Roy Bhaskar's Life and Work

I've been sitting down with Roy's book The Order of Natural Necessity for the past couple Saturday mornings to start my day, and here I'll compile the notes I've taken. I'd originally sent these to Paul, and he requested I post them here for everyone to review.

Part 2 of my Notes is in this post.
Review Part 1 of my Notes by following this link.

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Notes for Chapter 2, continued.

TO SUM IT UP:
Beliefs and knowledge can be put forth by someone, and these may not be accurate to actual reality. They may not be accurate because while the Referent is at the core of reality, people can present knowledge and have beliefs that are not based on Reality, and instead have them based on what they personally sense (like when making an observation) or experience. Deeper knowledge of reality entails continuing one's investigations beyond one's own senses, beyond one's own experiences, beyond one's own social circle and culture. Bhaskar details a kind of scientific method here, to help someone avoid settling on what's derived only from their senses or their experiences, and instead more accurately describes reality.

Stephen's editorial: this segment of the chapter reminds me a lot of the description of the classic Scientific Method. You notice something, ask a question, create an experiment to formulate an answer, make observations, then see if the outcomes are consistent over time and in repeated experiments. Bhaskar's acronym to describe this process is below.

MORE DETAILS:
In addition to the six components of Basic Critical Realism/BCR, there are three concepts that Bhaskar considers "The Holy Trinity of BCR."

1. Ontological Realism: a realism about the world.
2. Epistemological Relativity: knowledge and beliefs are relative, and so are socially-produced, fallible, and at times changeable and unchanging.
3. Judgmental Rationality: we can make good arguments that make the case for a set of beliefs or theories about the world.

Experiments cannot tell us everything about the world, because the world is an open system, not a closed system. To devise an experiment, a controlled environment is common (so that accurate observations can be made), and this is very likely not an accurate representation of reality.

Experiments focus on the Actual (an event: "The Domain of the Actual") and do not rely on the "Domain of the Real," to be considered successful/accurate/repeatable.

Personal experiences focus on the "Domain of the Empirical," emerging from our senses, and also don't rely on the Domain of the Real.

At the same time, the Domain of the Real is the origin of these events and acts, as well as the reason we're capable of perceiving them through our senses. These events and acts, and our ability to perceive them, are emergent properties of the Domain of the Real.

Emergence: Once you have one thing, you can then have another thing come from that. This emergent thing is distinct, discrete, and can also make a change in the world. Bhaskar uses "the mind" as an example of an emergent property.

The mind is an emergent property of the body because:
- it is dependent on the presence of a body. "...you do not have, as far as you know, mind without bodies."
- it does things the body cannot do: have motives, intentions and intentionality, reason, plans, purposes, etc. beyond the body.
- it causes changes in the material world. Causes bodies to take action and to do things that impact the material world.

How do you move from the Domain of the Empirical, to the Domain of the Actual, and finally to the Domain of the Real? Bhaskar created an acronym to describe the process of going from the level of the senses to the level of the real: DREIC.

D = Description: "The first act of science." To describe the thing as accurately as possible.

R = Retroduction: list as many possible explanations for the phenomena that you can devise.

E = Elimination: "rule out" as many possible explanations as you are able.

I = Identification: settle on a single possible explanation because you believe it to be the most accurate and consistent with the Domain of the Real, with reality.

C = Correction: If needed, adapt and modify your explanation so as to further its accuracy and exactness.

...To be continued...

Roy says:

"The aim of critical realism is to remove the rubbish that prevents us from knowing the world.  This presupposes that there is some rubbish there.   I think most people who have any experience, actually living, are aware that we are surrounded by our systems of thoughts and beliefs which leave much to be desired and effectively act as obstacles to gaining knowledge of the world. "

Introduction to Critical Realism: Part One - Transcendental Realism

"The first part of: An Introduction to Critical Realism, recorded during a live session at the Institute for Education, hosted by Gary Hawke of Alethic Coaching, and led by Professor Roy Bhaskar.

In this first part Roy Bhaskar covers the first movement in critical realism, a Realist Theory of Science and transcendental realism. This covers the project of Lockean underlabouring, science, the revindication of ontology, the new ontology put forward by critical realism, induction, and retroduction."

Perhaps this might be valuable to other's who are new to Roy Bhaskar but here is a quick snippet explaining Critical Realism from the man himself.



I find listening to him as well as reading is helping my understanding. It can be a bit to digest but I am getting there.

Bhaskar about the "qualities of the ground state" (of our being), which is our "transcendentally real self":

1M Will, Consciousness, Energy

2E Creativity

4D Right Action

He also adds: 5A Reflextive Praxis

From " The Order of Natural Necessity":

... In the world of pre-modernity the peasants may have lived on the first floor of a building but the cattle and animals lived on the ground floor, and metaphorically they saw themselves as part of a chain of being stretching from perhaps inorganic beings through plants, animals, human beings to the enlightened ancestors to angels up to God or gods".

From "The order of natural Necessity"

... Let us have a look at social structure first, well, economic crisis so we have a fiscal financial crisis, it is arguable that what needs to happen is money and the financial structures need to be re-embedded within what could be called the real economy of people working and producing goods and service that are valued by other people.

If we look at ecology, another huge source of crisis, at the level of material transactions with nature, I think it is absolutely unarguable that what we need is, from the point of view of the climate as a whole, less growth, that is degrowth, and degrowth coupled with a radical redistribution of income."

...Then there is the stratification of the embodied personality. What we would be seeking here is new levels and forms of integration that place the ground state in the centre of the self and allow us to work around and gradually get rid of all the non ground state things, and so become more efficient agents for our own wellbeing and the wellbeing of all'

Introduction to Critical Realism: Part Five - The Philosophy of metaReality - Roy Bhaskar YouTube talk

Stephen, that's the book in Maverick Roy, right?  I just managed to read a bit of the introductory pages while I was there.

The commentary on sensing / judging made me think of the tale of several blind (or blindfolded) people being asked to describe an elephant and their interpretations were very different depending upon the part of the elephant they touched.

Much of what is being passed off as science today is based upon modelling.  All models are wrong, but some are useful.  The outputs of a model depend on the inputs and variables accounted for in the model, but can't account for mechanisms or dependencies that aren't understood.  For example, it's only in recent decades that we've started to understand micro-biomes with reference to their role in soil or human nutrition and health.  I believe we will never have a complete understanding of the physical world around us and thus it is arrogant to presume (let alone state) that science is "settled".  

I've been sitting down with Roy's book The Order of Natural Necessity for the past few Saturday mornings to start my day, and here I'll compile the notes I've taken. I'd originally sent these to Paul, and he requested I post them here for everyone to review.

Part 3 of my Notes is in this post.
Check out Part 2 of my Notes at this link.
Start at Part 1 of my Notes by clicking here.

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Notes for Chapter 2, continued. This is from the section entitled, Critical Naturalism.

TO SUM IT UP:
Critical Naturalism is to the social sciences as Critical Realism is to the physical sciences, or scientific practice in general. A major aspect of the social sciences Bhaskar points out is that it includes a number of dualisms: a pair of related concepts that coexist and conflict with one another. In this chapter Bhaskar spends time identifying a series of dualisms and describes them in the context of his theory of Critical Naturalism. Dualisms detailed here include:
Structure & Agency
Body & Mind
Facts & Values

Details of these examples are below.

STRUCTURE & AGENCY
This is a dualism with a cyclical relationship between its two aspects. Structure is required for Agency, while Agency reinforces current, or inspires change of, current Structure(s). Some examples of this include:
- Language. Language exists so that beings can communicate with one another. Language is the Structure, communication with that language is the Agency.
If a language is not used, it "dies." Maybe a new language is developed and adopted in its stead. In this case, Agency inspires a new Structure.
- Marriage. This is a social structure in which people participate. If people no longer married, the practice would eventually die out and fade away.

In both of these cases, history and culture reinforce the current status quo, and add constraints and resistance to social change. Those who attempt to resist or replace Structures will inevitably encounter this resistance.

When one successfully replaces a previous Structure with a new or different one, then that society is transformed. Bhaskar refers to this process as the Transformational Model of Social Activity (TMSA).

BODY & MIND
Body exists first, and the Mind is an emergent power of the Body. The Mind reinforces how the Body acts in the material world. See Part 2 of my notes for details on an emergent power and Emergence.

FACTS & VALUES
When you begin to learn new facts, you become implicitly critical of opposing views. For example:
Earth-centered versus Sun-centered models of our solar system.
Round Earth/"Glober" versus Flat-Earthers.
Witchcraft versus the non-superstitious.

When you internalize these facts you change your behaviour at a social/cultural level.

Stephen's editorial: I think this is the root of cognitive dissonance. When someone learns new facts, but does not change their behaviour, cognitive dissonance grows. History and culture can act as resistant forces that oppose someone trying to change their behaviour, when it wouldn't match up with the social structures and agents of their community. I see Bhaskar's TMSA as part of the process here, as well.

SOCIAL SCIENCE HAS SEVERAL DIFFERENT LEVELS TO STUDY
Bhaskar notes that social science isn't just about these relationships that occur between people. There's more to society and how people participate in them than just these dualities. He identifies "seven levels, at least" where social phenomena occur.
1. Sub-Individual: "My motives and my unconscious."
2. Individual: "I think, therefore I am. In fact, I am a separate being from others around me."
3. Micro-social world: "How can I communicate with and cooperate with other beings, while still being an individual?"
4. Meso-social world: "If I'm a manager, how do I relate with my subordinates? If I am a politician, how do I relate with my fellow citizens or with other politicians?" [To sum it up: this is the level of general sociology and ethnomethodology.]
5. Macro-social world: "How would I describe the economy of the town or country where I live?" "What is North America?"
6. Mega-social world: "How did Islam develop?" "What is feudalism, and how did it emerge?"
7. Planetary social world: "What is this planet? What is its connection to other planets and the solar system?"

To be continued...

Critical realism even talks about ethics in kind-of the same way permaculture does.

This is the Theory of Explanatory Critique.

Roy talks about the fact/value dualism.  The idea of facts actually secreting values.  
We can ground our evaluative positions in a scientific or factual account of the world.

Roy says what is essential here is the criticality of discourse, our ability to talk things over and willingness to see things in a new way.  With new understanding comes new ideas and new actions.  

When we learn a new way of looking at the world or we gain new knowledge, we will be critical of our old ways of seeing things.  
We will also be critical of our actions that were informed by our old beliefs.
This will guide our ethics.  

Roy speaks of the natural tendency of all living things toward self-affirmation and self-preservation.   When we see things in a new way we are logically bound to stop behaving in the old way.  

To me this is like the wheaton eco scale.  It is the natural progression of things.  It does not make any sense to act in the old way when we have new understandings.
https://permies.com/t/scale


Roy goes into this idea much more deeply in his third book "Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation".
I think that is the one I want to read next!

Interesting stuff.  This guy reminds me of the good stuff from Spinoza.

Although, I find it tricky to follow when I can't get a clear definition of some of the words as they tend to have different meanings in different context.  It's more a problem with my learning style.  Is there a glossary somewhere?

r ranson wrote:Interesting stuff.  This guy reminds me of the good stuff from Spinoza.

Although, I find it tricky to follow when I can't get a clear definition of some of the words as they tend to have different meanings in different context.  It's more a problem with my learning style.  Is there a glossary somewhere?

For philosophical terms that were not created by Roy, I recommend the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

A lot of terms are defined in the sub-notes in The Order of Natural Necessity book.

I might put together a glossary of terms after I'm finished reading the Natural Necessity book, if someone hasn't beaten me to it.