Talk:Critical realism (philosophy of the social sciences)

Creation

So I created this page because the old Critical realism page lacked focus. This page focuses on Bhaskar's philosophy: so it might be better entitled Critical realism (Roy Bhaskar). Thoughts? Omicron18 (talk) 19:51, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Definitely not (re: including Bhaskar's name in the title). Many of the critical realists influenced by some of his work openly renounce him and point to the origins of his ontological arguments in Marxism... It's fair to say that he is a crucial figure, no question, but to allow him to 'own' the philosophy in this way would be too much, especially given that there are thousands of other publications establishing and developing critical realist approaches to social science that include little or no reference to him. Nevertheless, I think it was correct to split the pages, as the whole CR approach in social science is only tangentially related to a lot of the more analytic stuff about perception that was on the old page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.225.230.166 (talk) 16:03, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd second the previous unsigned comment - pretty much all the critical realists in Politics and IR have rejected Bhaskar's later work and have noted that in any case his role was more that of making explicit an ontology that was already present in Marx's work, and especially in reconstructed twentieth century Marxism(s). I would, however, suggest changing the sub-title from '(philosophy of the social sciences)' to '(philosophy of social science)', since the singular seems to work better in this case, and is the more common formulation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.225.230.166 (talk) 13:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It would also be good to refer to other theorists here. Bhaskar is not the only one... e.g. Bernard Lonergan published some of his ideas on this in 1973... This article makes it appear that Bhaskar is the only voice on this. Matthew Charlesworth (talk) 01:42, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Content is duplicated in a book.

Here is the text in the article:

The implication of this is that science should be understood as an ongoing process in which scientists improve the concepts they use to understand the mechanisms that they study. It should not, in contrast to the claim of empiricists, be about the identification of a coincidence between a postulated independent variable and dependent variable. Positivism and naive falsificationism are also rejected due to the observation that it is highly plausible that a mechanism will exist but either a) go unactivated, b) be activated, but not perceived, or c) be activated, but counteracted by other mechanisms, which results in its having unpredictable effects. Thus, non-realisation of a posited mechanism cannot (in contrast to the claim of some positivists) be taken to signify its non-existence. Falsificationism can be viewed at the statement level (naive falsificationism) or at the theorem level (more common in practice). In this way, the two approaches can be reconciled to some extent.

Critical naturalism argues that the transcendental realist model of science is equally applicable to both the physical and the human worlds. However, when we study the human world we are studying something fundamentally different from the physical world and must, therefore, adapt our strategy to studying it. Critical naturalism, therefore, prescribes social scientific methods which seek to identify the mechanisms producing social events, but with a recognition that these are in a much greater state of flux than those of the physical world (as human structures change much more readily than those of, say, a leaf). In particular, we must understand that human agency is made possible by social structures that themselves require the reproduction of certain actions/pre-conditions. Further, the individuals that inhabit these social structures are capable of consciously reflecting upon, and changing, the actions that produce them—a practice that is in part facilitated by social scientific research.

Critical realism has become an influential movement in British sociology and social science in general as a reaction to, and reconciliation of, postmodern critiques.

Here is the text in the book:

The implication from a critical realist perspective is that science should be understood as an ongoing process in which scientists improve the concepts they use to understand the mechanisms that they study. It should not, in contrast to the claim of empiricists, be about the identification of a coincidence between a postulated independent variable and dependent variable. Positivism/falsification is also rejected because it is highly plausible that a mechanism will exist but either: a) go unactivated; b) be activated, but not perceived; or c) be activated, but counteracted by other mechanisms, with the outcome that effects are unpredictable. Thus, non-realization of a posited mechanism cannot (in contrast to the claim of some positivists) be taken to signify its non-existence. Falsificationism can be viewed at the statement level (naive falsificationism) or at the theorem level (more common in practice). In this way, the two approaches can be reconciled to some extent.

Critical naturalism argues that the transcendental realist model of science is equally applicable to both the physical and the human worlds. However, when we study the human world we are studying something fundamentally different from the physical world and must, therefore, adapt our strategy to studying it. Critical naturalism consequently prescribes the social-scientific method which seeks to identify the mechanisms producing social events, but with a recognition that these are in a much greater state of flux than those of the physical world (as human structures change much more readily than those of, say, a leaf). In particular, we must understand that human agency is made possible by social structures which themselves require the reproduction of certain actions/preconditions. Furthermore, the individuals that inhabit these social structures are capable of consciously reflecting on, and changing, the actions which produce them: a practice in part facilitated by social-scientific research.

Critical realism has become influential as a reaction to the postmodern critiques we have encountered in this fifth part of the book.

— Roger Hopkins Burke, "An Introduction to Criminological Theory".

I received an email from a user that points out that the book in which I found the original text was published in 2018 after that the content was inserted in Wikipedia on 11:53, 24 August 2013. This was the fifth edition of the book. In "the fourth edition of the book in 2014"., the content cannot be found. This suggests that the copying was in the opposite direction, from Wikipedia to the book. I don't know what are the guidelines in such case. In one way or another, this situation seems to require a special treatment. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:56, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

If this is really plagiarism by the author of the textbook, shouldn't that be reported to the publisher (Routledge)? 195.195.176.146 (talk) 12:58, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

References