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Critical Realism

Book Description

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.

Table of Contents

  1. Front Cover
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  6. General introduction
  7. PART I Transcendental realism and science
    1. 1 Introduction: Basic texts and developments
    2. 2 Philosophy and scientific realism
    3. 3 The logic of scientific discovery
    4. 4 Conceptual and natural necessity
    5. 5 Abstraction: A realist interpretation
    6. 6 Economic science without experimentation / Abstraction
  8. PART II Critical naturalism and social science
    1. 7 Introduction: Realism in the social sciences
    2. 8 Societies
    3. 9 Stratified explanation and Marx's conception of history
    4. 10 Realism and social science
    5. 11 Realism and social science: Some comments on Roy Bhaskar’s ‘The Possibility of Naturalism’
    6. 12 A realist social science
    7. 13 Four concepts of social structure
    8. 14 Realism and morphogenesis
  9. PART III The theory of explanatory critiques
    1. 15 Introduction: Explanatory critiques
    2. 16 Reason as dialectic: Science, social science and socialist science
    3. 17 Facts and values: Theory and practice / Reason and the dialectic of human emancipation / Depth, rationality and change
    4. 18 Explanation and emancipation
    5. 19 Neutrality in the social sciences: On Bhaskar's argument for an essential emancipatory impulse in social science
    6. 20 Addressing the cultural system
    7. 21 The praxiology of legal judgement
  10. PART IV Dialectic and dialectical critical realism
    1. 22 Introduction: Dialectic and dialectical critical realism
    2. 23 Critical realism and dialectic
    3. 24 Dialectical critical realism and ethics
    4. 25 The power of negative thinking
    5. 26 Realism and formalism in ethics
    6. 27 The limits of justice: Finding fault in the criminal law
    7. 28 Between structure and difference: Law's relationality
  11. Index