ABSTRACT
Critical realism is primarily associated with the philosophical movement instigated by Roy Bhaskar (Collier 1994; Archer et al. 1998; Lopez and Potter 2001; Hartwig 2007). It seeks to map a path beyond the extremes of modern certainty and postmodern scepticism via a triumvirate of core philosophical principles: ontological realism, epistemic relativism and judgemental rationality. Ontological realism asserts that reality exists for the most part independently of human perception, epistemic relativism asserts that our knowledge of reality is limited and contingent, and judgemental rationality asserts that it is nevertheless possible to judge between conflicting truth claims while recognising that all such judgements necessarily remain open to further adjudication. Critical realism has had a significant impact across a range of disciplinary fields, from the natural and human sciences through to the arts and humanities. Like any major philosophical movement it has its antecedents. Albert Einstein’s observation that ‘the belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science’ reflects the critically realistic assumptions underlying natural science (Torrance 2001, p. 2). Similarly, as Alan Norrie points out, it is difficult to make sense of Karl Marx’s philosophy unless we read him as a proto-critical realist (Norrie 2010, p. 67). Indeed, insofar as reflective engagement with a world that transcends our ability to fully comprehend it constitutes a near-universal human experience, critical realism may be read as a highly sophisticated philosophy of universal ‘common sense’. The term ‘critical realism’ was first used in the 1920s by a group of American scholars opposed to forms of idealism, pragmatism and naïve realism (McGrath 2002, p. 203f.; cf. Drake 1920). A broad tradition of Christian critical realism, concerned with the interface between natural science and theology, theological epistemology and biblical hermeneutics, first emerged in the late 1950s. Until recently this theological tradition developed almost entirely independently of the work of Bhaskar and his colleagues. Bhaskar’s own philosophical development has passed through three phases: (1) critical realism was primarily concerned with the ontology and epistemology of the natural and social sciences; (2) dialectical critical realism built on critical realism to address issues of human emancipation via a critical conversation with the Western dialectical tradition; and (3) the philosophy of meta-reality, the result of Bhaskar’s so called ‘spiritual turn’, addressed issues of the ultimate nature of reality and the meaning and purpose of life. Here we will examine the contours of critical realism and dialectical critical realism, reserving consideration of the philosophy of meta reality for the following chapter.
