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Saving Critical Realism
Author(s) -
HARRÉ ROM
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5914.2009.00403.x
Subject(s) - critical realism (philosophy of perception) , epistemology , realism , metaphysics , scientific realism , schematic , philosophical realism , philosophy of science , sociology , philosophy , electronic engineering , engineering
Critical Realism aims to be both philosophically sophisticated and morally forward looking. Unfortunately the accepted form that this point of view has taken is flawed in both these aims. However, close attention to realist formats in science and the constraints that are required to give a social psychological application of them makes possible a revision of the Critical Realist scheme strengthening its scientific claim and removing certain moral ambiguities in its applications. What follows is a schematic outline for an alternative neo‐Critical Realism. Attention to the plausibility of working models leads from a substantivalist conception of social reality to a Heraclitean social metaphysics.