The reduction of causal laws to patterns of events, a position associated with Hume and classical empiricism. Bhaskar holds by contrast that causal laws have a real existence as tendencies which generate the phenomena (events and situations) in which patterns are detected and which are subject to empirical observation or verification. The patterns are reflections of the tendencies, but the latter cannot be reduced to the former.
Bhaskar designates phenomena generated by real mechanisms and tendencies as "actual," but such mechanisms and tendencies may or may not manifest themselves in actual phenomena, depending on what else occurs (and such manifestations may or may not be empirically ascertained). The distinction between real and actual pertains to positivism, the distinction between actual and empirical pertains to subject/object identity. This is a key concept for Bhaskar and is closely related to stratification. (See Differentiation and Stratification; see also Closed and Open Systems, Strong and Weak Actualism, and Facts.)
Copyright © 1997 Louis Irwin
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