Critical Realism,Dialectics, and Qualitative Research Methods

Critical realism has been an important advance in social science methodology because it develops a qualitative theory of causality which avoids some of the pitfalls of empiricist theories of causality. But while there has been ample work exploring the relationship between critical realism and qualitative research methods there has been noticeably less work exploring the relationship between dialectical critical realism and qualitative research methods. This seems strange especially since the founder of the philosophy of critical realism, Roy Bhaskar, employs and develops a range of dialectical concepts in his later work in order to extend the main tenets of critical realism. The aim of this paper is to draw on Bhaskar's later work, as well as Marxism, to reorient a critical realist methodology towards a dialectical approach for qualitative research. In particular, the paper demonstrates how dialectical critical realism can begin to provide answers to three common criticisms made against original critical realist methodology: that the qualitative theory of causal powers and structures developed by critical realists is problematic; that critical realist methodology contains values which prove damaging to empirical research; and that critical realists often have difficulties in researching everyday qualitative dilemmas that people face in their daily lives.     

Using Critical Realism to Explain Indeterminacy in Role Behaviour Systematically

We demonstrate in this article how critical realism can be used to explain indeterminacy in role behaviour systematically. In so doing, we both rebut various criticisms of critical realism made recently by Kemp and Holmwood and attempt to illustrate the weaknesses and absences of approaches that concentrate unduly on the collection of expectations of (different groups of) actors concerning roles and the behaviour of incumbents. Within a framework that recognises that structure and agency are ontologically distinct but necessarily empirically related entities, we argue that structures should be seen as sources of indeterminacy within role behaviour for at least four reasons: the co‐determination of roles through the intersection of structures; conflicting role expectations caused by contradictions inhering within structures; asymmetries of power within social relations; and asymmetric repetition within structural reproduction/transformation. In light of this discussion of structural sources of indeterminacy, we then go on to demonstrate how critical realism is also able to analyse systematically the agential sources of indeterminacy within role behaviour and expectations through theories of psychobiography and reflexivity. We thus conclude that critical realism contains the conceptual tools required to illuminate the point(s) of intersection between structure, culture and agency which is central to understanding both role behaviour and the plurality of expectations concerning such behaviour.     

Critical Realism and Causality: Tracing the Aristotelian Legacy

Rom Harré's generative account of causality has been drawn on heavily by advocates of critical realism. Yet Harré argues that critical realists often exaggerate the extent to which powerful causal explanations of social phenomena can be developed. Certain proponents of critical realism have responded to Harré's criticisms by suggesting that it is useful to consider the relevant issues in relation to the familiar Aristotelian classification of four causes. In this paper I contribute to this debate and pursue a similar strategy. The paper adds to existing contributions in two ways. Firstly, I outline how Harré sees his generative account of causality as linking up with Aristotelian themes. It emerges that Harré at times conceives of his generative theory as part of an alternative to the Aristotelian system while at other times he draws connections between it and a reformulated account of formal causality. Secondly, I argue that when we consider the positions of Harré and proponents of critical realism on the scope of causal explanation in the social realm in relation to the interpretation of final causes offered by another philosopher profoundly influenced by the Aristotelian tradition, namely Charles Peirce, we can see both as limited in certain respects.     

Realism and antirealism in social science

Up until recently social scientists took it for granted that their task was to account for the social world as objectively as possible: they were realists in practice if not always in their methodological sermons. This situation started to change in the 1960s, when a number of antirealist philosophies made inroads into social studies.This paper examines critically the following kinds of antirealism: subjectivism, conventionalism, fictionism, social constructivism, relativism, and hermeneutics. An attempt is made to show that these philosophies are false and are causing serious damage to social studies.Next the subjective interpretation of probability is analyzed as a case of subjectivism. An approach to the subjective perception of justice is sketched as an example of the objective study of subjective experience.Finally, the three main varieties of realism — naive, critical, and scientific — are outlined. It is argued that the scientific attitude involves scientific realism, which is put in practice even by scholars who, like Weber and Simmel, called themselves antirealists.     

Transcending the fissure in risk theory: critical realism and child welfare

Within risk theory a key fissure has emerged. On the one hand, objectivist theories continue to treat risk as a measurable entity, while on the other, subjectivist accounts approach risk as a socially constructed phenomenon. Arguably, we need to transcend this false opposition and harmonize important insights from both approaches. Building on an earlier paper in this journal, the author tries to achieve this synthesis by applying Bhaskar's critical realist perspective to this contested area. The reconciliation of objectivism and subjectivism within critical realism, it is argued, redirects our attention to the deep‐seated causes of harm or the underlying mechanisms that, when activated, give rise to situations involving risk. The paper concludes by reviewing the implications of these ideas for child and family social work. It is here that connections are made with attachment theory and the recent interest in childhood resilience.     

The AART of Ethnography: A Critical Realist Explanatory Research Model

Critical realism is a philosophy of science, which has made significant contributions to epistemic debates within sociology. And yet, its contributions to ethnographic explanation have yet to be fully elaborated. Drawing on ethnographic data on the health‐seeking behavior of HIV‐infected South Africans, the paper compares and contrasts critical realism with grounded theory, extended case method and the pragmatist method of abduction. In so doing, it argues that critical realism makes a significant contribution to causal explanation in ethnographic research in three ways: 1) by linking structure to agency; 2) by accounting for the contingent, conjunctural nature of causality; and 3) by using surprising empirical findings to generate new theory. The paper develops the AART (abduction, abstraction, retroduction, testing) research schema and illustrates its strengths by employing a Bourdieusian field analysis as a model for morphogenetic explanation.     

Social Network Analysis and Critical Realism

Social network analysis (SNA) is an increasingly popular approach that provides researchers with highly developed tools to map and analyze complexes of social relations. Although a number of network scholars have explicated the assumptions that underpin SNA, the approach has yet to be discussed in relation to established philosophies of science. This article argues that there is a tension between applied and methods‐oriented SNA studies, on the one hand, and those addressing the social‐theoretical nature and implications of networks, on the other. The former, in many cases, exhibits positivist tendencies, whereas the latter incorporate a number of assumptions that are directly compatible with core critical realist views on the nature of social reality and knowledge. This article suggests that SNA may be detached from positivist social science and come to constitute a valuable instrument in the critical realist toolbox.     

The Relevance of Ontological Commitments in Social Sciences: Realist and Pragmatist Viewpoints

The article discusses the relevance of ontology, the metaphysical study of being, in social sciences through a comparison of three distinct outlooks: Roy Bhaskar's version of critical realism, a pragmatic realist approach the most renowned representatives of which are Rom Harré and Hilary Putnam, and the authors' own synthesis of the pragmatist John Dewey's and the neopragmatist Richard Rorty's ideas, here called methodological relationalism. The Bhaskarian critical realism is committed to the heavy ontological furniture of metaphysical transcendentalism, resting on essentialist presumptions of causality and social structures, tacitly creating a dualism between individuals and society. Pragmatic realists, for their part, carry much lighter metaphysical baggage than critical realists and, much in a pragmatist vein, accept the idea that social scientists should study society by studying social life—the interwoven activities of individuals. Nevertheless, pragmatic realists only reluctantly, if at all, renounce the subject–object dualism and its ontological implications. Drawing on the ideas of Donald Davidson and Richard Rorty, the writers outline their own antirepresentationalist, antiessentialist approach to social sciences. The proposed methodological relationalism is a pragmatist approach of Deweyan origin. Based on a Darwinian understanding of human beings as organisms trying to cope with their environment, it emphasises the insight that one can neither step outside one's own action, nor withdraw from the actor's point of view, just as one cannot cognitively step outside language.     

Realism and Contingency

This paper constitutes an extended response to Athanasia Chalari's paper The Causal Impact of Resistance, which suggests that one may derive from internal conversations a causal explanation of resistance. In the context of our engagements with critical realism and digital research into social movements, we review Chalari's main argument, before applying it to a concrete case: the student protests in London, 2010. Whilst our account is sympathetic to Chalari's focus on interiority, we critique the individualism that is implicit in her argument, arguing that it emerges because of an underlying neglect of the relational aspects of resistance. Instead, we offer a relational realist analysis that treats resistance as process within an ontologically stratified account of reality that is mindful of the contingency of political acts. Taking this route, we establish resistance as an emergent relation, generative of distinctive “relational goods” in the context of collective action, which we locate at different levels of reality, as we move from an analysis of individual to collective reflexivity. In doing so we offer a sympathetic critique of Chalari, building on the thought provoking arguments contained within it, whilst also making a contribution to the theorisation of social movements and the “relational turn” within realist social theory (Archer, 2010, 2012).     

Social Structure and Social Relations

This paper replies to Porpora, King, and Varela's responses to my earlier paper “For Emergence”, focussing on the relationship between the concepts of social structure and social relations. It recognises the importance of identifying the mechanisms responsible whenever we make claims for the emergence of causal powers, and discusses the mechanism underlying one case of social structure: normative institutions. It also shows how critical realism reconciles the claims that both social structures and human individuals have emergent causal powers that combine to produce actual social events.     

Bhaskar and Bunge on Social Emergence

This article discusses the theories of social emergence developed by Roy Bhaskar and Mario Bunge. Bhaskar's concept of emergent causal power is shown to be ambiguous, and some of the difficulties of his depth-relational concept of social emergence are examined. It is argued that Bunge's systemic concept of emergent property is not only different, but also clearer and more consistent than Bhaskar's concept of emergent causal power. Despite its clarity and consistency, Bunge's definition of the concept of emergent property is shown to be too broad and analytically imprecise for the purposes of an emergentist social ontology. It is argued that Bunge's systemic account of social emergence can be developed further by using William Wimsatt's gradual approach to emergent phenomena and his four conditions of aggregativity of a systemic property. It is shown that these conditions provide useful conceptual tools for clarifying and investigating different kinds of mechanisms of social emergence and developing stronger varieties of the concept of emergent social property than that indicated in Bunge's definition of this concept.     

Social Objects, Causality and Contingent Realism

This paper is a realist argument for the existence of "social objects". Social objects, I argue, are the outcome states of a contingent causal process and in turn posses causal properties. This argument has consequences for what we can mean by realism and consequences for the development of a realist methodology. Realism should abandon the notion of natural necessity in favour of a view that the "real" nature of the social world is contingent and necessity is only revealed in outcome states. This, I argue, has both theoretical and methodological implications and I develop my argument through two case studies, of homelessness and ethnicity.     

The Siren Song of Substantivalism

The defence of a process philosophy as the metaphysics for the foundation of social psychology is part of a general defence of scientific realism. Realists, be they classical or neo critical realists hope to construct a dual level science—a phenomenal level resting on a transcendent level required to account for the order and stability to be found in the unfolding of the phenomena. Also required is a driving force or agency. Discursive psychologists argue for a social ontology in which meanings are created and managed by people engaged in projects, made orderly by shared social representations. Concepts like “social structure” are convenient metaphors to describe clusters of discursive practices but should not be interpreted ontologically. Causal powers are revealed in dispositions, which as a matter of logic, must be ascribed to entities self‐identical over time. Only persons meet this condition. Discursive social psychology is quasi social in that Vygotsky wise it looks for a social origin for social representations, and quasi personal in that persons are the naturally active beings that drive the patterns of life forward. A defence of neo‐critical realism against Professor Ratner's criticisms can only be a more careful statement of the position since his specific criticisms do not address the position I have been advocating.     

Exploring the Concept of Causal Power in a Critical Realist Tradition

This article analyses and evaluates the uses of the concept of causal power in the critical realist tradition, which is based on Roy Bhaskar's philosophy of science. The concept of causal power that appears in the early works of Rom Harré and his associates is compared to Bhaskar's account of this concept and its uses in the critical realist social ontology. It is argued that the concept of emergence should be incorporated to any adequate notion of causal power. The concept of emergence used in Bhaskar and other critical realists’ works is shown to be ambiguous. It is also pointed out that the concept of causal power should be analysed in an anti‐essentialist way. Ontological and methodological problems that vitiate Bhaskar's transcendental account of the concept of causal power are examined. Moreover, it is argued that the applications of the concept of causal power to mental powers, reasons, and social structures in the critical realist social ontology are problematic. The paper shows how these problems might be avoided without giving up the concept of causal power and the notion of structural social causation.     

What is Real and What is Realism in Sociology?

In the physical sciences a realist ontology rests on our ability to demonstrate the actual and real nature of material entities. Realist metaphysics of social entities, most influentially Bhaskar's critical realism, attempt to provide a related philosophical foundation for the social sciences. This paper examines the central issue of what is real about society it concludes that social relations and the organisations they constitute do exist and discusses the conditions of their demonstration. Realist interpretations of Bourdieu's theories are given particular attention in an argument that accepts the necessity of social realism but remains cautious about the development of methodologies able to provide effective demonstration.     

Contending philosophy of social science perspectives: A flexible typology

Philosophy of social science (PoS) typologies can help practitioners in the social sciences to reflect upon the often-tacit assumptions embedded in research. Existing PoS typologies however suffer from various shortcomings, one of them being a tendency to present extreme versions of the assumptions underpinning research. Having considered this and other shortcomings, the present paper advances a flexible PoS typology. Operating with strong and moderated versions of three PoS perspectives – positivism, constructionism and (critical) realism – the typology captures key assumptions underpinning a broad range of contemporary social research. Moreover, it opens up the possibility of contemplating the assumptions embedded in research in a more fruitful way. To render tangible how the typology constitutes an improvement over existing typologies, it is used in reflections on sustainability research on climate negotiations, green growth and housing development.     

Materialism, Agnosticism and God

The longstanding philosophical debate between idealism and materialism has recently entered the ontological terrain of critical realism (CR) and dialectical critical realism (DCR). This has been initiated by Roy Bhaskar’s most recent book, From East to West, which attempts an ambitious synthesis of philosophy, social theory and theology. On the one hand, Bhaskar’s attempt to root his philosophy and social theory in a ‘realist theory of God’ has found an echo within the CR and DCR research camp, some of whose members would urge us to take seriously the possibility of a ‘religious sociology’. On the other hand, Bhaskar’s abrupt ‘idealist turn’ has left many critical realists flabbergasted and horrified, particularly those working at the interface between realist philosophy and Marxist social science, especially since Bhaskar’s new philosophical trajec‐tory is radically at odds with the ‘synchronic emergent powers materialism’ outlined in his The Possibility of Naturalism. In response to this ‘split’ within the CR and DCR camp, the spectre of ‘realist agnosticism’ has been raised and defended by Mervyn Hartwig in this journal. Since neither science nor philosophy can settle the issue of what kind of stuff constitutes ‘rock bottom reality’, it is rational to be agnostic on the ‘ultimate question’, to deny positively affirming the claims of either one side or the other. Now this is the move that is resisted in this paper. My argument is that ontolog‐ical idealism is disputable on a number of grounds‐philosophical, scientific, ethical and political. In particular, I argue that objective idealism is unsupported by rational knowledge, is riddled with conceptual and logical defects, is contrary to the logic of scientific discovery, and is an obstacle to eudaimonia (human emancipation). Further, since realist agnosticism rests its case on the myth of infallible knowledge, and obviously stands or falls with the defensibility or other‐wise of objective idealism, this gives us ‘good enough’ reasons for accepting a thoroughgoing materialism as the ontological foundation of social theory.     

The Causal Power of Discourse

This paper outlines a realist approach to the social ontology of discourse. It seeks to synthesise some elements of the approach to discourse found in the early work of Michel Foucault with a critical realist understanding of the causal power of social structures. It will argue that discursive structures can be causally significant when they are normatively endorsed and enforced by specific groups of people; that it is not discourse as such but these groups—discursive circles—that are causally effective; and that such an account allows us to reconcile the role of discourse with that of the subject.     

A supportive healthful housing environment for ageing: Singapore experiences and potentials for improvements

Abstract

A supportive healthful housing environment for ageing requires further adjustments of the Singapore Housing Development Board model of social housing. Suggestions for improvements follow the critical examination of typical examples according to common criteria for healthfulness. Deficiencies of the current linear model directly connecting needs to design solutions are addressed in the proposed network model in which aspirations are realised through environmental choices and opportunities. A transdisciplinary approach to environmental support unveils the need to consider design and spaces as social care tools. In conclusion, design of supportive healthful environments requires empowering the user-experts and embracing the holistic approach to design, upgrade and reuse of the ample HDB stock.     

Moving towards hybridity in causal explanation: The example of citizen participation

The puzzle of causal explanation is a core issue for social science. Searches for causal patterns can be overly mechanistic, seen for example in the desire for the magic bullet in policy, or the lionising of the celebrity policy interventions of the moment. Emphasis in policy interventions on transferable practice is often dismissed as naive for failing to recognise the importance of context, contingency, and complexity. However, a focus on highly context‐specific narratives, drawn from single cases, can be equally problematic and exacerbate rather than help the problem of reification of knowledge. This paper makes a reflective theoretical contribution to the debate on the need to tackle the dilemma of contingency versus certainty in causal explanation in the social sciences. It attempts to address this issue through the lens of a specific concrete puzzle of explanation; that of citizen participation in policy. Citizen participation is a salient policy topic, which demands a thorough understanding of causation. Using extended empirical examples of citizen participation in policy serves to highlight the intractability of different traditions of causal explanation and grounds the need for greater compatibility in approaches. The paper then offers two propositions centring on the notions of transdisciplinarity and hybridity in research practices and methodologies. It concludes with a discussion of more and less desirable forms of hybridity.