Suchergebnisse

It has been claimed that the ontological theories of Roy Bhaskar can provide guiding principles for social scientists, which can help steer them through errors and misconceptions. This article argues that neither Bhaskar's 'critical realism' nor any overarching philosophical ontology, can provide workable guiding principles for social scientific research, and that such principles are unnecessary.

Dictionary of Critical Realism fulfils a vital gap in the literature, Critical Realism is often criticised for being too opaque and deploying too much jargon, thereby making the concepts inaccessible for a wider audience. However, as Hartwig puts it 'Just as the tools of the various skilled trades need to be precision-engineered for specific, interrelated functions, so meta-theory requires concepts honed for specific interrelated tasks: it is impossible to think creatively at that level without them.'This Dictionary seeks to redress this problem; to throw open the important contribution of Cri

Critical Realism and Spirituality contextualizes, delineates, explores and critiques the turn to spirituality and religion in critical realism, which has been under way since the mid-1990s, as well as telling its story. A range of distinguished critical realists, theological critical realists and scholars working with related approaches bring their talents to bear on this task. While their personal beliefs span the whole spectrum from theism to atheism, they are united by the desire to open up a space for dialogue of one kind or another (intra-faith, inter-faith and/or extra-faith), promoting

Critical realism is a movement in philosophy and the human sciences most closely associated with the work of Roy Bhaskar. Since the publication of Bhaskars A Realist Theory of Science, critical realism has had a profound influence on a wide range of subjects. This reader makes accessible, in one volume, key readings to stimulate debate about and within critical realism. It explores the following themes:* transcendental realist* the theory of explanatory critique* dialectics* Bhaskar's critical naturalist philosophy of science

As microeconomic calculus & macroeconomic estimation superseded earlier approaches to political economy, broad questions about how things are (ontology), how things might be known (epistemology), & how science should proceed (methodology) were neglected. As a corrective, Critical Realism (CR) has been proposed as an alternative to the orthodox deductive-nomological (ODN) tradition: i.e., to mathematical deduction & statistical induction. In their place, retroduction -- the use of analogy, metaphor, intuition, & ordinary language -- is supposed to illuminate root causes by identifying the deep mechanisms that govern events. CR offers guidelines for social science that are of a most general kind: from initial "premises," retroduction proceeds to hypotheses about deep structures & mechanisms. The initial premises are determined by a desire to understand events that surprise us. However, nothing is thereby excluded, including ODN. & since historical processes are revealed neither by assumption nor by the net effects of whatever initial conditions hold, it might be apposite to drop the search for (deep) socio-economic laws & instead use whatever evidence is at hand to see whether, & the extent to which, ideal types apply to any given historical sequence. References. Adapted from the source document.

While accepting the contribution that critical realism has made in exposing the methodological weaknesses of mainstream economics, this rejoinder to Nielsen and Morgan reasserts the need for critical realism to go much further. In particular, it highlights the need for critical realism's explicit confrontation with—and critique of—economic theory, and the need for it to construct a political economy rooted in the categories of contemporary capitalism. The paper again calls on those who espouse critical realism to undertake the important work of developing a careful exposition of the meanings of structure, relation and tendency, etc., their interrelationships and their historical and social scope and variability—and to provide an explicit account of where critical realism diverges from Marxism and Marxist political economy.

I would like to thank the editors for giving me the opportunity to respond to some of the criticisms raised in the forum on Critical Realism, or what is sometimes known as scientific realism (CR/SR). In this short response I shall attempt to correct some of the misunderstandings of Critical Realism in the forum, but also highlight a fundamental philosophical disagreement that has important political consequences.

Intro -- Contents -- List of Figures, Tables and Boxes -- Acknowledgements -- 1: Critical Realism in Times of Crisis -- THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL REALISM -- NEOLIBERALISM AND CLIMATE CRISIS -- ABOUT THIS BOOK -- 2: Realism(s) and the Critique of Positivism -- REALISM(S) -- THE SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT -- POSITIVISM VERSUS CRITICAL REALISM -- CRITICAL RATIONALISM VERSUS CRITICAL REALISM -- POSITIVISM IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL SCIENCE -- POSITIVIST ECONOMICS -- 3: Basics: Ontology and Epistemology -- THE TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE DIMENSIONS -- THE THREE DOMAINS OF REALITY -- OPEN SYSTEMS AND CAUSALITY -- STRATIFICATION AND EMERGENCE -- FROM ONTOLOGY TO SCIENCE -- NATURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE -- 4: Basics: Transcending Dualisms -- REDUCTIONISM AND DECONSTRUCTIONISM -- CRITICAL REALISM AND THE AGENCY-STRUCTURE DUALISM -- Structural conditions -- Social interaction -- Structural development -- AGENCY, STRUCTURE AND CULTURE -- 5: Practicing Critical Realism -- FROM PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE TO SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC PRACTICE -- INTERDISCIPLINARITY, 'ROLE MODEL' WORKS AND EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES -- INTO THE DEEP: RETRODUCTION AND ABSTRACTION -- THE QUANTITATIVE AND THE QUALITATIVE -- KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN NEOLIBERAL TIMES -- ETHICS AND EXPLANATORY CRITIQUE -- 6: Neoliberalism, Growth and the Climate Crisis -- CRITICAL REALISM AND CLIMATE CRISIS RESEARCH -- GROWTH AND CAPITALISM -- NEOLIBERALISM VS. THE CLIMATE -- CRISES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY -- GREEN GROWTH OR POST-CAPITALISM? -- 7: Discourses and (De)constructions -- IDEALISM(S) AND REALISM(S) -- KNOWLEDGE AND POWER -- AGENTS AND STRUCTURES -- CRITICAL REALISM AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM -- SYNTHESISING POSTMODERNISM AND CRITICAL REALISM -- DISCOURSE AND CULTURE ARE NOT ENOUGH -- 8: Contemporary Critical Realism -- BHASKAR'S ODYSSEY -- Dialectical critical realism.