Bhaskar provides a fornal description of dialectic as a "process of conceptual or social ... conflict, interconnection and change" (DPF 3). Bhaskar views dialectics as a real process which results in the removal of causally efficacious obstacles to human flourishing. Such obstacles are analyzed as "absences" which must be "absented" in a real, contingent dialectical process of emancipatory critique or "absenting absences" (see Absence). Ontological dialectics is concerned with reality, epistemological dialectics is concerned with what is known about reality, and relational dialectics metacritically situates our knowledge in relation to what is known (DPF 3).
Bhaskar sees humanity as sharing a core human nature (subject to change) which manifests itself differently under different conditions via various mediations. Humanity manifests itself in different ways under conditions of poverty and conditions of wealth. The core humanity grounds a core equality, deviations from which must be justified by particular mediations in concrete individuals (PE 113, 149). Things are dialectically equal if there are no differences justified by particular mediations that could justify treating them unequally, and dialectical universalizability requires treating dialectical equals equally. Bhaskar sees theory/practice inconsistencies (see Critique and Transcendental Argument) as arising from the lack of dialectical universalizability (PE 135).
Copyright © 1997 Louis Irwin
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