From: Keyman <[log in to unmask]>
Let me first say that I enjoyed the review, being clear and concise and
offering a strong polemic. that said, these comments are critical but
hopefully not hostile.
Firstly my criticisms come in terms of the practice of a review such as
this. The title, 'the necessity of critical realism' indicated the
polemical tone that then lead throughout but at no point did any real
_necessity_ seem to be posited. the only necessity seemed to be one of, how
shall I put it, the necessity of a better account. which of course leaves
the question of the necessity of this 'betterness', why exactly critical
realism would be a necessary alternative rather than, precisely, a
contingent one determined by ends desired -- in this case an ability to
account for questions of truth, or rather 'objectivity, realism and truth'.
it would seem that to exact a criticism of a work on documentaries on
purely philosophical grounds -- that it didn't give an account of
objectivity, realism and truth, would seem to be a little unfair since such
accounts are themselves complex and convoluted issues which, if they were
the focus of a work, would undoubtedly force the work to deal primarily
with philosophical problems rather than filmic. In essence it seems to me
impractical to criticise a work for its lack of a philosophical basis that
stands upon a 'correct account' of objectivity, reality and truth. At best
the work can be criticised immanently for a failure to develop coherent
theory or conclusions about documentary and to merely reduce such failures
to a failure of philosophy is to lose the work, it seems to me, that is
being reviewed in the first place. That said the review offered itself as a
polemic and so such accounts may be made for other reasons. These would be,
no doubt, the continued putting forward of a particular philosophical
debate. It seems that in doing so, however, the review moves from a role in
reviewing to a role in a philosophical debate. There is no reason filmic
work should not spark such discussions however so I will turn briefly to
some questions and troubles presented by the philosophy.
so secondly, criticisms of the philosophy. here a brief note. this could no
doubt be a discussion that is considered by many 'off-topic' on this list
and if so I apologise and perhaps we can continue any discussion off-list.
there is also the role of the Bhaskarian enterprise. recently it seems
there has been an increased interest in Bhaskar's work and it is gradually
beginning to filter into domains in which I read my philosophy. every now
and then a Bhaskarian pops up and gives an account which quite often shares
the same sort of polemical stance offering Bhaskar's critical realism as an
alternative. in fact I first came across Bhaskarians in such a role some
ten years ago whilst involved in political activity. I have yet to really
bother to get to grips with Bhaskar, not least because I found his
convoluted and debilitatingly difficult prose to be, to be polite, boring.
that is just a personal preference though and no doubt others would find
writers I like -- Deleuze, Blanchot, Nietzsche, Emerson -- to be just as
boring, complex, interminable or whatever. this is to try and offer my own
'prejudices' so it is clear, if you like, 'where I am coming from'. though
not thinking of myself as a 'postmodern irrationalist' perhaps I would come
into this set in Bhaskarian terms.
so some questions, perhaps some comments. but on the philosophy more than
the book it must be said.
having suggested that Kilborn and Izod use a 'Nietzschean perspectivism'
which doesn't allow us to account for what it is we clash over when
perspectives differ (different perspectives on a single object, which
incidentally is a doubtful account of Nietzsche, let alone the Husserlian
notion of adumbrational objects). MacLennan then goes on . . .
'I would argue that a better way to proceed is to retain the word 'reality'
and to define it in the Critical Realist manner as consisting 'of partially
interconnected hierarchies of levels, in which any element e at a level L
is in principle subject to the possibilities of causal determination by and
of higher-order, lower-order and extra-order (extraneous) effects, besides
those defining it as an element of L (including those individuating it as
an e)'.' (Bhaskar, _Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation_, p. 106.)
now perhaps there are some things I am just simply missing here but this
'def.' seems to me to simply say 'everything effects everything including
those outside any order in which the element is posited in the first place.
this seems, philosophically, such a vague and loose concept of 'reality' as
to be useless. what, here, would be 'unreal' for example? I'm afraid I
don't see what problems this formulation solves. it appears to posit an
infinitely variable connectivity which by its nature must therefore be
indeterminable (owing to its infinite nature) and which would thus
undermine any attempts to achieve an account of causality that is anything
other than contingent (i.e.; someone might argue that given that there are
_in fact_ infinitely many possible causes we will isolate causes X and Y
because such causes enable us to understand the effect _enough_ for a
certain task to be achieved).
MacLennan slightly later says
'But they [Kilborn and Izod] lack an ontology other than that of subjective
idealism and so they cannot motivate judgemental rationality, that is they
are unable to explain why we should prefer one account over another or why
in other words one documentary would be more truthful than another.'
Surely the same problem occurs to MacLennan's account however? How is this
'ontology' established other than by being posited _beforehand_, as
necessary to achieve truth and objectivity, and thus such an objectivity is
a presupposed axiom (hardly, therefore, itself 'objective'). if the grounds
of an objective account are a particular ontology then what are the grounds
for this ontology? the problem of grounding, not itself reducible to simply
an 'epistemic' problem, is something that seems simply avoided here. at
least that's how it seems to me at the moment. perhaps there is some
Bhaskarian move that can be added at that point.
This question also seems to come up later when MacLennan says
'To repeat, the solution to Kilborn and Izod's dilemma is to adapt an
non-anthropic ontology, and to recognise that epistemic relativism is not
incompatible with judgemental rationality.'
Does he mean here 'adopt' rather than 'adapt'? In either case it seems to
suffer from the sort of problem I have mentioned. To simply 'adopt' an
ontology seems also, incredibly so, highly anthropocentric. Surely the
ontology would have to be _forced_ upon anthopic reality rather than
adopted, indeed this hunt for what would be most against our reason --
because our reason is precisely anthropocentric through being _ours_ -- is
precisely what Nietzsche initiated or at least elaborated. at least it
would be for me.
Later still on a slightly different note
'Let me take the specific example where I would argue that the Bhaskarian
notion of Alethia, truth as the reason for things not propositions, can
contribute to dissolving a long-standing theoretical impasse.'
How is this use of the term 'alethia' motivated and how are the differences
with the Heideggerian account, where this turn to truth as alethia is
central, defined?
Later still, in terms of reflexivity . . .
'What is urgently needed is a fuller definition of reflexivity which is not
confined to stylistic features where the filmmaker monitors and accounts
for her activity. We need to go beyond this basic level to take into
account the Bhaskarian notion of a meta-reflexive self-totalisation in
which the filmmaker because she is a stratified agent can not only let us
know she is making a film but can also insert her filmic practice
critically within a totality. But that is a story for another day.'
Indeed. Wouldn't the 'meta' in the 'meta-reflexive' presumably have to be
radically different from the first order reflexivity since it's status
could not be accounted for by a further 'meta' level but would have to be
self-giving. As such it would be a curious account and one I had not heard
anyone yet given adequately, but then that would probably be my own
ignorance. The question would be, if you like, how would the 'meta' level
avoid _exactly the same problems_ of each reflexive level (i.e.; how is the
problem of recursion avoided?)
I could perhaps go on but that would be to extend an already overly long
reply. I'm not even sure how possible it is to engage with an 'already
formulated position' except as a sceptic and perhaps it is this closure
that seems to be posited by Bhaskarians that is the real worry underlying
these sort of accounts. as though someone really had found some answers and
even still believed that the job of philosophy was to give answers rather
than to think through 'things'. at that stage we might find we weren't even
doing the same thing.
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