This my response to Richard Moore
> From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore)
>
> Interesting, perceptive list. Nikolai is to be commended for frequently
> putting forward agendas for discussion and going out on a limb on with some
> of his theses.
i am not sure that i've cought all verges of your irony, but in any case
thanks
> When an historic outcome is known (eg- recent Euro dominance), it is all
> too easy to list lots of known facts, and attribute to them causative
> weight. In some sense, you can't be proved wrong. Especially when you say
> the factors operate in "combination", and the list is half-way reasonable
> looking, how can anyone object? If you make the list long enough, there
> won't be another culture that possesses all the elements. It is
> significant, methodologically, that a student with far less knowledge and
> perceptivity than Nikolai could make a very-plausible such list.
right you are, my list of basic factors is not more than a preliminary data
for further theoretical work of real deductive explanation by means of smth
like covering laws and strict description of required conditions
>
> My methodological objections are two-fold. First, I find this shotgun-list
> approach insufficiently discriminating - I want rifle shots. Rather than a
> list of apparently relevant contributing factors, I want to know THE
> critical factors - those which were characteristic of the culture in
> question and whose absence would have prevented the phenomenon from
> occurring.
it is a good question, but Richard, can you present any philosophical or
empirical objections for possibility that many (not one or two) of given
factors are critical?
Are we really sure Euro dominance would not have occured, for
> example, if American precious metals weren't available? Might not the
> explorative, explotative, and innovative mindsets of Euro expansionists
> found other fulcrums for their ambitions to leverage?
i listed surely not all but principal and symbolic advantages of access to
Americas
we have also cases of Australia, Alaska, Greenland, Antarctida, all of them
sooner or later were colonized by Europeans but the effect for world-wide
European dominance, as i think, was many times weaker that business on Peruan
and Mexican silver, Brazilian cofee, tabacco, North-American cotton, wheat,
mais and potato.
>
> Rather than a list of "factors" - whether it be short or long, and whether
> it be all-inclusive or pruned by considerations of criticality - I would
> find more useful a more dynamic analysis.
me too, but how can you manage any dynamic analysis without preliminary
listing of factors?
My methodological theory would
> be that there were modes of operating,
great, i call them also 'social modes'(enwidened Marxian 'mode of production'
and 'mode of accumaulation' used now in WST)
some social modes cause systematic growth of several trends, positive
enforcement and social resonance of involved social groups, and utilizing of
accumulated results -these specific social modes i call 'dynamic strategies'
(using the term of Graeme Snooks)
and specific sets of ambitious
> operators, who were _nurtured_ by Euro culture, in this case, and who
> outgrew the operating theater offered to them by Europe, and who became,
> then, the critical instigators of Euro expansionism.
> Similarly, I believe there were economic/political/social dynamic patterns
> operating in Europe which evolved and grew, and led naturally to Euro
> expansionism when they outgrew Europe.
dynamic patterns = dynamic strategies?
> But what is missing from Nikolai's list is structure - an explicit
> characterization of how the factors worked together, which were primary and
> which secondary, which were essential and which might have been replaced if
> necessary by available alternatives. Also missing is a sense of tempo,
> growth, and quantity - what started first, what led to what, and what
> outgrew which boundaries - fuelling expansion.
starting to tell about everything that is missing from my list you push
yourself in danger to rewrite at least Britannica
>
> The identification of dynamic pattern-trends, the tracing of their growth
> _within_ their host culture, and the careful observation of how they
> managed to burst from their boundaries - this mode of analysis
> automatically forces useful structure on a "factors list", and highlights
> the most critical factors.
i fully support this plan, come on
>
> The kind of dynamic analysis I'm proposing serves especially well in this
> latter quest - to identify relative competitive advantages. For one thing,
> only expanding powers could have been competition for Europe. A
> non-expanding but very strong power would simply be a boundary to European
> enroachment, not a colonial competitor on the world scene.
it is a very strong and promising note, i am looking forward for further
development of this idea
>
> Dynamic analysis allows us to focus our attention on cultures with nascent
> growth-components - potential exapansion-drivers - rather than considering
> all cultures which happened to be large or diverse enough to include (to
> one degree or another) some static list of "factors".
but why on Earth 'nascent growth-components of a culture' cannot be
considered as one of (critical?) factors?
each list is static, but is it banned to use lists of factors (also
statistics, chronography, tables, and dozens of other modes of representing
knowledge) for further analysis od dynamics?
Capitalism, for
> example, controlling 1% of a culture's commerce, is a less significant
> force for expansion than when it controls 40%. This kind of comparison is
> not visible in a static factors list.
right, but on the base of this list one can start thinking of quantative
relations between given factors
to sum up this dialogue i must say that Richard's and my methodological
positions and general views on European dominance seem to be very close.
i hope very much for further productive exchange of ideas
best wishes, nikolai
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Nikolai S. Rozov # Address: Dept.of Philosophy
Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University
rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk
Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA
Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI
(PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history)
http://wsrv.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe
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