzil, he's probably convinced himself I don't exist. A
sociological theory of Disneyworld Murphy has called it recently. Good ploy
for those in power though, as anyone in Britain watching the debate on
poverty will tell you. Did you know there is no such thing as poverty in
Britain now. Why? because government ministers decreed it so. The 'speech
act' has been uttered. We have made it go away. Good isn't it. Quetzil
supplies the final nail in the coffin though when he uses as an example a
piece of _science fiction_ to bolster his arguments (if this is the right
word). As one of my colleagues is prone to remind us theorists and amateur
philosophers: 'all this theory and the bodies keep piling up'. Again, won't
worry Quetzil though. They aren't 'really there'.
Bye!
--------------------------------------------------------
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------