Bhaskar questions both the scientistic assertion that factual propositions are value-free in content and the positivist denial that value propositions can be derived from factual propositions. The first denies that factual discourse can be about values, the second denies that factual discourse can lead to values (SRHE 174). The scientistic assertion, conjoined with an extensional theory of meaning, leads to the positivist denial: value-free semantic atoms plus the construction of meanings from extensional functions of these can only lead to value-free propositions (RR 99). Bhaskar's view is that facts are social constructs in the transitive dimension and so are bound to incorporate values implicit in social relations (SRHE 174).
Against Hume's law that fact/value derivations are impossible, Bhaskar notes that the exposure of a source of untruth leads to a negative evaluation of it and a commitment to eliminate it. It might be objected that Bhaskar is himself illicitly importing the value of commitment to truth, but Hume's law really says that following a commitment to truth can never legitimately lead to a value commitment (other than to truth) (RR 105, SRHE 184ff). A commitment to truth thus leads to prescriptions for action, what Bhaskar calls the axiological commitments of truth. The transition from fact to value does not reduce values to facts, because the transition is possible only if values have a real existence.
The breakdown between facts and values leads to a theory of emancipation. The domain of a social science includes both a social object (say, a social structure) and a belief about that object (our understanding of the social structure in question), and one of the questions for social science is the match between the two. The answer will be found in internal relations between them (SRHE 153, 176). How much does our understanding (or misunderstanding) of a social structure reinforce its existence, and vice versa? The answer can lead to negative evaluations of the social structure (SRHE 153, DPF 259, PE 109). Bhaskar claims that a structure of emancipation is implicit in all our discourse and practice.
Copyright © 1997 Louis Irwin
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