Talk:Critical realism

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"critical realism refers to any position that maintains that there exists an objectively knowable, mind-independent reality, whilst acknowledging the roles of perception and cognition." the second half of that sentence is vague enough for it not to be false, but it's very misleading. are all realists critical realists? all realists that can account for illusion?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.27.39 (talk) 01:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The existence of other communitites

I would like to see some further contributions to the page which address other communities, apart from the Bhaskar community, that refer to themselves as critical realists. I am familiar with Peacocke, Barbour, and Polkinghorne and their use of the term 'critical realism', and will be adding some information about them shortly. However I am aware of a literary criticism school in the 1920s who refer to themselves as critical realists. I would like to see someone who knows about literary criticism add to this page.

[edit] Very different from the Critical Realism I know

I think this is a very suspicious article. First of all, Roy Bhaskar is basically a nobody as far as major anglophone philosophy departments. On the other hand, there are important American and British philosophical traditions that go by the name Critical realism that are entirely unrepresented, here. This makes the article unbalanced, if not POV. One reputable source has an article on Critical Realism with no mention of Bhaskar, while none of the authors in that article are mentioned here. Also, no mention is made of Roy Wood Sellars, who wrote extensively on critical realism, coining the term and spear-heading the movement, along with Santayana and Lovejoy. --The Hanged Man 04:28, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the above constitutes grounds for "suspicion", exactly. Why don't you add what you think are the key references, and change invocations of authority to what you think are the more seminal figures. As for Bhaskar being a "nobody": well, obviously he has some sort of a following, so this looks POV. Simply establishing that there was a body of work on critical realism before Bhaskar did any work in the area should be enough for the purposes of this article (I understand this to be your claim), and I assume the Bhaskar article will also need appropriate changes. --- Charles Stewart 13:48, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've gone through and made enough changes to make it clear that there is more to Critical realism that Bhaskar. I'm removing the warning, even though the attention to Bhaskar is still completely unproportional to his academic importance, as far as I have an idea of what that means. Sorry if I'm sounding too POV, there.

I hope someone who knows more than just the bare bones, unlike me, comes along and fleshes this thing out. In any case, hopefully the important stuff has been done. --The hanged man 21:38, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In my view the problem with the article is not a POV issue. The article has been very thin and needs the expansion you have started, thank you. However, the empahsis on Bhaskar is not a POV issue, rather a lack of traffic to this page from people with breadth, as such it should have had a stub label (it did at one stage, I can't remember who or why it was removed). With regard to the American Critical Realists, you will note that there has been a comment on this discussion page asking for more work to be done in that regard. As for Bhaskar, he may not have as higher profile as other philosophers, nonetheless, a google search for Critical Realism, will reveal the amount of impact he has had on contemporary critical realism. As such, it is more than fair that he receives attention in an encylopedia. At the same time you correctly point out that the article has a greater scope. For instance, critical realism is frequently discussed in journals such as Zygon (looking at the interface between science and religion) with little reference to Bhaksar or the Americans. However, Alister McGrath has started to combine these two strands in his recent scientific theology trilogy. -Fermion 01:09, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't Polanyi start publishing 20 years before Bhaskar? And Personal Knowledge and the articles that it grows out of have just as much, if not more, to say about linguistics and science as about Theology. If Polanyi is both the first "post-critical philosopher" and a major influence on Thomas Kuhn as some people claim (debatable, perhaps) then he needs to be woven in throughout this article rather than remaining an aside. 142.103.92.118 08:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Status in social theory

"Since Bhaskar made the first big steps in popularising the theory of critical realism in the 1970s, it has become one of the major strands of social scientific method - rivalling positivism/empiricism, and post-structuralism/relativism/interpretivism."

Say what? Does this apply in the UK or Europe? Certainly not in the U.S. where the words "critical" and "realism" are unlikely to be heard together...

--- UK viewpoint: Critical realism is very popular in organization studies, especially among folks in Cambridge, and a chap called Mike Reed (cannot remember where he is based). I think the whole critical realism is just a failed critique based on a huge misunderstanding/misreading of social constructivism in social sciences. If I find a good critique of this "theory" or "philosophy", I'll put it on the wiki page.

Yes, this is a UK view. In many social science courses in the UK students are taught that the two major methodological approaches are positivism and social constructionism with critical realism as an important third (and intermediate) position. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:27, 30 April 2008 (UTC)