Historical Materialism

Comments about and criticisms of these papers are very welcome. Please write Haines@histomat.net.

Processual Explanation for the Historical Sciences (rev. 16 Oct 2010)

This paper is the first of an anticipated series of three that aims to rehabilitate the modes of production conceptual tool used in world history. It tries to justify an ontology that is suited to an explanation of emergent historical processes. The modern Western framework is transcended by proposing a physical definition of process that takes action to be foundational. The paper argues that conventional closed frameworks such as system, state of affairs, entities or levels, are only a hypothetical limiting case of emergent processes. Making action foundational implies a modal realism, but here possibility, potency and actuality are mutually defined and grounded in structure so that concrete particulars are never epiphenomenal. The interdependence of these modalities offers an operational definition of process: the localization of a probability distribution due to processes entering a relation that frames each other to localize and actualize their possibilities.

A Critique of Jaegwon Kim's Emergence: Core Ideas and Issues (27 Nov 2010)

The concept of emergence is roughly that wholes can be more than the sum of their parts or that the outcomes of a process is unpredictable terms of its initial state. As Kim shows, it has a chequered history. One could make the case that philosophers turn to it when there is a sense we are trapped within inflexible structures that offer little scope for creativity, originality, or progress. This paper looks at a leading voice in the mind-body debate to illustrate that philosophers who are unable or unwilling to jettison the conceptual framework associated with the situation from which they seek escape are doomed to remain in thrall to it.

Attached is a page of links and citations.