Plato Etc: The Problems of Philosophy and their Resolution

234 Pages·2009·6.446 MB·English

by  Roy Bhaskar

Plato Etc.
Problems of Philosophy and their Resolution
In this concise text, Roy Bhaskar sets out to diagnose, explain and resolve the ‘problems of
philosophy’. Plato Etc. reviews all the main areas of the subject: the theory of knowledge
and philosophy of science; the philosophy of logic and language; the philosophies of space,
time and causality; the philosophy of the social and life sciences and of dialectic; ethics,
politics and aesthetics; and the history and sociology of philosophy.
Among the issues discussed are the problems of induction and universals, the question
of relativism, Heidegger’s ‘scandal of philosophy’ (the search for a proof of the reality
of the external world), the nature of moral truth and the conundrum of free will and
determinism. The last two chapters consist of a synoptic account of the development of
Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics to poststructuralism.
Plato Etc. seeks to revindicate the philosophical project, and to demonstrate that the
author’s ‘dialectical critical realism’ has the categorial power to remedy the problem fields
of philosophy. The book serves both as a critical introduction to philosophy and as an
invaluable resource for the scholar.
Roy Bhaskar is the originator of the philosophy of critical realism, and the author of many
other acclaimed and influential works including A Realist Theory of Science, The Possibility
of Naturalism, Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, Redaiming Reality, Dialectic:
The Pulse of Freedom and Reflections on meta-Reality. He is also an editor of Critical
Realism: Essential Readings. He was the founding chair of the Centre for Critical Realism
and is currently a World Scholar at the University of London Institute of Education.
A new introduction to this edition by Mervyn Hartwig, founding editor of the Journal
of Critical Realism and editor of the Dictionary of Critical Realism (Routledge 2007),
expertly describes the main themes of Plato Etc., and assesses their significance in the
context of the development of Roy Bhaskar’s thought.
Mervyn Hartwig is founding editor of the Journal of Critical Realism and the author of A
Dictionary of Critical Realism.
Classical Texts in Critical Realism
Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom
Roy Bhaskar
Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation
Roy Bhaskar
A Realist Theory of Science
Roy Bhaskar
Plato Etc.
Roy Bhaskar
Forthcoming:
Reclaiming Reality
Roy Bhaskar
Plato Etc.
Problems of Philosophy
and their Resolution
Roy Bhaskar
With a new introduction by
Mervyn Hartwig
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First edition published 1994
by Verso
This edition first published 2010
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
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© 2010 Roy Bhaskar
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bhaskar, Roy, 1944–
Plato etc.: problems of philosophy and their resolution/Roy Bhaskar.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-56371-0 (hard copy: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-415-45492-6 (paper copy: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-203-86006-9 (electronic copy: alk. paper)
1. Philosophy. 2. Critical realism. I. Title.
B5134.B483P572010
100–dc22
2009030420
ISBN 0-203-86006-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10:0-415-56371-2 (hbk)
ISBN10:0-415-45492-1 (pbk)
ISBN10:0-203-86006-3 (ebk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-56371-0 (hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-45492-6 (pbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-86006-9 (ebk)
TO
MICHAEL AND CAROL
THOMAS AND OLIVER
JESSIE, ANNIE AND ROSIE
Contents

INTRODUCTION ix
PREFACE xxiii

1 IS PHILOSOPHY WORTH IT? 1
§1 The Life-and-Death Struggle 1
§2 The Problematicity of Philosophy 5
§3 Further Illustrations 10
2 EXPLANATION AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 14
§1 Scientific Explanation 14
§2 The Generalization of the Problem of Induction 22
§3 T he Collapse of the Arch and the Consequences

of Actualism 27
3 REFERENCE, TRUTH AND MEANING 34
§1 The Linguistic Turn and the Inexorability of Realism 34
§2 T he Critique of Ontological Monovalence and the Problems

of Philosophy 40
§3 Truth, Judgement and Consistency 46
4 CAUSALITY, CHANGE AND EMERGENCE 50
§1 Space, Time and Causality 50
§2 Emergence and Totality 54
§3 Causality and Contradiction 61
5 MAKING IT HAPPEN (SOCIAL AGENCY) 67
§1 The Problem of Naturalism and the Nature of Society 67
§2 Problems of Agency 75
§3 Alienation and the Problem of Value 81
Contents vii
6 DIALECTIC 87
§1 Hegelian Dialectic 87
§2 Marxian Dialectic 94
§3 On the Real Definition of Dialectic 99
7 LIVING WELL 107
§1 T he Practical Presuppositions of Agency and Discourse 107
§2 The Axiology of Freedom 112
§3 Aesthetics, Politics, Ethics—and Economics 116
8 DIALECTICAL CRITICAL REALISM 123
§1 T he Nature and Derivability of Dialectical Critical Realism 123
§2 Dialectics of Dialectical Critical Realism 126
§3 The Implications of Irrealism 129
9 SOCRATES AND SO ON? 134
§1 The Ancient World 134
§2 The Consolidation of Epistemology 141
§3 T he Humean Turntable I: The Positivist, Perspectivist and
149
Hermeneutical Traditions
10 PHILOSOPHY AND THE DIALECTIC OF EMANCIPATION 154
§1 The Humean Turntable II: The Critical Tradition 154
§2 Counter-Conduct 160
§3 Philosophy and the Dialectic of Emancipation 162
APPENDIX: EXPLAINING PHILOSOPHIES 167
§1 Philosophies as Social Ideologies 167
§2 On the Metacritique of Philosophy 176
§3 On the Problems of Philosophy and Their Real Resolution 181

NOTES 190
GLOSSARY 194
INDEX 203
INVITATION TO THE READER
Come in, be bold: there are gods here too.
ATTRIBUTED TO HERACLITUS, c. 490 BC
Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia are all present.
ROSE: …Did I ever tell you the story about Herde Shornbohrst?…Well most of you
remember he was St Olaf’s most famous shepherd. Well, Herde used to say,
you can have a hundred sheep and if one goes astray, that’s the one you go
look for. Especially if it’s the best-looking one. [Rose exits
DOROTHY: Rose has got to find some new role models.
The Golden Girls, ‘Comedy of Errors’, 1991
Touchstone Pictures and Television
Introduction
Great storms often leave in their wake an appearance of serene and luminous plenitude that
the receding turbulence only serves to enhance.1 Plato Etc.: Problems of Philosophy and
their Resolution was written in the calm after the storm of Dialectic (and, we can see in
retrospect, before the epistemological dialectic presaging the storm of the spiritual turn).
Its mood is one of great assurance, its touch relatively light. It offers a recapitulation and
meta-reflexive contextualisation in a (relatively) accessible form of the second wave of
critical realism (which constellationally contains the first) and, especially via a totalising
metacritique of the western philosophical tradition and the rational resolution of its
pervasive problematicity, an extended argument for its validity and for the possibility of a
eudaimonistic society.
This argument takes three basic forms, here as elsewhere (see pp. 40–41).2 (1) First
and most importantly, transcendental arguments for realist positions which simultaneously
function as transcendental refutations of irrealist ones ‘and metacritically allow the
exposure of their effects’. A metacritique includes immanent critique, which typically
1
turns on theory-practice inconsistency, and proceeds by identifying the absence of some
transcendentally necessary category or concept underlying the inconsistency (for example,
the absence of a concept of natural necessity underlies the theory-practice inconsistency
of the sceptic who has no objection in theory to leaving the building by the second-
floor window but always in practice leaves by the ground floor). A metacritique or
2
totalising explanatory critique additionally explains the absence by reference (a) to the
intrinsic dynamics of the relevant philosophical formation, conceived of as relatively
autonomous from its social context, showing how it plays a vital role in the generation and
reproduction of some theory problem-field solution set or Tina compromise formation;
and (b) (more fundamentally) to its resonance or causal intra-relation with that context
in the extrinsic aspect, both synchronically or structurally and diachronically.3 In short,
metacritique identifies systematic categorial error; a metacritique additionally explains it.
1 2
Since the social context of the western philosophical tradition has always been structured
fundamentally by master-slave-type or power relations, insofar as the explanation is in
2
terms of resonance effects with this context, metacritique offers powerful diagnostic clues
2
both to the roots of social problems and to the endemic problematicity of philosophy itself.
A metacritique will thus reveal both the intrinsic dynamic of a philosophical formation
2
and the rootededness of its prevailing problematicity and oppositionality/dualism in social
oppositions or contradictions, and will see the real resolution of the problems of philosophy
as residing ultimately in the practical transformation of the fundamental causes of social
problems and contradictions. (2) Second, within this framework of transcendental critique
and metacritical dialectics, reductiones ad absurdissimum of particular irrealist positions.
(3) Third, in the case of scientific realism, inductive argument from the directionality of