Critical Realism and the Social Sciences : : Heterodex Elaborations / / ed. by Jon Frauley, Frank Pearce.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• MitwirkendeR: Albritton, Robert,; Benton, Ted,; Chodos, Howie,; Curtis, Bruce,; Datta, Ronjon Paul,; Day, Richard,; Ehrbar, Hans,; Engelskirchen, Howard,; Frauley, Jon,; Hunt, Alan,; López, José Julián,; Manwaring, John,; Murphy, Raymond,; Pearce, Frank,; Potter, Garry,; Sayer, Andrew,; Sismondo, Sergio,; Woodiwiss, Anthony,
• HerausgeberIn: Frauley, Jon,; Pearce, Frank,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2007
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (336 p.)

Critical realism is a distinct school of thought in philosophy and the social sciences that has been expanding and growing in significance over the past three decades. It offers important insights into the nature of both our social and natural world, and the nature of the social sciences by challenging conventional notions of the relationship between empirical experiences, actual events, and causal mechanisms. Critical Realism and the Social Sciences brings together contributors from both sides of the Atlantic, all of whom engage with tenets of critical realism, juxtaposing them with traditional representations of social scientific enquiry.United in the belief that the conceptual systems hitherto relied upon affect our styles of thought, ethical choices, political orientations, and so on, the contributors explore realism in relation to other currents of theoretical thought, thus suggesting a basis for evaluation and further elaboration of critical realism. As a whole, the volume seeks to show how this particular approach provides a way to better understand many aspects of social existence, from human attributes to the interrelatedness of human activities and the natural world. In this much-needed study, critical realism is carefully examined, sympathetically assessed, and creatively developed by authors from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgements -- Contributors -- 1. Critical Realism and the Social Sciences: Methodological and Epistemological Preliminaries -- 2. Bhaskar's Critical Realism: An Appreciative Introduction and a Friendly Critique -- 3. For Realism, and Anti-Realism -- 4. Critical Realism and God -- 5. Rescuing Reflexivity: From Solipsism to Realism -- 6. More Than Straw Figures in Straw Houses: Toward a Revaluation of Critical Realism's Conception of Post-structuralist Theory -- 7. Thinking across the Culture/ Nature Divide: An Empirical Study of Issues for Critical Realism and Social Constructionism -- 8. Beyond Cognitive Critiques: Getting Real about Politics -- 9. Objectivity and Marxian Political Economy -- 10. Why Is This Labour Value? Commodity-Producing Labour as a Social Kind -- 11. The Relation between Marxism and Critical Realism -- 12. Understanding Why Anything Matters: Needy Beings, Flourishing, and Suffering -- 13. The Expulsion of Foucault from Governmentality Studies: Toward an Archaeological-Realist Retrieval -- 14. From Foucault's Genealogy to Aleatory Materialism: Realism, Nominalism, and Politics -- 15. Gadamer's Minimal Realism -- Bibliography -- Name Index