Philosophy Now Forum

• Critical Realism & Kant Transcendental Arguments Viskovatoff Alex
  Critical Realism and Its Critics Roy Wood Sellars
  Critical Realism Essential Readings Ed Bhaskar Archer Collier Lawson Norrie
  Critical Realism Post-positivism & Possibility of Knowledge Ruth Groff
  Critical Realism_ An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar Philosophy Andrew Collier
  Critique Reclaiming_naturalized_critical_realism Kaidesoja on McWherter
  Reclaiming Reality A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy Roy
  Review of Essays in Critical Realism 1921 Allan Dorward
  The Failure of Critical Realism 1922 Turner
  The Failure of Critical Realism 1922 Turner Sugden Sherwood Monist
  Why Critical Realism Fails to Justify Critical Social Research Martyn Hammersley
  A Realist Theory of Science - Critical Realism Roy Bhaskar
  What is Critical Realism - Center for Critical Realism
  Critical Realism and Composition Theory Donald Judd
  Critical Realism in Perspective Neo-Kantian Matthias Neuber
  Critical realism -Perception WIKI
  Critical Realism vs Kant Transcendental Idealism
  Critique What is Critical about critical realism Daniel Little
  Reclaiming Reality A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy Roy Bhaskar
  Review of Essays in Critical Realism 1921 A LaLande English
  What is Critical Realism, Chap 9 Roy Bhaskar's Reclaiming
  What is Critical Realism in Judd

• Critique Bhaskar critical realism re Kant Bill Jefferies
  Critique of Bhaskar Cartwright
  Critical Realism re Transcendental Stephen Clarke
  Critique of Bhaskar Critical Realism vs Kant Tran Idealism G Duindam • 2017
  Critique Why Critical Realists Ought to be Transcendental Idealists G Duindam
  Critique of Critical Realism re Kant Meillassoux Laurelle Alison Assiter

• Note Chapter 9 in
  Reclaiming Reality
  A critical introduction to contemporary philosophy
  Roy Bhaskar
  
  1 The Emergence of Transcendental Realism
  2 Transcendental Realism, Science and Scientific Realism
  3 Transcendental Realism and Critical Naturalism: Limits on Naturalism And The Idea Of An Explanatory Critique
  4 Critical Realism and Its Implications

• Chapter 9:
  Reclaiming Reality: A critical introduction to contemporary philosophy
  Roy Bhaskar
  
  I had called my general philosophy of science ‘Transcendental Realism’ and my special philosophy of the human sciences ‘Critical Naturalism’.
  Gradually people started to elide the two and refer to the hybrid as ‘Critical Realism’.
  It struck me that there were good reasons not to demur at the mongrel.
  For a start, Kant had styled his Transcendental Idealism the ‘Critical Philosophy’.
  Transcendental Realism had as much right to the title of Critical Realism.
  
  Moreover, on my definition of naturalism it amounted to Realism, so to qualify it as Critical Realism made as much sense as to qualify it as Critical Naturalism.
  
  In either case, the hermeneutics involved in social science (and in the sociology and thence meta-critics of natural science) was a contingently Critical one (see PON p. 138). [1979 The Possibility of
  Moreover the use of the adjective ‘Critical’ rather than ‘transcendental’ brought out that the philosophy was Critical in the strong sense—not just of other philosophies but potentially
  • 1. of scientitic practices,
    2. of common beliefs and
    3. of the praxis-dependent structures or circumstances that sustain them.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 6:48 am Here is a list of what I have read [not in depth for all] of Critical Realism.

• Critical Realism & Kant Transcendental Arguments Viskovatoff Alex
  Critical Realism and Its Critics Roy Wood Sellars
  Critical Realism Essential Readings Ed Bhaskar Archer Collier Lawson Norrie
  Critical Realism Post-positivism & Possibility of Knowledge Ruth Groff
  Critical Realism_ An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar Philosophy Andrew Collier
  Critique Reclaiming_naturalized_critical_realism Kaidesoja on McWherter
  Reclaiming Reality A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy Roy
  Review of Essays in Critical Realism 1921 Allan Dorward
  The Failure of Critical Realism 1922 Turner
  The Failure of Critical Realism 1922 Turner Sugden Sherwood Monist
  Why Critical Realism Fails to Justify Critical Social Research Martyn Hammersley
  A Realist Theory of Science - Critical Realism Roy Bhaskar
  What is Critical Realism - Center for Critical Realism
  Critical Realism and Composition Theory Donald Judd
  Critical Realism in Perspective Neo-Kantian Matthias Neuber
  Critical realism -Perception WIKI
  Critical Realism vs Kant Transcendental Idealism
  Critique What is Critical about critical realism Daniel Little
  Reclaiming Reality A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy Roy Bhaskar
  Review of Essays in Critical Realism 1921 A LaLande English
  What is Critical Realism, Chap 9 Roy Bhaskar's Reclaiming
  What is Critical Realism in Judd

These are the Critiques of Critical Realism

• Critique Bhaskar critical realism re Kant Bill Jefferies
  Critique of Bhaskar Cartwright
  Critical Realism re Transcendental Stephen Clarke
  Critique of Bhaskar Critical Realism vs Kant Tran Idealism G Duindam • 2017
  Critique Why Critical Realists Ought to be Transcendental Idealists G Duindam
  Critique of Critical Realism re Kant Meillassoux Laurelle Alison Assiter

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:44 pm If you read all that and you still need to ask what critical realism is, maybe it's time to hang it up and try another hobby?

• Other than Conde Lucanor, are there any supporters of Critical Realism here?
  What are your views and what is your strongest argument for Critical Realism which you think will refute anti-realism, especially of the Kantian kind?
  Re Others, your views on the above if any?

Vitruvius wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:11 am My impression is that Critical Realism is contradictory. It at least acknowledges the existence of the external world, but it seems something of a fig leaf to avert criticism - because the door is left wide open to subjectivism through to post modernism as critiques of "the socially produced world of science and empirical knowledge" - and that implies contradiction, both at the existential and epistemological levels.

The pertinent question would be, how do we know there's an independent reality? Because we perceive it, and are able to understand what is really there! Yet via Marxian dualism, Critical Realism abandons that existential and epistemic position in relation to social reality, and opens the door wide to arguments that cast doubt upon perception, to deny reality, to undermine science. And you can't have it both ways!

"Common targets of postmodern criticism include universalist ideas of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, science, language, and social progress."

It seems there's some attempt to resolve this with reference to the primary and secondary qualities of objects - but I don't think it works, because post modernism clearly doubts perception and knowledge of both primary and secondary qualities. If the argument is that post modernism should not, then the appeal to Marxian Dualism is inappropriate. It's not that "social reality may be very different from its empirically observable surface appearance" - but rather that social investigation cannot generate sufficient data to understand social reality empirically. That so, it would in theory be possible to use empirical and positivist methods to understand social reality, but it's just too big and too complex; so subjectivism through to post modernism has to go.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:23 am

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:44 pm If you read all that and you still need to ask what critical realism is, maybe it's time to hang it up and try another hobby?

You are insulting your own intelligence by jumping hastily with above when you should have read the OP thoroughly, i.e. in noting the following;

• Other than Conde Lucanor, are there any supporters of Critical Realism here?
  What are your views and what is your strongest argument for Critical Realism which you think will refute anti-realism, especially of the Kantian kind?
  Re Others, your views on the above if any?