It was  a real pleasure to see two replies to my review. I will respond in
turn, but both replies need considered thought on my part. I will content
my self for the moment with expressing my acknowledgement and gratitude for
those who took time to read my review and I will also express the hope that
future posts will lead to a continuing dialogue and that no one out there
will grow impatient at the philosophy list actually discussing philosophy.

regards

Gary



At 21:18 14/08/99 +0000, you wrote:
>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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