From Bhaskar’s The Possibility of Naturalism:
What properties do societies possess that might make them possible objects of knowledge for us? My strategy in developing an answer to this question will be effectively based on a pincer movement. But in deploying the pincer I shall concentrate first on the ontological question of the properties that societies possess, before shifting to the epistemological question of how these properties make them possible objects of knowledge for us. This is not an arbitrary order of development. It reflects the condition that, for transcendental realism, it is the nature of objects that determines their cognitive possibilities for us; that, in nature, it is humanity that is contingent and knowledge, so to speak, accidental. Thus it is because sticks and stones are solid that they can be picked up and thrown, not because they can be picked up and thrown that they are solid (though that they can be handled in this sort of way may be a contingently necessary condition for our knowledge of their solidity). (25)
Setting aside the question of what properties societies must have to be known, here we get the basic structure of Bhaskar’s form of transcendental argument. Where the transcendental idealist begins with the question of what our minds must be like for knowledge to be possible, the transcendental realist begins with the question of what the world must be like for it to be knowable.
December 10, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I am in the midst of reading Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, and, having some familiarity (and admiration) for Bhaskar’s work, am wondering whether the duality between the idealist and materialist transcendentalist breaks down in terms of Hegel’s ontology. In other words, Hegel posits the ontologically necessary RELATION between subject and object, so that, a transformation in knowledge (a new truth) is, put very radically, a change in BOTH subject and object. So, in this sense, mind and world exist together, they are not independent entities. Any thoughts?
December 10, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Fidelite2,
For Bhaskar objects exist as they are regardless of whether any subject knows them. The act of knowing does not change them.
December 11, 2009 at 12:30 am
This much is clear, but, approaching this problem as a sociologist, doesn’t Bhaskar’s position on the transcendental existence of objects (i.e., independent of knowledge) then lead to problems in the status of knowledge of the social world, particularly the problem of reflexivity in social knowledge (which Bhaskar acknowledges somewhere, if I am not mistaken). That is, if one discovers a truth about the social order (the existence of a causal structure), does not then that truth potentially change the social order itself (i.e., where Bhaskar finds the emancipatory potential of social science)? It seems that this kind of ontology, in which objects exist independently of knowledge, while one could argue that in the case of the natural world (given that structures are ‘intransitive’, i.e. they not historically dependent, but produce causal effects durably over long stretches of time), would not hold for the social world, given that social structures and social action are dependent upon human consciousness, even if that consciousness (as in Marx’s critique of capitalism) is partial and inadequate, that is, “ideological”? But the position, I would argue, would be problematic for the natural world as well (even if we can stick to this potentially problematic nature/society dichotomy) because scientific knowledge of the natural world does not simply bring into consciousness independent objects which were out there and pre-existed knowledge, but also transforms the relationship between humanity and nature, both conceptually and in practice (think about our present predicament with the environment, the ethical implications of bioengineering, the emergence of quantum physics and our view of physical reality etc.). I believe that this is what Latour extensively argues, for example, when he asks whether there were microbes before Pasteur (in Pandora’s Hope [1999]). It seems inescapable that scientific knowledge not only brings to consciousness pre-existing (transitive or intransitive) objects that exist somewhere safely in a transcendental realm, but, as a result of the process of discovery, radically transforms the nature of consciousness and (consequently) the relationship between knowledge and its object, and, by implication, the object itself, given that the object of knowledge exists as an object of consciousness, i.e., as a concept which ACTS on the world.
I am not trying to be polemical, nor to take an anti-realist or purely constructivist position, but I am trying to determine if there is something of significance in Hegel’s ontology in terms of his critique of Kant in PS, in which case it would seem to me that Bhaskar would be closer to Kant, while Latour in some ways closer to Hegel.
December 11, 2009 at 12:52 am
Fidelite,
Yes, that’s right. For Bhaskar social objects and natural objects differ in that the former are dependent on humans whereas the latter are not. I’m in a bit of a hurry here as I’m still mired in grading (till Monday damn it), so I can’t comment too deeply. Once I figure out what exactly he’s arguing in this connection vis a vis social structures or objects I’ll try to throw a post up about it. At any rate, for Bhasker social structures are “intrasitive” to the will of individuals (they’re objective structures) but they only exist in and through their performance. From where I’m sitting the issue of the relationship between ideologies and genuine social structures is extremely complicated. Ideologies are, on the one hand, real things with real effects, but they are nonetheless distortions of the genuine generative mechanisms or social structures that make up the social world (remember Bhaskar argues that the domain of the social is the domain not of individuals or persons, but of relations and relations between relations that, as it were, regulate and organize human behavior). Now the question of whether sociological knowledge transforms its object by clearing away ideological is not straightforward. Perhaps critique is a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient. Real work is required to change the structure of relations in the social system. Here, then, I think would be one point at which Bhaskar’s sociological theory diverges from Hegel. The cognition of the object (social structures) does not in and of itself change that object.
Bhaskar (and myself and I think Harman too) would disagree with Latour’s thesis regarding microbes. You write:
I agree that discovery fundamentally transforms consciousness of the object, but it does not follow from this that it transforms the object. The object is a condition for knowledge and therefore must pre-exist that knowledge. The knowledge of the object is contingent and accidental. In other words, the being of the object is not dependent upon consciousness. I can’t rehearse these arguments right now, though you’ll find some discussion of them if you do a search for Bhaskar on this blog (I only recently introduced a “Roy Bhaskar” tag so all the posts won’t come up if you hit on the tag). The work to read here if you haven’t read it already is A Realist Theory of Science. There he shows why the intransitive objects cannot be reduced to our consciousness of them and our knowledge producing practices remain coherent or intelligible. Agreed with your claim that Latour is closer to Hegel.
December 12, 2009 at 7:31 pm
[sorry for my english]
Levi,
I agree: “In to other words, the Imaginary and the Symbolic have been the privileged site of emancipatory criticizes in Continental social and political thought”. Would be a good work to show how the objects that we consider “symbolic” or “imaginary” are also real. Because the misunderstanding is to believe that its thesis is: the three orders are radically separate. Can be the case of, in a determined phenomenon, each order to be denoted for a distinct object, but I don’t believe that must be like this. It’s possible an object has three faces, to remember its example of borromean knot.
Thank you!
December 13, 2009 at 4:03 am
Levi:
Good post. I have been thinking about OOO as it might render a new way to think about aesthetics — you may have discussed this elsewhere, but I haven’t seen it.
Watching a documentary about conducting Mahler, and hearing the various impressions and interpretations and readings of Mahler’s vast works, I couldn’t help but think of your approach of transcendental realism and how it would apply to musical objects. The question would seem to be one of what must the music be like, in itself, in order to have the kinds of translations, or knowledge, of the music that we do. Surely a symphony, though dependent on individuals to perform it, is an intransitive object in the same way a linguistic or biological object would be, yes? These may be primitive questions, but I think that this transcendental realism may be posed to do some fascinating work in the realm of aesthetics. I am considering especially the way in which it might be able to consider all forms of actors which determine the musical object, which would certainly come to include many non-musical actors, such as financial subsidies and the politics involved, recording practices and technologies as well as venues, acoustics, marketing, availability, types of instruments, playback technology, etc. OOO seems like it would be able to see many more parts to the musical object than are often suggested, and be able to show how, like the internet and SR itself, how non-aesthetic actors do become, or are already a part, of aesthetic objects themselves. Just a thought.