Critical realism

Critical realism is a philosophical idea that focuses on the value of what is true or real over what is believed to be true. The critical realist philosophy states that reality exists outside of the human mind but that humans can, in fact, learn and understand the objective nature of the world using their limited cognitive resources. A key component of critical realism is the distinction it places on epistemology, the study of knowledge, from ontology, the study of being. Critical realism argues that knowledge is dynamic and ever-changing while being, or reality, is comparatively static and unchanging.

According to critical realism, human methods for acquiring knowledge and the knowledge gained from these methods are fallible and subject to change. The core argument of critical realism is that much of what is real exists independently of human awareness, but it is possible to learn and understand what is real if this fact is recognized and accounted for. Critical realists argue that there are three different layers of reality: the real, the actual, and the empirical. The real includes everything that exists in the world, known and unknown. This, according to critical realists, is what gives birth to the actual. The actual consists of the events and occurrences, while the empirical is the subjective experience of events within the world.

Background

Critical realism originated with Roy Bhaskar. Bhaskar went to Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied philosophy, politics, and economics. After receiving his first-class honors degree in philosophy, politics, and economics, he decided to pursue additional work in the field of economics. Eventually, he decided to make a switch from pursuing economics to once again studying philosophy. Bhaskar’s work focused on ontology, the philosophical study of being. In 1975, Bhaskar published his first book, A Realist Theory of Science, which marked the conception of mainstream critical realism and paved the way for its future development. Bhaskar went on to publish additional pivotal works, which further developed and refined critical realism.

The two main foundational theories of critical realism include transcendental realism and critical naturalism. Transcendental realism states that reality exists independently of the human mind. It is opposed to transcendental idealism, which states that the human interpretation of things is the reality. Critical naturalism makes a distinction between the real world and the artificial world of humans, but it also argues that transcendental realism can be applied both to the real world as well as to the artificial human world. This human world includes social structures and human knowledge such as theories, ideas, and beliefs. They are unique to humans and constantly change. They may be used to attempt to define, operate within, or understand the real world, but they are not real, according to critical realist thought.

Overview

Critical realism states that unobservable structures create all observable events. It argues that all human knowledge emerges from unobservable mechanisms. According to the critical realist perspective, it is essential to understand the underlying mechanisms that create the observable world to understand it better.

For example, one might consider language. When people describe something using language, is the language they are using real or is what they are representing real? According to critical realism, language can be classified as a human structure which emerged from unobservable mechanisms. A critical realist might say that language is an attempt to explain reality, a tool used to define the real, which is not real in and of itself; new words are invented each year, and over time, words within a language can be lost, gained, or modified. Languages cannot describe everything, so they are fallible. It is possible to become confused when trying to explain certain concepts. For instance, when people attempt to describe a paradox, language may not be able to accurately define the idea they are trying to explain. Another way to think of this is to imagine a person who only speaks English attempting to speak with a person who only speaks Japanese. Both languages are rendered completely useless, and to each person, what the other person is saying does not make sense, so it can be said that the foreign languages are, in a way, not real to them.

The underlying reality that languages attempt to bring order to and explain does not change, while the language used to describe it may change. According to critical realism, things that exist only in the context of human knowledge are a part of what can be considered the human world, which is distinct from the natural or real world.

Critical realism can be applied to both the human world and the natural world. Critical realism can still be utilized within the sphere of human social structures; the limitation of using critical realism to describe the human world is that it can only be used to predict past or current situations. Since human social structures are volatile and subject to continuous change over time, it cannot be used to predict future outcomes.

Critical realists argue that things constructed in the human world are a distillation of things from the real world because they must come from something. According to critical realism, the fact that something exists in the human mind does not mean that it cannot have value. To better understand this, one might reconsider the example of language. People’s names are used to describe who they are, but a name is not a person. Even though names exist within the human mind, a name is essential for a person to have an identity. Critical realists argue that concepts and knowledge have a mutual relationship. Because concepts and knowledge are mutually interrelated, language is a useful instrument for deciphering reality; this example demonstrates a core idea within critical realism, that it is possible to find objective truth, even by fallible means.

Critical realism has had a profound impact on modern philosophy, economics, and the social sciences in the twenty-first century. Some economists are attempting to integrate some ideas from critical realism into economics. Critical realist economists argue that it is important to examine the nature of social structures to understand the underlying mechanisms behind economic occurrences. Critical realism is one of the well-supported arguments against the views of empiricism, an idea that argues that knowledge is derived from primary, sensory experience, and foundationalism, the idea that basic, justified beliefs can be used to support knowledge. Critical realism has been applied to research in many fields, including healthcare and education.

Bibliography

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