Roy Bhaskar and Critical Realism.

[Oswy]

Is anyone familiar? Is it worth delving into his ideas? Any criticisms?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In my opinion, no.

It is just yet more a priori dogmatics, with a Marxist hue added.

[Hit The North]

Well, in the Wiki article on him, this is given as an example of his writing style (although there is no citation):

"Indeed dialectical critical realism may be seen under the aspect of Foucaultian strategic reversal - of the unholy trinity of Parmenidean/Platonic/Aristotelean provenance; of the Cartesian-Lockean-Humean-Kantian paradigm, of foundationalisms (in practice, fideistic foundationalisms) and irrationalisms (in practice, capricious exercises of the will-to-power or some other ideologically and/or psycho-somatically buried source) new and old alike; of the primordial failing of western philosophy, ontological monovalence, and its close ally, the epistemic fallacy with its ontic dual; of the analytic problematic laid down by Plato, which Hegel served only to replicate in his actualist monovalent analytic reinstatement in transfigurative reconciling dialectical connection, while in his hubristic claims for absolute idealism he inaugurated the Comtean, Kierkegaardian and Nietzschean eclipses of reason, replicating the fundament of positivism through its transmutation route to the super-idealism of a Baudrillard."

So if you're intent on studying him, all I can say, is "Good luck!" :D

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

For once, I agree with Z!

Bhaskar's 'Dialectic: The Pulse of Reality' is unreadable.

Andrew Collier's work is readable, but hopelessly superficial.

[JimFar]

Even worse is Bhaskar's 2000 book, From East to West: The Odyssey of a Soul, in which the philosopher announced that he had found God.

As Gary MacLennan , who had been something of a Bhaskar affectionado put it:

http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]m/msg16254.html

"He found God. Worst of all it was a very down market god, nothing more than your common or garden New Age variety, the type readily available at any incense saturated shop frequented by a Shirley MacLaine or Nancy Reagan."

Since it is said that his parents were Theosophists, I suppose that this shouldn't have come as any great surprise.

I, myself, have some of his earlier books, which are pretty impenetrable, although not quite as much as his later work. His most readable writings that I am aware of are the philosophy articles that he contributed to A Dictionary of Marxist Thought which was edited by Tom Bottomore.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Yes, I thought about pointing that out, Jim; he just swapped one form of mysticism for another.

His 'god-seeking' shocked the Critical Realists, but it was always implicit in his Hegelianism.

Hegel, of course, was a proto-theosophist (the German Romantics were all influenced by the likes of Swedenbourg, Oetinger and de St Martin).

[RevolverNo9]

One of my good friends (who was taught by Collier at Southampton) is always insisting I read Bhaskar (NOT the later, mystical stuff!), but somehow I never feel the compulsion. No-one has yet to persuade me otherwise.

Apparently Collier left the SWP because it wasn't open enough for intellectuals!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that Revolver -- yes he left in the 1980s sometime.

[gilhyle]

got about half way through a quite careful reading of his original book 'A Realist Theory of Science' and skipped though some of his other books. Firstly, his original work was not Hegelian. His background was in structuralism and French thought. Whether his book on 'Dialectics: Pulse of Freedom' marked an adoption of Hegel I cant say definitively but my memory is that he considered himself to have surpassed Hegel with a different view.

His style is incredibly obscurantist. He believes strongly that it is necessary to invent terms, but he tends to invent terms at exactly those points where he needs to be most clear in order to establish that he actually has an argument worth making. Thus his work remains philosophhically obscure at all its key points.

He is also a very schematic writer, seeing everything in topographical terms...and hugely repetitive. Reading him involves spending a lot of time getting into his way of looking at things.

The problem I could never get over is that his 'realist' theory of science constantly plays on an ambiguity as to whether he is involved in answering the classical modern philosophical question of certainty or whether he is involved in some sort of post modern construction of a 'necessary myth'.

Essentially he SEEMS to be arguing that we cannot believe in science or rely on experimentation without believing in an independent external world. Now if this was an argument about Descartian doubt it would just miss the point.

Alternatively he might be saying we have no capacity for consistent relativism without abandoning reliance on experiment. But if that is what he is saying, the point is quite banal and not nearly as conclusive as he thinks.

All in all, it doesnt seem to amount to much, but there is a huge effort involved in getting there. He seems to be one of those people who think they have resolved thousands of years of philosophical debate, as if philosophy was some sort of puzzle any individual could 'solve'

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Compared to Hegel, he is a model of clarity, though...:rolleyes:

[gilhyle]

I had another look at some of his later books....havent got the religious stuff. For someone who wants to read him, I found the chapter on dialectics in Plato Etc. just about accessible. Its about 25 pages long and gives the gist of his dialectical position. You will need to read it slowly !