ABSTRACT
Critical realism is applied in this book as a “philosophical underlabourer”. For the first time in any comprehensive manner, art and aesthetic experience are theorised from a critical realist perspective. This chapter presents an overview of the philosophy’s key features in a manageable series of “21 Steps”. Three overarching phases, introduced under the headings of transcendental realism, critical naturalism, and dialectical critical realism and metaReality, are discussed. Given the sometimes complex nature of critical realism, as well as the very broad interests to which a critical realist approach have been, or could be, devoted, this introduction is necessarily partial. However, the aim is to give the reader a firm foundation in the theory, whilst providing a helpful reference point to refer back to should this be required in later chapters.
