Critical Realism

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INTRODUCTION

Basic texts and developments

Roy Bhaskar and Tony Lawson

Roy Bhaskar’s A Realist Theory of Science emerged into the intellectual scene at a time of vigorous critical activity in western philosophy of science. Central to the latter was a sustained challenge to the then dominant positivist conception of science. Two fundamental elements of the positivist world view undergoing particular scrutiny and criticism were the assumptions that science is monistic in its development and deductive in its structure. Even so support for the positivist conception was far from giving way entirely. And a significant reason for its continuing survival was the inability of its opponents to sustain in a sufficiently coherent manner, precisely those ...