ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the philosophical and methodological perspective of critical realism (CR). It argues that in his work on order, and on social rules of conduct and the telecommunications system, the mature F. A. Hayek adopts a quasi-CR perspective. The chapter also argues that in Karl Marx’s work on value, utilizing social structures in the form of relations of production, commodities and the value form, he adopts a CR perspective. It illustrates that from the CR perspective, the world is layered and transformational. The chapter highlights the switch in the mode of theorizing encouraged by this layered and transformational ontology. R. Bhaskar establishes the possibility of a transformational ontology from an investigation into the nature of society. Operating with a layered and transformational ontology, the emphasis of investigation necessarily switches from the domains of the empirical and actual, to the domain of the deep and the deep structures that govern the events/actions.
