Hartwig_Introduction to Bhaskar, Reflections on MetaReality 2012

7/30/2019 Hartwig_Introduction to Bhaskar, Reflections on MetaReality 2012

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New Introduction*

Acronyms

CM classical modernismCN critical naturalismCR critical realismDCR dialectical critical

realismEC explanatory critiqueHM high modernismM the theory and

practice ofmodernisation

PM postmodernismPDM the philosophical

discourse ofmodernity

PMR the philosophy ofmetaReality

TDCR transcendentaldialectical criticalrealism

T/F bourgeois trium-phalism and endism/fundamentalism

TR transcendentalrealism

S

ince the victory of capitalism over actually existingsocialism towards the end of the last century, thetragifarce of Western bourgeois triumphalism and

endism has played to the accompaniment of a dolorous chorusof Leftist theorists intoning that our situation as a species is

* A note on terminology: MetaReality and cognate terms wereoriginally spelt with a hyphen: Meta-Reality (at the beginning of asentence); otherwise, meta-Reality, including within titles and chapterheadings (with the exception of Reflections on Meta-Reality). In futurepublications Roy Bhaskar has decided to dispense with the hyphenand to capitalize the first letter of MetaReality in titles and chapterheadings. I have accordingly followed suit here.

Mervyn Hartwig, Introduction to Roy Bhaskar, Reflections on MetaReality: Transcendence,Emancipation and Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 2012), viii-xl.

Note. In the print version the Tables were placed at the end and there were a few other small changes. The finalversion of the Tables appears in Mervyn Hartwig, Introduction to Roy Bhaskar, The Philosophy of MetaReality(London: Routledge, 2012).


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dire, sealed and secured by the logic of capital1. In marked

contrast to this resonating refrain in the register of despair, RoyBhaskar has taken the direfulness of our situation largely asestablished2 and holds that its fundamental causes are the deepstructures of the capitalist mode of production and the five-fold alienation on which they rest a system which, as themost sophisticated form of masterslavery yet to appear on thestage of geo-history, and whose reach is now for the first timetruly global, not coincidentally systematically promotes grosssins, whether personal sins such as greed and avarice, or social

sins such as the exploitation of your fellow human beings andinsensitivity to their suffering;3 and he has devoted his cre-ative energies to locating and demonstrating a way out of ourpredicament, and to showing that twenty-first century human-ity possesses the resources necessary to take it. The funda-mental impetus of Reflections on MetaReality: Transcendence,Emancipation and Everyday Life, as of Bhaskars philosophy gen-erally, is the transcendence and healing of division and split ina reconciliation that sees an end to the blind domination ofnature and humans by humans. Its fundamental message isthat, if the species is to have a future, let alone a flourishingone, it is imperative that we get back into tune with nature,whence we emerged and from which we have becomeestranged, including our own essential human nature.4 Wearrive at the eudaimonistic society by shedding or absentingheteronomous orders of determination and becoming who wealready essentially are. This is the nub of spirituality as thema-tised explicitly in the philosophy of metaReality, but implicit inand presupposed by Bhaskars earlier work: the transcendence

of alienation, dualism or split in all its forms, with a con-sequent sense of (richly differentiated) unity, wholeness andbeing-at-home-in-the-world and an inexhaustible love forbeing and a yearning to see it unfold.5 The philosophy ofmetaReality is a profound meditation on spirituality under-stood in this way a spirituality within the bounds of secular-ism, consistent with all faiths and no faith (p. 93) that is bothof the world, uniting us with it at the deepest level of ourbeing, and continuously engaged in it.

New Introduction 4 ix


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Bhaskars philosophy has been elaborated in three main

phases, each developing and deepening its predecessor:

original or basic critical realism (CR) (transcendentalrealism TR, critical naturalism CN, and explana-tory critique EC);

dialectical critical realism (DCR the dialecticisationof critical realism and the emancipation of dialectic(for the dialectic of) emancipation6) and transcen-dental dialectical critical realism (TDCR the first

stage of Bhaskars spiritual turn); the philosophy of metaReality (PMR), which Reflec-

tions on MetaReality expounds for the first time.

PMR is a largely preservative sublation of CR/DCR/TDCR(henceforth critical realism): it both draws out its realstrengths and, without falling back into identity-thinking, goesbeyond it by inverting its prioritisation of difference (non-identity) over unity and identity;7 the earlier system remainsvalid as an account of the fundamental shape of relative reality(the world of non-identity and duality), but is surpassed asrealism about transcendence leads to the self-transcendence ofrealism in a conception of an infrastructural absolute realityor foundational level of being that, as a necessary conditionfor any being at all (pp. 11, 2689), underpins and sustainsthe dualistic world that critical realism addresses, in all itspermutations. PMR, in short, as the title of the fourth chapterof Reflections puts it, develops in and beyond critical realism

(p. 165). The fundamental procedure of this new philosophy and this is overlooked by critics who reject the procedureas metaphysical or speculative in relation to PMR butaccept it for critical realism8 is the same as that which pro-duced hitherto existing critical realism: transcendentalcritique, in which transcendental argumentation for (meta)-realist positions from geo-historically relative premises goeshand-in-hand with a twofold process of immanent critique:(1) of the philosophical discourse of modernity (PDM) in the

x 4 New Introduction


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context of a totalising critique of Western philosophy as such;

and (2) of critical realisms own prior phases.The main phases of this process, together with the basic con-

tours of PMRs articulation with critical realism, are displayedin Table 1. (The tables are grouped together at the end of thisessay.) The chief characteristics of PDM, together with theelements of its critical realist and metarealist critique, are setout in Table 2. These two tables make it clear that the funda-mental motor of Bhaskars philosophy has been the identifica-tion of key absences in PDM (including, in the case of the last

three items on the list that follows, critical realism) theabsence, or absence of an adequate account, of: ontology,absence, internal relationality, human intentionality or trans-formative praxis, spirituality, enchantment, and non-duality;and their remedying in a more complete conceptual formationexpressing the self-structuration of being9 or the ontologicalaxiological chain. Table 3 shows, in greater detail than Table 1,how the leading concepts of PMR relate to the stadia of theontologicalaxiological chain, and Table 4, the last in the series,and perhaps the most illuminating, indicates how they relateto the critical realist domains of reality.

The correspondences indicated in the tables are of coursenot always neat and, although depicted as singular, are some-times duplex (bliss-consciousness, for example, whether con-sidered transitively or intransitively, belongs both at 2A, inthat it concerns absence or emptiness, and at 3L in that it isexperience of union with the (implicit) consciousness of finestructure; and the latter itself pertains equally to the domain ofthe real (or to 1M), as the deep structure of beings, and to the

domain of the empirical/conceptual (or to 3L) in that it isimplicit (ground-state) consciousness; and transcendentalidentification pertains to 2E in that it is in consciousness and to3L in that it effects union, and should be thought of as sitting atthe junction of 2E and 3L see, e.g., p. 260). The tables shouldbe regarded as an aid to understanding and a demonstrationof coherent systematicity rather than as providing a rigidgrid for mechanical deployment. Note that this beautifullyarticulated and open, self-transcending system of philosophy,

New Introduction 4 xi


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Table1Themomentsofthe

philosophyofcriticalrealism

andmetaRealitymappedtothestadiaoftheontological

axiologicalchainandthetw

ofoldprocessofimmanentcritique

Stadion/moment

1MNon-identity

2ENegativity

3LTotality

4DTransformative

agency

5ASpirituality

6R(Re-)

enchantment

7A/ZNon-

duality

CR/PMRasa

whole:

thinking

being

assuchandin

general

asprocess+

asfor1M

asatotality

+

asfor2E

asincorporating

transformative

praxisand

reflexivity+

asfor3L

asincorporatinga

spiritualor

a

transcendental

dimension

+

asfor4D

asincorporating

enchantment+

asfor5A

asincorporat

ing

non-duality+

asfor6R

formof

reflexivity

immanent

critiqueof

PDM+CR

classicalmodern

ism

high

modernism+

1M

modernisati

on

theory+1M

,2E

postmodernism

+1M,2

E,3

L

triumphalism

andendism

/

fundament

al-

ism+1M,

2E,

3L,4

D

triumphalismandendism/

fundamentalism+1M,2

E,3L,

4D,5

A

tr:thinking

beingas

structuredand

differentiated

CNinflection:

thinking

beingas

containingmind

andconcepts

negativity,

dualism,

contradiction,

emergence


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ECinflection:

thinking

beingas

intrinsically

valuable

negativityqua

absenting

constraints

(ills)

totalityas

including

values

(retotalisatio

n)

dcrinflection:

thinking

beingas

alethictruth(rea

lity

principle,

axiological

necessity);

underlyingiden

tity-

in-difference;co-

presence;thepu

lse

offreedom

negativityqua

(determinate)

absence,

generalisedto

thewholeof

beingasreal,

primaryto

presenceand

essentialto

change

totality

maximisedby

praxis(whic

h

absents

incomplete-

ness);

dialectical

universalisa

bil-

ity;unity-in-

diversity

transformative

praxisand

reflexivity(the

unityoftheory

andpracticein

practice,

emancipatory

axiology)

tDCR

inflection:

thinking

beingas

underlyingiden

tity-

in-difference

transcendentally

realselfandGod

(theabsolute)as

the

truthorground

of

reality;co-presence

transcendence

(the

achievementof

identityor

unityinatotal

context)as

essentialto

changeandthe

rationalkernel

ofanylearning

process;

creativity

uncondition

al

love

spontaneous

right-action

(realisationof

reflexivityi.e.

self-realisation)

spirituality

fulfilled

intentionality;

universalself-

realisation;

reflexivity

generalised

as

cosmic

consciousn

ess

(Continuedoverleaf)


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Table1continued

Stadion/moment

1MNon-identity

2ENegativity

3LTotality

4DTransformative

agency

5ASpirituality

6R(Re-)

enchantment

7A/ZNon-

duality

PMRinflection:

thespiritual

expositionof

being

thinking

beingas

underlyingiden

tity-

in-difference

(implicitly

conscious)

ground-stateand

cosmicenvelope

(theabsolute,no

n-

duality,

metaReality)asthe

truthorground

of

reality;generalis

ed

co-presence

transcendence

asubiquitous

ineveryday

life;

transcendental

identificationin

consciousness;*

transcendental

emergence

(creativity)

uncondition

al

love;

transcenden

tal

holismor

teamwork;

synchronicity

spontaneous

right-action

(transcendental

agency);

practical

mysticism;

dialectically

universalised

synchronicity

spirituality

asa

necessary

conditiono

f

everydayli

fe;

universalself-

realisation

enchantment*

beingas

intrinsically

meaningful,

valuableand

sacred;

generalised

hermeneutics

andsemiotics;

enhanced

human

perceptionand

hermeneutical

powers

(awakenin

gof)

non-duality

beingbeing

(cosmic

consciousn

ess,

at-homene

ss);

humancre

ative

powers

unbound(

the

unlimitedself)

*IntroducedinTDCRbutnotnea

rlysofullythematisedandarguedfor.

Note:ThisisamodifiedversionofM.

Hartwig,

Introduction,DictionaryofCriticalRealism,ed.

M.

Hartwig,

London:Routledge2007,

Table1,pp.xvi

xvii.

Momentsarethephasesofthephilosophicalsystemastheydev

elopeddiachronically.

Stadiaarethefundamentalfeaturesoftheontological

axiologicalchain,ortheself-structurationofbeing,asapprehendedinth

esystem.W

hytheyaredesignated1M

,2E,3

L,4

D,5

A,6

Rand7A/Zisexplained

inM.Hartwig,

Meld(ara),D

ictionary,ed.Hartwig,pp..Apartfromthefactthat7A/Zand6Rareboth

elaboratedbyPMR,i

twillbeseenthatthe

individualstadiaofthisschema(columns)correspondtothe(mainemp

hasisofthe)developingmomentsofthesystem(rows).T

hismeansthat(to

take

theexampleofPMR),inthinkingb

eingprimarilyasnon-duality,P

MRnecessarilyalsothinksitasenchantment,spirituality,r

ight-action,love,creativity

andidentity-in-difference;andso

onfortheothermoments.

Themain

emphasisorfocusofeachmoment

isindicatedinboldandmaybetak

enas

indicatingthechiefaporiainthep

reviousphasethatitremedies.


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Table2Thephilosophicald

iscourseofmodernityandthe

criticalandmetarealistcritique

ThePhilosophicalDiscourseofModernity(PDM)

TheCriticalandMetaRealistCritique

MomentofPDM

Definingcharacteristics

CorrespondingCR/PMR

concepts

andcritique

MomentofCR/PMR

Mainstadionand

concept(s):understand

ing

beingas

classicalmodernism(CM)

(1)

ego-,anthropo-centricity

or-centrism,e

tc.(atomism)

(2)

abstractuniversality

(actualism,irrealism)

(bo

thunderpinnedbythe

epi

stemicfallacy)

theintrinsicexterior

theselfassocialand

interrelatedatafundamental

levelwiththecosmos;

dialectica

luniversality

TR

1Mnon-identitybeing

as

structured,d

ifferentiated

andchangingholytrin

ity:

judgementalrationality,

epistemicrelativism,

ontologicalrealism

highmodernism(HM)

(3)

incompletetotality

(critiqueofCM)(follows

from(2))

(4)

lackofreflexivity

(critiqueofCM)(follows

from(3))

opentota

lity,reflexivity;

critiques

HMs

substitutionism,e

litism,

reductive

materialism

CN

2Eprocessincluding

absenceornegativitya

nd

contradiction;emergen

ce;

irreducibilityofmind

modernisationtheoryand

practice(M)

(5)

unilinearity

(5)judgementalism

(5)disenchantment

multilinearity,opensystems;

dialogue;

(re-)enchantment

EC

3Ltotality

internalrelationality,

holisticcausality,

explanatorycritique

(Continuedoverleaf)


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Table2continued

ThePhilosophicalDiscourseofModernity(PDM)

TheCritica

landMetaRealistCritique

postmodernism(PM)

(6)formalismand

(6)

functionalism(critique

ofP

DM,s

tressingidentity

and

difference,andrejecting

universality)

(7)materialism(critiqueof

PDM)

acceptsdifferencebut

reinstates

unityor

(dialectical)universality

(connection)andcritiques

PMsjudg

emental

irrationalismandlackofa

conceptofemancipation

DCR

4Dtransformativeagen

cy,

reflexivity,emancipatory

axiology

unity-in-diversity


renascentfundamentalism

(T/F)

(8)ontologicalmonovalence

(ap

urelypositiveaccountof

reality,denegatingchange)

ontologicalpolyvalence,t

he

realityofabsence;

accentuatedcritiqueof

materialis

m(implicit

conscious

nesspervades

being)critiqueofsubject

objectduality;falseabsolute

ofmarket

andother

fundamentalisms

TDCR

PMR

5Aspirituality

theabsolute(God);

universalself-realisation;co-

presence;transcendence

6Renchantment,being

as

intrinsicallymeaningfu

l,

valuableandsacred

7A/Znon-duality(prim

acy

ofunityandidentityov

er

difference)ortheabsolute

(ground-stateandcosm

ic

envelope)infiniteor

unendingpossibility;

generalisedco-presence;

transcendence

Note:Columnsshouldbereadvertically(developmentally),suchthat(b

roadly)T/F>PM>M>HM>CM,andPMR>TDCR>DCR>EC>CN>TR.


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Table3KeyconceptsofPMRmappedtothestadiaofthe

ontologicalaxiologicalchain

Stadionofthe

ontological

axiologicalchain/

phaseofPMR>CR

1MNon-identity/

TR

2ENegativity/CN

3LTotality/EC

4DTransformative

agency/DCR

5aSpirituality/

TDCR

6R(Re-)

enchantment/

PMR

7A/ZNon-

duality/PMR

thinkingbeing

assuchandin

general

asprocess+asfor

1M

asawhole+asfor

2E

aspraxis+as

for3L

asspiritual+as

for4D

asenchanted+as

for5a

asnon-dual+as

for6R

formof

reflexivity

immanent

critiqueof

PDM+CR

classical

modernism

highmodernism

+1M

modernisati

on

theory+1M

,2E

postmodernism

+1M,2

E,3

L

triumphalism

andendism

/

fundament

al-

ism+1M,

2E,

3L,4

D


fundamentalism+1M,2

E,3L,4

D,

5A

keyPMR

concepts

underlying

identity-in-

difference

(implicitly

conscious)

ground-stateand

cosmicenvelope

(theabsolute,

non-duality,

metaReality)

asthetruth

orgroundof

reality;the

constellational

identityorunity

ofnon-duality

andduality;

generalised

co-presence

transcendenceas

ubiquitousin

everydaylife;

transcendental

identificationin

consciousness;

transcendental

emergence

(creativity);

accentuationof

creativepower

ofthought

uncondition

al

love;

transcenden

tal

holismor

teamwork;

unification,

unity;

reciprocity,

synchronicity;

generalisationof

four-planar

socialbeing

to

includemen

tal

andemotion

al

suigeneris

realities

spontaneous

right-action

(transcendental

agency);

practical

mysticism;

dialectically

universalised

synchronicity

spirituality

asa

necessary

conditiono

f

everydaylife;

fulfilled

intentionality;

primacyof

self-

referentiality;

universalself-

realisation

enchantment

beingas

intrinsically

meaningful,

valuableand

sacred;

generalised

hermeneutics

andsemiotics;

enhanced

human

perceptionand

hermeneutical

powers,direct

consciousness-

to-consciousness

causality

(awakenin

gof)

non-duality;

beingbein

g

(cosmic

consciousn

ess,

at-homene

ss);

humancre

ative

powers

unbound(the

unlimited

self);

open,unending

evolution

(Continuedoverleaf)


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Table3continued

Stadionofthe

ontological

axiologicalchain/

phaseofPMR>CR

1MNon-identity/

TR

2ENegativity/CN

3LTotality/EC

4DTransformative

agency/DCR

5aSpirituality/

TDCR

6R(Re-)

enchantment/

PMR

7A/ZNon-

duality/PMR

modesorforms

of transcendence

(non-dual

componentsof

action)

transcendental

consciousness

(supramental;at

or

oftheground-state)

transcendental

identification

(featureof

consciousness;

becomingonein

being)

transcendental

teamworkor

holism(feature

ofagency;

becomingonein

orinthecon

text

ofonesagency)

transcendental

agency(feature

ofagency;

becomingonein

orinthecontext

ofonesagency)

transcendental

retreatintoself-

identity

(featureof

consciousn

ess;

becomingo

ne

inbeing)

transcendental

identificationand

agency

transcenden

tal

consciousne

ss

directionof

transcendence

groundof14

1.outwards,

onto(awayfrom

subjectivityinto

objectivity)

4.with

3.on,a

torin

(absorptionin

activity)

2.inwards,

into

(awayfrom

objectivityinto

subjectivity

)

14

groundof

14

modesof

transcendental

consciousness

transcendentalor

supramental

consciousnessat

orofthegroun

d-

state

mindlessness

(formwithout

content:absenceof

content;bliss-

consciousness)

mindfulness

(content

withoutform:

repletionof

content)

spontaneous

right-action

mindlessness

principlesof

spirituality

self-referentiality

orhermeticism

(primacyof)

simultaneity

complementarity

practical

mysticism

radicalhermeticism(primacyofself-referentialit

y

entailstheliberationandflourishingofallbeings)


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qualitiesofthe

ground-state

transcendental

ground

transcendental

emergence

transcenden

tal

identificationor

union

transcendental

agency

transcendental

reflection

transcendental

perception

awakening

of

non-duality

humanground-

state(dharmic)

capacities

willfreedom(the

capacitytodoon

e

thingratherthan

another)

creativityfreedom

asabsenting

constraints

(negative

completion)

love

right-action

fulfilled

intentionalityor

self-realisation

or

enlightenm

ent

(positive

completion

)

enchantment

awakeningof

non-duality

universal

fulfilment

or

peace

conditionsfor

self-realisation

beinginyour

ground-state(or

dharma)(absen

ce

ofatomisticego)

clearmind,

single-

pointedness;

mindlessnessor

innocence

pureheart

balancedbody

absenceof

beliefinthe

brute

physicality

of

theworld

enchantment

awakening

elementsofthe

humancreative

process(action)

will(initial

impulseor

calling)

creation

(emergence)

thought/

unthought

formation,

shapingfeeling

oremotion

making

(physicalaction

and

objectification)

fulfilledor

realised

intentionality

(reflectionof

objectification

tothemaker)

enchanted

resonanceof

fulfilled

intentionality

awakening

to

thenon-du

al

groundof

fulfilled

intentionality

(self-andgod-

realisation

)

dialecticof

learning

enfoldedor

implicit

knowledge

discoveryand

recallor

anamnesis

(emergenceof

enfolded

knowledge)

shaping(bin

ding

knowledgeback

intoour

innermostb

eing

self-formation)

andelaborating

it

objectifying

knowledgein

practice

reflectiono

rfulfilment

(Continuedoverleaf)


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Table3continued

Stadionofthe

ontological

axiologicalchain/

phaseofPMR>CR

1MNon-identity/

TR

2ENegativity/CN

3LTotality/EC

4DTransformative

agency/DCR

5aSpirituality/

TDCR

6R(Re-)

enchantment/

PMR

7A/ZNon-

duality/PMR

circlesofhuman

love

1.self

2.another

human

3.allhuman

s

4.allbeings

5.theabsol

ute

cosmogeny

(cyclesof

creativityof

beingassuch,

eventually

perhaps

repeating)

polyvalent

foundational

impulse

(unboundener

gy

fromimplicit

potential

enfoldedin

absence)

creation

(transcendental

emergence)

formation,

shaping

making

(objectification)

fulfilled

intentionality

ofthe

foundational

impulse

(reflectionof

objectification

backtothe

creator)

enchanted

resonanceof

fulfilled

intentionality

universal

awakening

of

non-dualit

y

(self-andg

od-

realisation)

open,on-g

oing

cosmotheogeny

(cycleofcosmic

creation,

eventually

perhaps

repeating)

self-creationof

thecreatorex

nihilo

emergenceof

realmofduality,

becomingand

time

emergenceo

f

realmofdem

i-

realityando

fthe

bindingnature

oflove

individualself-

realisation

(commence-

mentofreturn

cyclefrom

alienation)

individualand

universalself-

realisationor

eudaimonia

individualgod-

realisationor

theosis(oneness

withtotality)

universalg

od-

realisation

or

theosisopen,

ongoing

Correspondingtothedescentof

consciousnessintraditionalcosmoth

eogenesis,andtoBigBanginmodern

cosmologicaltheory.

Correspondingtotheascentofco

nsciousnessintraditionalcosmotheogenesis.

Note:7A/Z>6R>5A>4D>3L>

2E>1M,sothat7A/Zconstellationallycontainsalltherest.


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Table4Keymomentsandfi

guresofPMRmappedtotheCRdomainsofreality

DomainsofReality

Real

experiences,conceptsandsignsevents

mechanisms

Actual


[mechanisms]

Empirical/Conceptual

experiences,conceptsandsigns

[events]

[mechanisms]

REALMSOFREALITY

ABSOLUTEREALITY

theenfolded,t

heimplicit(the

implicateorder)fieldsofimplicitly

consciouspossibility

RELATIVEREALITY

theunfolded,t

heexplicit(the

explicateorder)

DEMI-REALITY

thefalselyunfolded

SOCIALPRINCIPLE

PHILOSOPHY

ONTOLOGICALPRINCIPLE

METAPHILOSOPHICALPRINCIPLE(1)

loveandpeace

metaReality

truth

non-duality(identity,

identification,unity)(aproperty

of

consciousness)

struggle

criticalrealism

realism

duality(non-identity,w

ithout

alienationbutwiththepotentia

lfor

it)

war,control

irrealism

irrealism

dualism(alienation)

METAPHILOSOPHICALPRINCIPLE(2)

truth(mostbasicallytherevelation

ofidentity)

non-identity

mis-identification,error,falsity

ORIENTATIONTOBEING

beingbeing

thinkingbeing

evadingbeing

SUBJECTIVITYOBJECTIVITYRELATION

unity-in-diversity

expressiveunity

diremption(alienation)

DIMENSIONSOFTHESELF

transcendentaloralethicselfor

ground-state(afieldofpossibility)

embodiedself

ego(arealillusion)

FORMSOFENCHANTMENT

enchantment

re-enchantment

disenchantment(emergentfalse

levelorideology)

FORMSOFFREEDOM

peace(dialectically=universal

fulfilment)

freedomto(lesseningofpositive

incompletenessortheabsenceof

totaldevelopment)

freedomfrom(eliminationof

negativeincompletenessor

heteronomousdeterminations)

(Continuedoverleaf)


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Table4continued

DomainsofReality

Real


mechanisms

Actual


[mechanisms]

Empirical/Conceptual

experiences,conceptsandsigns

[events]

[mechanisms]

MODESOFFREEDOMANDUNFREEDOM

(non-alienationandalienation)

autonomy(identitytruefor,to

andofitself)

unity

alienation

FORMOFIDEOLOGY(demi-reality)

underlyinggenerativefalsity

(alethicfalsity)

practical

theoretical

FORMOFALIENATION(demi-reality)

self-alienation

practical

conceptual

LOGICOFMASTERSLAVERY(demi-

reality)

exploitation

conditionalityoftransactions

desire(asdominantmotivatio

n)

PATHSTOUNIONWITHTOTALITY(atri-

unity)

truth(jnanayoga)

practice(karmayoga)

love(bhaktiyoga)

THEHOLYTRINITYOFCRITICALREALIS

M

ontologicalrealism

epistemicrelativity

judgementalrationality

MODESINWHICHABSOLUTEREALITY

SUSTAINS,

ISCONNECTEDWITHANDIS

ACCESSEDINTHEWORLDOFDUALITY

FORMSOFUNITYORIDENTITY(modes

in

whichnon-dualitysustainsduality)

groundorbasis(ground-state,

cosmicenvelope)

modeofconstitution(or

reproduction/transformation)

via

transcendence

finestructureordeepinteriorof

allaspectsofbeing

MECHANISMSOFIDENTIFICATION

(modesofconnectionofnon-duality)

co-presence(apropertyofall

beings)

transcendentalidentificationin

consciousness

reciprocity(apropertyofanim

ate

beings)


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DYNAMICOREVOLUTIONARYFORMOF

MECHANISMSOFIDENTIFICATION

(modesofconnectionofnon-duality)

synthesis(ofspatio-temporally

spreadphenomena)

attraction(integratedrhythmic

s)

economy(generalised

synchronicityorunfolding,

inwardisingenglobement)

FORMSOFTRANSCENDENCE

transcendentalconsciousnessator

oftheground-state

transcendentalidentification(a

propertyofconsciousness)

transcendentalagencyor

transcendentalidentificationin

agency(soloorteamwork)

Finestructurepertainstotheempirical/conceptualdomainbecauseitisimplicit(ground-state)consciousness.Thisconceptisnotdeploy

edin

Reflections;itisintroducedinBhas

kar,FromSciencetoEmancipation,x

iv.

Note:Correspondencesaresometimesloose,particularlyinthecaseof

thosebetweendomainsandrealmso

freality:eachoftherealmshasreal,actual

andempirical/conceptualdimens

ions.Theitemsinboldintherowsaft

erthefirstcanbearrangedinatriplex

structureinexactlythesamewayas

inthe

firstrow(forfurtherexemplification,seeHartwig,ed.,

Dictionary,

Table17).Lowermost(primary)levelscanthenbeseentoconstellationallyem

brace

upper(secondary)levels,henceto

haveontological,epistemologicalan

dlogicalpriorityoverthemthepriorityoftheenfoldedovertheunfolde

d,t

he

possibleovertheactual.

Whereupperlevels,whichthuspresupposep

rimarylevels,embodycategorialerrorandignorance,

theyfunctiontooc

clude

lowerlevels.Square-bracketedlev

elsarenotgivenintheconceptoflev

elswithoutsquarebracketsbutarepresupposedbyit.


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destined itself to be transcended some day, is in a sense

completed in PMR, as the foundational absolute level ofidentity-in-difference, that is, identity with a rich potentialfor differentiation, arrived at in 7A/Z, is seen to be pre-supposed by the non-identity from which the system departsat 1M.10

Bhaskars spiritual turn got seriously under way in themid-1990s, issuing first in a work that attempts to synthesiseWest and East, science and religion, materialism and idealism,atheism and theism (From East to West published in 2000,

which elaborated TDCR), and then in 2002 in PMR which, asalready indicated, seeks to transcend (draw out their fullstrengths and surpass) such oppositions by articulating a spir-ituality that can appeal both to the secularly minded and thereligious.11 As part of a more general turn to religion and spir-ituality among the intelligentsia occurring simultaneouslyacross the globe, which probably had similar causes,12 it wasmotivated above all by a desire to find a way forward out ofthe multiple interrelated crises afflicting human social being atall four of its planes (our transactions with nature, inter-personal relations, social structures and stratified personalities,all of which Bhaskar was to diagnose are in fundamentalrespects out of kilter with our essential human natures) and, aspart of the same undertaking, to identify and remedy con-ceptual absences that played an important role in the failure ofthe emancipatory project in the twentieth century, West andEast, and to boost the cultural resources of that project.Although Bhaskar himself did [and does] not hold any deepor specific religious convictions,13 and PMR issues in a sharp

critique of actually existing religiosity and its institutionalisedforms a critique that is by no means restricted to funda-mentalism (pp. 18, 222), the investigative phase of the spiritualturn took him via religion and the thematisation of God inFrom East to West. This was because religion had a virtualmonopoly on the topic of spirituality and it was evident thatthe application of the critical realist holy trinity of judgementalrationalism, epistemic relativity and ontological realism tothe putative object of religious belief could open up a space

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for inter-faith, intra-faith and extra-faith dialogue, promoting

mutual understanding, respect and the unity and capability forcollective action on a global scale that the species is so much inneed of.

PMR differs from TDCR in three important respects. First, aswe have seen, it seeks to transcend rather than synthesise theprofane/sacred, materialism/idealism, being/meaning, fact/value and related dualisms.14 Second, it understands spiritual-ity as ubiquitous in, and a necessary condition of, social life,not just, as in TDCR, as a presupposition of emancipatory

projects and as a religious phenomenon; and indeed it is themost sustained and systematic philosophical thematisationof the pervasive spirituality of everyday life available to us.Transcendence is normally associated with fleeting momentsof identification or union in peak experiences such as prayer,meditation or communion with nature on the part of subjectsdeemed to be otherwise immersed in the mundacity ofordinary life, but PMR demonstrates that it is everywhere inthat life, albeit hidden and largely unnoticed, and in no way, asis commonly thought, opposed to social emancipation but, onthe contrary, presupposed by it (p. 116). (While TDCR doeshave a concept of spirituality as ubiquitous in everyday life,15

it plays a relatively back-stage role there.) Third, PMR sub-stitutes the secular concept of the cosmic envelope for God.This is no mere change of name. The cosmic envelope inter-connects the ground-states of all concretely singular beings,where a ground-state just is the state that is present in all otherstates, something like an absolute zero of consciousness, or . . .the vacuum state of quantum field theory.16 The concept of the

cosmic envelope encapsulates the view that the absolute withwhich human spirituality links is immanent in the cosmos andontologically transcendent only in relation to ground-states; itdoes not presuppose that there is anything that is super-natural in the sense of transcendent to the cosmos this is leftopen: Bhaskar is agnostic here, i.e. he does not claim to knowwhat, if anything, lies outside the cosmic envelope (p. 93).Indeed, PMR can be regarded as a giant koan designed tostretch our understanding of what is natural in it, the very

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concept of the supernatural commits a category mistake,

splitting being into two.17As already noted, and as indicated in Tables 1 and 3 in par-

ticular, the Bhaskarian system of philosophy comes full circlein PMR, as identity-in-difference at 7A/Z is seen to underlienon-identity at 1M. This is no abrupt about-face, nor is it in anyway arbitrary. Non-identity is not annulled, but dialecticallyoverreached, so that we have the constellational identity orunity of non-duality, e.g. at the level of our material embodi-ment, and duality (p. 260). Moreover, this switch in emphasis

had been explicitly entrained already in DCR, which movedat 1M . . . from attention to difference to the recognition ofunderlying identity or identity-in-difference.18 Finally, not-withstanding CRs formal emphasis on non-identity, there is asense in which it has always assigned ontological, epistemo-logical and logical priority to universality, unity and identity:it underlies structures and kinds that generate the phenomenalflux of the world. It depends how one approaches the matter:from an epistemological point of view that stresses the dif-ference between the transitive and intransitive dimensions,non-identity is prior, but from an ontological perspective,epistemology is constellationally contained within being,and non-identity yields primacy to identity and unity. Theshift from (), a DCR (itself a deepening of CR) ontology ofunderlying fields of possibility, some of which are ultimata,ingredient in everything else and sustaining it,19 understood asdispositionally identical with their changing causal powersand possessing a rich potential for differentiation, viewed interms that are non-committal as to whether they are material

or ideal, implicitly conscious or not, to (), a PMR ontology ofunderlying implicitly conscious fields of possibility that islikewise dynamically differentiating, ingredient and sustain-ing requires the merest perspectival switch. This is indeed agoing beyond, but it is also a continuing and sustaining orupholding. As Bhaskar underlines, the cosmos is an open,implicitly conscious, developing, material system (p. 223). Canstones talk, as some Indigenous peoples may hold or haveheld?20 Of course not. Can we come to understand the intrinsic

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structure of a stone and experience bliss in so doing? Certainly,

and Bhaskars argument is that the real reason why we can doso, its alethic truth, is that the implicit supramental conscious-ness of the foundational level pervades, interrelates andunderpins the whole of being, including other forms of con-sciousness, such that at the level of fundamental possibilityeverything is contained within everything else. This isgeneralised co-presence. To be is to be related, that is reallywhat I am saying, he tells his audience in Mumbai inDecember 2001 (p. 149). Put in those terms, it is no more

than what he had already said (inter alia) in CR; what PMRadds above all is that being is shot through with enfoldedground-state consciousness, the experience of which for anyemergent consciousness, whose diachronic evolution andsynchronic functioning it makes possible, is the highest form ofconsciousness.

Unreconstructed coldstream materialists who have beeninclined to dismiss PMR as off with the fairies on the groundsthat reality is at bottom brutely physical would do well torecall that Bhaskar is one of the foremost philosophicaldefenders of science of his generation. His wager is that, whereit has not already done so, empirically grounded sciencewill bear out his insights21 as the old scientific worldview ofreductive materialism that has been hegemonic in the Westsince the seventeenth century is replaced by the new emer-gentist outlook.22 It is of course a grave empiricist error, oftencommitted, to set up a simple contrast between relatively apriori philosophical claims, such as those of PMR, and thoseof science in terms of whether or not they are empirically

verifiable, wrongly supposing that philosophy can establishno truths and that science itself does not incorporate assump-tions that cannot be empirically tested, and overlooking thatscience often advances via (inter alia) spectacularly speculativetheories. The proper relationship between philosophy andscience is not one in which the former is read off from thelatter, but a dialectical or dialogical one: philosophy reasonsfrom premises that take on board some data from science,and feeds back into science; and vice versa. The same holds, in

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PMR, for science and theology. CR/PMR can underlabour for

both.23Reflections on MetaReality is the first to appear of the three

books, all published in 2002, that elaborate PMR.24 It brilliantlyintroduces the new philosophy in two modes: the mode ofexuberant holistic performances with audiences in Indiain 20012 (Chapters 13, which are edited versions of thetranscripts)25 and the mode of systematic written exposition inthe solitude of the study (the Introduction, the Preface andthe Postscripts to Chapters 2 and 4). One feels a great energy

coursing through this book as Bhaskar, with remarkableintrepidity and assurance, populates a whole new level ofontology with carefully defined, interinanimating26 concepts.The scope and creativity (and its pace) are breath-taking, com-parable to the storm of creativity that effected the dialecticaldeepening of critical realism and a recasting of dialectic itselfin Bhaskars magisterial Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom less thana decade earlier.

The Introduction is a slightly shorter version of theManifesto of MetaReality that appears in the other two PMRtexts; together with the Preface, it provides a useful synopticview of the new philosophy. Chapter 1 considers the develop-ment of critical realism in relation to its immanent critiqueof PDM and shows briefly how this critique feeds powerfullyinto the thematisation of characteristic PMR themes (the tran-scendentally real self and the primacy of self-change in socialchange, which the Postscript to the chapter then elaborates);these topics are later rehearsed more systematically in Chapter4. Bhaskars critique of PDM had of course been developing

since his first book (1975) but, stimulated by visits at thebeginning of the new millennium to India, where modernity,modernisation and globalisation were (and are) hot topics inthe academy, and by its pertinence for the reflexive contextual-isation of PMR, Bhaskar here draws the threads of his ongoingcritique together for the first time in a lapidary overview.Reflections is in my view the single best source for Bhaskarsoverall critique of PDM. This is perhaps the place to add that,if spirituality is not for you, there is much else in the book that

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could well be, in particular the systematic recapping of critical

realism, rich in felicitous new formulations and illuminationsof the genealogy and import of key concepts (thus it becomesvery clear, for example, that the concept of truth as real, i.e.alethic truth, is presupposed by ideology-critique and thetheories of the Tina formation and demi-reality that ideology-critique entrained pp. 3940). The discussion of the self at theend of Chapter 1 leads nicely into Chapter 2, which is a pro-found meditation on that topic, and the best place to start onit in Bhaskars oeuvre. Chapter 3, Social science and self-

realisation: non-duality and co-presence, rehearses for thebenefit of a new audience the twin process of the unfoldingcritique of PDM and the development of critical realism, beforeconsidering the motivational context of the spiritual turn(pp. 1312) and taking up the other issues announced in thechapters title. It provides a good popularising account of thelogic whereby critical realism morphs into PMR. Chapter 4,which occupies almost a third of the book, systematicallyexpounds the new philosophy in a more formal key. Readerswho are unfamiliar with PMR but familiar with critical realismor philosophy more generally might want to start withChapter 4 and then move on to The Philosophy of MetaReality,undoubtedly the magnum opus of Bhaskars spiritual turn,before returning to the earlier chapters of the present work.While the exposition in Chapter 4 is of the full system, muchof its focus is on PMR at 1M, whereas The Philosophy ofMetaReality gives more or less equal attention to 1M-7A/Z.

Bhaskar summarises the arguments establishing the prin-ciples of PMR towards the end of Reflections (pp. 2679),27

grouping them into (1) objective considerations, (2) subjectiveconsiderations and (3) the unity of (1) and (2). On the first line,the method of transcendental critique is deployed to developcritical realism to the point where realism about transcendenceleads to the self-transcendence of realism, as an absoluterealm of non-duality is seen to be essential to the dualitiesand alienations of social life as its basis or ground and itsmode of constitution, and also and here the method is thephenomenology of experience rather than transcendental

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critique its fine structure or deep interior (see the last section

of Table 4).The second line is a pragmatic approach, that is, one that

presupposes the reality of the ground-state and the cosmicenvelope in order to appeal to practice: in essence, it arguesthat if you act inconsistently with your ground-state you willwill find that you are split and unhappy (unfulfilled) in someway. Try it, and see for yourself. Conversely, it is argued thatwhen people act in a maximally effective way individually orcollectively as for example in the Egyptian revolution that is

unfolding as I write their ground-state qualities will be to thefore: will, determination and energy, creativity and freedom,unconditional love and all its circles, right-action, a feeling ofcoming home to ones true self, a sense that the world isenchanted, and awakening to unity and non-duality as such(see Table 3). On this line, achieving your goals in life dependsultimately on getting in touch with your real self and clearingyour embodied personality of heteronomous elements that areinconsistent with it: we have got to get ourselves straight(p. 101). This is a development of the position in Dialectic inwhich emancipation and enlightenment [including philo-sophical enlightenment] consist ultimately in theory-practiceconsistency, which is fundamentally consistency with ourtranscendentally real selves.28

The third approach builds on critical realisms demon-stration of the depth-stratification of being to argue the realityof a foundational level of non-duality as a necessary conditionfor any being at all. On this line we could ask, for example,where else could the eruption of pure bliss in Tahrir Square

upon the fall of the Mubarak regime ultimately come from ifnot from the fundamental structure of possibility of the uni-verse? To say that it is a specifically human creative poweror a human construction hardly answers the question in athoroughgoing way. Here the argument would be that theground-state properties of human action established by (2) arein resonance with the ground-state properties of being as such,established by (1) as the relevant correspondences noted inTable 3 suggest.

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The second and third approaches are developed more fully

in The Philosophy of MetaReality. The first is the principal29method followed in Reflections, and can be seen most clearly atwork in Chapter 4. In addition to these main lines of argumentthere is of course a logic of inter-implication or -entailmentbetween the various propositions. Thus transcendental identi-fication in consciousness entails the primacy of self-referentiality, which in turn entails and is entailed by commit-ment to a eudaimonistic society or universal self-realisation(pp. 14, 53, 148, 220); the collapse of subjectobject duality in

transcendental identification entails that reality is enchanted(p. 226); and so on. Furthermore, the intricate inter-articulationof the moments of the system, which I have tried to map in thetables, lends plausibility to the arguments overall. This hasbeen underlined by Seo MinGyu in relation to the logic ofanti-anthropism in CR/PMR. Seo brilliantly demonstratesthat, only when human beings both see themselves and act as acontingently emergent part of the cosmic totality anthro-pocosmically and not as in any way split off from it, is anti-anthropism carried through to a definitive conclusion; and thisis the prospect that PMR holds out.30

Though sceptical reactions to PMR abound, there has todate been only one in-depth sceptical assessment of (some of)the arguments it actually deploys, by Jamie Morgan.31 Thispioneering, constructive appreciation and critique focusseson (1 above), raising the standard objection that humanexperience of the non-dual may be illusory; that is, whileexperience of non-duality in consciousness and agency mayindeed be real and pervasive, it may not be indicative of a

foundational non-dual level of being it may be erroneous,limited, etc. and may pertain solely to the specifically humanemergent level of being, as a basic part of the brain function oflimited creatures interacting with a genuinely and, at all levels,external environment.32 Bhaskar has responded to this brieflyin The Formation of Critical Realism, basically to the effect thatMorgan needs to show how in that case agency is possible, orunderstanding or teamwork.33 Morgans position disconnectsor splits us off from the world from which we have emerged,

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presupposing that, when we experience bliss (to continue our

example), it is a discrete emergent phenomenon at our levelof being that does not owe anything to the implicit affordantpossibilities of the external environment.34 This is to tacitlyendorse humanworld dualism, which Morgan officiallyrejects. As Morgan otherwise acknowledges, just as we cannotstep outside the geo-historical process into which we arethrown, so we cannot step outside that greater dynamictotality, nature, to which we belong, although we may come tobe afflicted in the demi-real with the illusion that we have done

so. We cannot, because it is in us and we are in it; as Reflectionsunderlines, there is not such an absolute dichotomy betweenconsciousness and non-consciousness and not such an abso-lute dichotomy between human beings and the rest of natureas we naively suppose (p. 50). Or, as a fuller version of a quotefrom Albert Einstein, dating from 1954, that Morgan draws ourattention to has it:

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the universe,a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself,his thoughts and feelings, as something separated fromthe rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us toour personal desires and to affection for a few personsnearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from thisprison by widening our circles of compassion to embraceall living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.The true value of a human being is determined by themeasure and the sense in which they have obtained liber-

ation from the self. We shall require a substantially newmanner of thinking if humanity is to survive.35

Put like that, it seems no more than obvious. It is thephilosophy of metaReality in a nutshell, but it takes a greatrealist scientist to see it and articulate it clearly, and a great(meta)realist philosopher with a thorough grounding inthe philosophy of science to see it with equal clarity andpersuasively elaborate it.

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Morgans general approach to transcendence also seems

vulnerable to immanent critique. He espouses the rationalityof science but arguably does not himself proceed in the mannerin which creative science proceeds. He limits himself to thediscursive intellect, as distinct from the intuitive intellect,36

implying that we can or should be able to reason our way inor out of belief in non-duality (or God etc.) by means of italone.37 But, as Bhaskar has argued and some scientists attest,38

there is a moment of absolute transcendence in scientificdiscovery that arrives, not by courtesy of the discursive

intellect as such, although it will have done a great deal ofindispensable preparatory work, but as a revelation, out of theblue, in a gap between thoughts (un-thought). Bhaskar inter-prets this plausibly as an anamnestic flash of transcendentalidentity consciousness with the supramental consciousness ofthe foundational level. If that is deemed to be an illusion, theonus is on the sceptic who is also a scientific realist to say howin that case such moments of revelation of truth are possible.Genealogically speaking, this is a matter of utmost importance,because it was reflection on this moment of non-duality . . . inany scientific revolution that prompted the elaboration ofPMR.39 PMR, like CR, takes its departure from science. It is inno sense a philosophy of reaction; it seeks, not to return us tothe worldview of our ancestors prior to the rise of Westernmodernity, but to articulate a spirituality that is in keepingwith twenty-first century scientific rationality and the pre-suppositions of humanitys emancipatory projects, and as suchto be apt for our times (p. 9).

Bhaskars system of philosophy prior to PMR describes a

two-way trajectory, from West to East in bringing Westernconceptions of philosophy and science to bear on problemsof modernisation and emancipation, and then from East toWest in a reverse, synthesising movement in TDCR. PMRessays a final revolutionary leap beyond East and West40 (cf.pp. 1312, 1734) to articulate a worldview appropriate to therichly diversified planetary eudaimonistic civilisation that itseeks to promote. In it, the dialectical antagonism of thebourgeois enlightenment and its romantic reaction in Western

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modernity,41 which manifests itself in philosophy as the

antagonism of positivism and hermeneuticism and theirsatellites, finds its definitive resolution in theory that seeks toshow the way to its resolution in practice at the level of thespecies. The main strength it draws from Western modernityis the idea of individualism not PDMs impoverished indi-vidualism of an atomistic egocentric subject set against theworld conceived in abstractly universal terms as an object ofmanipulation, but the rich individualism or universal con-cretely singularised and free-flourishing in nature first

articulated in Marxs high modernism and finding its mostpowerful philosophical elaboration and justification in DCRand PMR.42 The main strength it draws from East is the ideaof non-duality, but it moves beyond it in conceiving of theabsolute, not as that which renders relative reality illusory, butas its ultimate ingredient and sustaining basis or ground towhich we must attune ourselves in order to realise our free-dom. If dialectic is the pulse of freedom43 immanent in humanpractice, metaReality is that same pulse grounded in thedeepest dynamically unfolding and differentiating processes(spatio-temporalising structures) of nature (cf. p. 184).

Mervyn HartwigJanuary/February 2011

Notes

1 F. Jameson, Valences of the Dialectic, London: Verso, 2009, 607.2 For an assessment by a critical realist sociologist of just how dire

our situation is, see Garry Potter, Dystopia: What Is To Be Done?Waterloo, Ca.: CreateSpace, 2010.

3 R. Bhaskar with M. Hartwig, The Formation of Critical Realism,London: Routledge, 2010, 214.

4 The whole point of the philosophy [of metaReality] is to re-ground the relative in the absolute, . . . re-connect and re-uniteour embodied personalities with our ground-states from which,so to speak, they have cut loose (R. Bhaskar, The Philosophy of

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MetaReality, Volume I, MetaReality: Creativity, Love and Freedom,

New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, Ca. and London: Sage, 127).5 Cf. R. Bhaskar, The philosophy of metaReality, part II: agency,

perfectibility, novelty (interview by M. Hartwig), Journal ofCritical Realism 1(1) 2002, 67108.

6 R. Bhaskar, Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom, London: Routledge,[1993] 2008, 40.

7 As indicated below, this inversion had been entrained alreadyin DCR and TDCR, but it is brought very much to the fore inPMR and is the nub of its immanent critique of critical realism.

8 E.g. Ted Benton, Foreword to Critical Realism and the Social Sci-

ences: Heterodox Elaborations, eds J. Frauley and F. Pearce, Toronto,Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 2007, 13;Gregor McLennan, FOR science in the social sciences: the endof the road for critical realism?, in Nature, Social Relations andHuman Needs: Essays in Honour of Ted Benton, eds S. Moog andR. Stones, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 55.

9 Bhaskar, The Philosophy of MetaReality, 117.10 I am sometimes asked: What comes after metaReality? In my

view, only time will tell: Bhaskar has taken his system about asfar as it can be taken from his position in the unfolding of being.

11 For a brief overview of these developments, see Bhaskar withHartwig, The Formation of Critical Realism, 146ff.; R. Bhaskarwith M. Hartwig, Beyond East and West, in Critical Realism andSpirituality, eds M. Hartwig and J. Morgan, London: Routledge,2011 forthcoming, Ch. 8.

12 For some accounts, see R. Benedikter and R. Molz, The rise ofneo-integrative worldviews: towards a rational spiritualityfor the coming planetary civilisation? in Critical Realism andSpirituality, eds Hartwig and Morgan, Ch. 1; and the references inBhaskar with Hartwig, The Formation of Critical Realism, 222 n.5.

The affinities and disaffinities between Bhaskars metaRealismand the metarealist tendency in Russian poetry and culturaltheory dating from the 1970s and 1980s await exploration. To thebest of my knowledge, there have been no direct links betweenthe two. There is also a metarealist tendency in the visual arts ofolder and wider provenance.

13 Bhaskar with Hartwig, The Formation of Critical Realism, 148.14 The work of transcending the fact/value dichotomy was

initiated in critical naturalism (see R. Bhaskar, The Possibilityof Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human

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Sciences, London: Routledge, [1979] 1998) and is carried through

in PDM. For an account of the difference between synthesis andtranscendence in processes of discovery, see Bhaskar withHartwig, The Formation of Critical Realism, 1556, and Bhaskar,Beyond East and West.

15 Transcendence is alive, as experience, and present everywhere(R. Bhaskar, From East to West: Odyssey of a Soul, London:Routledge, 2000, 49).

16 Bhaskar with Hartwig, The Formation of Critical Realism, 177.17 Bhaskar, The Philosophy of MetaReality, xxi.18 Bhaskar, Dialectic, 183, 301, original emphasis. For an excellent

critical realist critique of poststructuralisms prioritisation ofdifference over union and identity see Alan Norrie, Dialectic andDifference: Dialectical Critical Realism and the Grounds of Justice,London: Routledge, 2010, Ch. 7.

19 Jamie Morgan arguably misunderstands Dialectic when, in hisoutline and critique of Bhaskars case for metaReality, he under-stands DCR to view emergence as the synthesis of parts in a newwhole [that] is potentially a radically creative moment that doesnot carry forward the basic characteristics of its sources (J. Morgan,What is MetaReality? Alternative interpretations of the argu-

ment, Journal of Critical Realism 1(2): 11546, my emphasis). Itdoes carry them forward, but in a radically new configuration;the quarks in emergent human bodies do not cease to be quarks.This discontinuist view of emergence is central to Morganscase against PMR, and its Achilles heel (see below). Dialecticstresses continuity as well as discontinuity, universality as wellas difference and change, as does PMR.

20 This question came up in the debate between Derek P. Breretonand Tim Ingold inJournal of Critical Realism a few years ago. SeeDerek P. Brereton, Preface to a critical realist ethnology, part II:

some principles applied, Journal of Critical Realism 3(2) 2004,270304; Tim Ingold, Breretons brandishments, Journal ofCritical Realism 4(1) 2005, 11227; Derek P. Brereton, Response toIngold, Journal of Critical Realism 4(2) 2005, 42634. At theend of his response to Brereton, Ingold suggests that it is anopen question [w]hether critical realism is compatible with arelational ontology of the kind he espouses. Certainly, CR/PMRemphasises with Ingold that the world is relational and in pro-cess, but unlike him marries this with a view of the world as alsodepth-stratified.

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21 PMR incorporates, for example, an understanding of quantum

action-at-a-distance and has important similarities with (as wellas differences from) the participatory universe hypothesis intheoretical physics and biology and the view of physicists likePaul Davies that the universe is deeply imbued with immanentlyevolving meaning and purpose.

22 That the old outlook has been pervasive on the Left, includingNew Left, is evidenced by the following anecdote recounted byBhaskar in 2010: I remember that, even as late as 1985, whenI was negotiating with Verso for the publication of ScientificRealism and Human Emancipation, Peter Dews was deputed by

New Left Review (NLR whose publishing house Verso was), andpresumably by Perry Anderson, to say to me, Well, emergenceis not a scientifically acceptable concept. Yet that was a majorpart of the realist critique of science. (Bhaskar with Hartwig, TheFormation of Critical Realism, 40, original emphasis). Certainly,the elaboration of philosophical emergentism opens up the con-ceptual space to think of the world as enchanted, and this mayhave been of concern to the NLR emissary; but then one of theimplications of a good deal of twenty-first century science is thatthe world is enchanted.

23 I should perhaps add that it is in no sense itself a theology orin competition with theology, as it is sometimes taken to be byreligionists, atheists and agnostics alike.

24 The other two, introductions to which I have also been com-missioned to write, are R. Bhaskar, From Science to Emancipation:Alienation and the Actuality of Enlightenment, New Delhi,Thousand Oaks, Ca. and London: Sage, 2002 and The Philosophyof MetaReality, Volume 1. The latter announced three furthervolumes (see inside front cover): The Philosophy of MetaReality,Volume 2, Between East and West: Comparative Religion and Spiritu-

ality in an Age of Global Crisis; The Philosophy of MetaReality,Volume 3, Re-enchanting Reality: A Critique of Modernity andModernisation; and The Philosophy of MetaReality, Volume 4, WorkIn: A Manual. Owing to circumstances beyond Bhaskars control,which include diagnosis of a neuropathy that led to the amputa-tion of one of his feet, these volumes have not been completed.Most of Bhaskars energies are currently being devoted to hisduties as World Scholar at the Institute of Education, Londonand to setting up the International Centre for Critical Realism,Interdisciplinarity, Education and Social Research there. In my

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view, nothing of Bhaskars metaReality project is fundamentally

missing from the volumes that have seen the light of day otherthan some of the finer details.

25 Because the mode of these chapters is popularising, what theyhave to say on particular points of philosophy that are treatedmore systematically elsewhere should be read in the context ofthe earlier discussion. Thus, Ch. 1 seems to suggest that Bhaskarthinks that Hegel did not have a concept of determinate negation(p. 44), but we know from Bhaskars critique of Hegel in Dialectic(e.g. pp. 15, 234) that this is not so; hence we must conclude thatwhat Bhaskar means by determinate negation is very different

from what he takes Hegel to mean, as indeed Dialectic makesclear (e.g. pp. 6, 8, 278).

26 When love with one another so{ths}/{ths}Interinanimatestwo souls,{ths}/{ths}That abler soul, which thence dothflow,{ths}/{ths}Defects of loneliness controls (John Donne, TheEcstasy).

27 See also Bhaskar From Science to Emancipation, xiv and ThePhilosophy of MetaReality, xi et seq., 315f.

28 M. Hartwig, Consistency/inconsistency, in Dictionary of CriticalRealism, ed. M. Hartwig, London: Routledge, 2007, 768.

Although the transcendentally real self is not named in Dialectic,it is theorised implicitly as the deep content of human practice(see M. Hartwig, Emancipatory axiology, in ibid., 15764).

29 Bhaskar suggests at p. 268 that it is the only one, but that is not so both (1) and (3) are also in evidence.

30 Seo MinGyu, Bhaskars philosophy as anti-anthropism: a com-parative study of Eastern and Western thought,Journal of CriticalRealism 7(1) 2008, 528. See also M. Hartwig, Introduction toPhilosophy and the Idea of Freedom by R. Bhaskar, London:Routledge, 2010, xi.

31 Morgan, What is MetaReality? in Sean Creavens Against theSpiritual Turn, London: Routledge, 2010, is directed mainly attheism and TDCR; in so far as it considers PMR, which it illicitlyfuses with TDCR, it is arguably a monument to actualistic andcoldstream materialistic misconstrual and, in consideringBhaskars main lines of argument for PMR, is largely content toreproduce Morgans position. See M. Hartwig, The more youkick God out the front door, the more he comes in through thewindow: Sean Creavens critique of transcendental dialecticalcritical realism and the philosophy of metaReality and Sean

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Creavens response, Resisting the spiritual turn, both forth-

coming in Critical Realism and Spirituality, eds Morgan andHartwig. Although Garry Potters Re-opening the wound:against God and Bhaskar, Journal of Critical Realism 5(1): 2006,92109, announces that its principal target is the later work ofBhaskar (p. 93), it does not mention the philosophy ofmetaReality.

32 Morgan, What is MetaReality?, 139, original emphasis.33 Bhaskar with Hartwig, Formations, 179.34 See also Note 19, above.35 http://thinkexist.com/quotation/a_human_being_is_part_of_a_

whole_called_by_us_the/10110. html. Morgan, What isMetaReality?, 136, cites the first two sentences. The self of courseis here, in Bhaskarian terms, the atomistic egocentric self, not thetranscendentally real self. Cf. the quote from Einstein that standsat the beginning of Reflections.

36 For the distinction and Bhaskars critique of the discursiveintellect, see Bhaskar, The Philosophy of MetaReality, Ch. 3, TheZen of creativity and the critique of the discursive intellect. Boththe intuitive and the discursive intellect are underpinned by thesupramental consciousness of the ground-state.

37 See also J. Morgan, Judgemental rationality and the equivalenceof argument: realism about God, in Critical Realism and Spiritual-ity, eds Hartwig and Morgan, Ch. 4.

38 See e.g. the 1997 TV film, The Proof, which recounts AndrewWiles experience in arriving at the proof of Fermats lasttheorem.

39 Bhaskar, From Science to Emancipation, xi.40 This is the title of the first of Bhaskars chapters with me (Ch. 8) in

Hartwig and Morgan, eds, Critical Realism and Spirituality.41 Cf. Marx: It is as ridiculous to yearn for a return to an original

fullness as it is to believe that with this present emptinesshistory has come to a standstill. The bourgeois viewpoint hasnever advanced beyond this antithesis between itself and theromantic viewpoint and therefore the latter will accompany itas its legitimate antithesis to its blessed end (Grundrisse, Har-mondsworth: Pelican, 1973, 162, cited in R. Bhaskar, ReclaimingReality: A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, London:Routledge, [1989] 2010, 208).

42 The essence of Bhaskars immanent critique of Marx is that hedid not follow through on the spiritual presuppositions of his

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project of emancipation (p. 119). See also Bhaskar with Hartwig,

Beyond East and West, in Critical Realism and Spirituality, edsMorgan and Hartwig, Ch. 8.

43 These are the last words in Bhaskars Dialectic (p. 385).

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