A Critical Look at Critical Realism: Some Observations on the Problems of the Metatheory

International Relations as a scientific discipline can be considered elusive and, in a sense, under debate. A distinctive feature of the theoretical debates of the discipline has been the various calls for different kinds of theoretical and metatheoretical turns. In this atmosphere, the return of ontologically oriented IR theorizing based on Critical Realism has increased in influence. The aim of this article is to problematize some of the formulations of Critical Realist metatheory, especially in relation to the notions of correspondence, retroduction and emergence. The article will argue that in the context of the social sciences, two things are highly problematic. The first problem is the quest for establishing heavy ontological furniture as a backbone for scientific research. The second problem is the attempt to combine the fallibility of human knowledge with the getting things right attitude based on correspondence-like concepts of truth. The article concludes with a recommendation for a healthy caution towards the Critical Realist aspiration for the ontological turn in the social sciences.

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The Ontological Fallacy: a rejoinder on the status of scientific realism in international relations

Review of International Studies ◽

10.1017/s0260210509008560 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 35 (2) ◽

pp. 371-395 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

FRED CHERNOFF

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

International Relations ◽

Scientific Realism ◽

Physical Science ◽

Agency, Structure and Causality in Political Science: A Comment on Sibeon

Politics ◽

10.1111/1467-9256.00154 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 17-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Paul A. Lewis

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Social Structure ◽

Political Science ◽

Critical Realism ◽

Explanatory Power ◽

Recent Contribution ◽

Ontological Commitments ◽

Political Analysis ◽

The Social ◽

Ontological Turn

Researchers in political science are devoting increasing attention to the ontological commitments of their theories – that is, to what those theories presuppose about the nature of the political world. This article focuses on a recent contribution to this ‘ontological turn’ in political science ( Sibeon, 1999 ). Tensions are identified in Sibeon's account of the causal interplay between agency and social structure. It is argued that these tensions can be resolved by reflecting explicitly on ontological issues, in particular the causal efficacy of social structure, using a particular approach to the philosophy of the social sciences known as critical realism. The value of such reflection for the explanatory power of political analysis is highlighted.

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Critical Realism for Ethnography

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.543 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Grant Banfield

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Philosophy Of Science ◽

Critical Realism ◽

Social Scientists ◽

Sociological Practice ◽

Critical Realist ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Theoretical Developments ◽

British Philosopher

While specific applications of critical realism to ethnography are few, theoretical developments are promising and await more widespread development. This is especially the case for progressive and critical forms of ethnography that strive to be, in critical realist terms, an “emancipatory science.” However, the history of ethnography reveals that both the field and its emancipatory potential are limited by methodological tendencies toward “naïve realism” and “relativism.” This is the antimony of ethnography. The conceptual and methodological origins of ethnography are grounded in the historical tensions between anti-naturalist Kantian idealism and hyper-naturalist Humean realism. The resolution of these tensions can be found in the conceptual resources of critical realism. Working from, and building upon, the work of British philosopher Roy Bhaskar, critical realism is a movement in the philosophy of science that transcends the limits of Kantian idealism and Humean realism via an emancipatory anti-positivist naturalism. Critical realism emerged as part of the post-positivist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. From its Marxian origins, critical realism insists that all science, including the social sciences, must be emancipatory. At its essence, this requires taking ontology seriously. The call of critical realism to ethnographers, like all social scientists, is that while they must hold to epistemological caution this does not warrant ontological shyness. Furthermore, critical realism’s return to ontology implies that ethnographers must be ethically serious. Ethnography, if it is to hold to its progressive inclinations, must be about something. Critical realism for ethnography pushes the field to see itself as more than a sociological practice. Rather, it is to be understood as a social practice for something: the universalizing of human freedom.

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Fallibilism and Ontology in Tuukka Kaidesoja’s Critical Realist Social Ontology

Journal of Social Ontology ◽

10.1515/jso-2015-0009 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 349-358 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Daniel Little

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Critical Realism ◽

Social Ontology ◽

Causal Powers ◽

Valuable Contribution ◽

Critical Realist ◽

Naturalistic Approach ◽

The Social

AbstractThis article addresses Tuukka Kaidesoja’s critique of the philosophical presuppositions of Roy Bhaskar’s theories of critical realism. The article supports Kaidesoja’s naturalistic approach to the philosophy of the social sciences, including the field of social ontology. The article discusses the specific topics of fallibilism, emergence, and causal powers. I conclude that Kaidesoja’s book is a valuable contribution to current debates over critical realism.

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International Relations an a World of Revolutionary Change

World Politics ◽

10.2307/2008849 ◽

1949 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 272-276 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Charles Easton Rothwell

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

New York ◽

International Relations ◽

Collaborative Research ◽

Practical Experience ◽

Revolutionary Change ◽

Social Scientists ◽

Carnegie Corporation ◽

The Social ◽

Wartime Experience

A PROJECT of collaborative research concerning major world trends affecting international relations has been launched this year at the Hoover Institute and Library. This project has been made possible by a three-year grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.1Beneath the original planning for the project lay the conviction born of wartime experience, that a deeper understanding of the dynamics of international relations could be obtained by pooling the contributions of the social sciences and related disciplines and by taking account of practical experience in the international field. The need for new and more penetrating approaches to international relations had been put by Arnold Toynbee in a few challenging words: “There is nothing to prevent our Western Civilization from following historical precedent, if it chooses, by committing social suicide. But we are not doomed to make history repeat itself; it is open to us through our own efforts, to give history, in our case, some new unprecedented turn.” Natural scientists, as well as social scientists are agreed that any “new unprecedented turn” must be sought in deeper understanding of relations among people and among nations.

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The Edwards' Report and the International Relations profession

Review of International Studies ◽

10.1017/s0260210500113361 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 149-152 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michael Nicholson

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Social Science ◽

International Relations ◽

Research Council ◽

Social Research ◽

Future Research ◽

Social Scientists ◽

Social Science Community ◽

The Social ◽

Science Community

The Economic and Social Research Council recently published a Report commissioned from a committee chaired by Professor Edwards, a psychiatrist, so that the Council, and the social science community in general, might know what was good and bad in British social sciences, and where the promising future research opportunities lie over the next decade. Boldly called ‘Horizons and Opportunities in the Social Sciences’, the Report condensed the wisdom of social scientists, both British and foreign, and concludes with a broadly but not uncritically favourable picture of the British scene.

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The Everyday in a Time of Transformation: Exploring a Single South African Lifeworld after 20 Years of Democracy

Qualitative Sociology Review ◽

10.18778/1733-8077.13.1.03 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 32-54

Author(s):

P. Conrad Kotze ◽

Jan K. Coetzee

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

South Africa ◽

South African ◽

Sociological Research ◽

Contemporary Debate ◽

The Social ◽

The Everyday ◽

Ontological Turn ◽

The Individual ◽

Epistemological Framework

Transformation has come to be a defining characteristic of contemporary societies, while it has rarely been studied in a way that gives acknowledgement to both its societal effects and the experience thereof by the individual. This article discusses a recent study that attempts to do just that. The everyday life of a South African is explored within the context of changes that can be linked, more or less directly, to those that have characterized South Africa as a state since the end of apartheid in 1994. The study strives to avoid the pitfalls associated with either an empirical or solely constructivist appreciation of this phenomenon, but rather represents an integral onto-epistemological framework for the practice of sociological research. The illustrated framework is argued to facilitate an analysis of social reality that encompasses all aspects thereof, from the objectively given to the intersubjectively constructed and subjectively constituted. While not requiring extensive development on the theoretical or methodological level, the possibility of carrying out such an integral study is highlighted as being comfortably within the capabilities of sociology as a discipline. While the article sheds light on the experience of transformation, it is also intended to contribute to the contemporary debate surrounding the current “ontological turn” within the social sciences.

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Local Institutions at the Crossroads of Environmental Regionalism in Southeast Asia: State-Civil Society Interplays and Tensions

Philippine Political Science Journal ◽

10.1163/2165025x-02801002 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 33-54

Author(s):

Antonio P. Contreras

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Civil Society ◽

International Relations ◽

Southeast Asia ◽

Local Communities ◽

The State ◽

Local Institutions ◽

The Social ◽

International Interactions ◽

Civil Societies

This paper inquires into the implications of the different discursive imaginations on civil societies and the state from the perspective of the social sciences, particularly political science and international relations. It focuses on some interfaces and tensions that exist between civil society on one hand, and the state and its bureaucratic instrumentalities on the other, particularly in the domain of environment and natural resources governance in the context of new regionalisms and of alternative concepts of human security. There is now a new context for regionalism in Southeast Asia, not only among state structures, such as the ASEAN and the various Mekong bodies, but also among local civil societies coming from the region. It is in this context that issues confronting local communities are given a new sphere for interaction, as well as a new platform for engaging state structures and processes. This paper illustrates how dynamic are the possibilities for non-state domains for transnational interactions, particularly in the context of the emerging environmental regionalism. This occurs despite the dominance of neo-realist political theorizing, and the state-centric nature of international interactions.

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