Journal of Critical Realism Vol. 1 No. 2 (May 2003)
Articles
Morgan, Jamie. 'The Global Power of Orthodox Economics'. Journal of Critical Realism 1.2 (May 2003): 7-34.
Download Free PDFThis paper connects the methodological critique of orthodox economics to the consequences of models, methods and theories in social reality. It uses the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the subsequent experiences of Ravi Kanbur and Joseph Stiglitz at the World Bank to place orthodox economics as one element in the causal complexity of economy as an open system. A broader understanding of economic knowledge with sociology of knowledge and political economy dynamics is explored, and as part of the analysis the issue of the role of mathematics in heterodox economics is also discussed.Jones, Branwen Gruffydd. '"The Massive Presence of the Past and the Outside": Presences, Absences and Possibilities for Emancipation in the Current Global Condition'. Journal of Critical Realism 1.2 (May 2003): 35-60.
Download Free PDFThe problem of emancipation has always been a theme of Bhaskar's work, but is foregrounded in the recent dialectical turn of critical realism. Social life since the beginnings of critical realism has been characterized by ever growing inequalities, globally and locally. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, world leaders reiterate their promises to halve global poverty while simultaneously strengthening the hand of capital in the Third World. It is time to realize the potential of Bhaskar's dialectical underlabouring in substantive analysis of possibilities for emancipation. To this end, this article first outlines the components of dialectical critical realism which are central to Bhaskar's dialectic of emancipation. It then examines the historical example of the emancipatory struggles of the peoples of Mozambique to liberate themselves first from colonial rule and then from the conditions of poverty and underdevelopment. Key concepts of dialectical critical realism are employed to illuminate the analysis, which details ways in which the causal efficacy of 'the past and the outside' undermined the Mozambican struggle for emancipation from poverty through socialist development. Reflection on this substantive example suggests that some of Bhaskar's enthusiastic thought on the dialectic of emancipation should be tempered or qualified.Norris, Christopher. 'Response-Dependence: What's in It for the Realist?'. Journal of Critical Realism 1.2 (May 2003): 61-88.
Download Free PDFResponse-dependence (RD) is an idea that derives chiefly from Locke's discussion of 'secondary qualities' such as colour, taste and odour. These are distinguished from Lockean 'primary qualities'-objective attributes like shape and size-by the fact that any standard of veridical perception or accurate judgement concerning them must incorporate some reference to how they strike a normal (perceptually well equipped) respondent under certain, likewise normalized, ambient conditions.
This argument has lately been extended to other topics of debate where it is thought to offer a promising alternative to hard-line 'metaphysical' realism (or objectivism), on the one hand, and various kinds of anti-realist, constructivist, emotivist, projectivist, or cultural-relativist approaches, on the other. Thus RD theorists have proposed its application to subject-domains ranging all the way from philosophy of logic, mathematics, and the formal sciences to ethics, sociology and political theory. In each case-so its protagonists claim-this approach holds out the prospect of resolving such deadlocked philosophical disputes.
However, I argue, that prospect is illusory since when the RD 'quantified biconditional' is applied to areas of discourse beyond the perceptual domain it either reduces to a trivial (tautologous) truth or else remains open to various kinds of sceptical or anti-realist construal. My essay makes this case with particular reference to issues in ethical theory and the philosophy of mathematics. Along the way it discusses the source of these problems in Kantian epistemology and locates them in relation to John McDowell's revisionist reading of Kant, one that has much in common with the RD approach. I also offer a brief survey of the various sceptical (e.g., Kripkean) and anti-realist (Dummett-type) arguments that have prompted this line of thought, arguments whose force it is unable to deflect for want of any adequate realist grounding.
Debate
Bhaskar, Roy, & Alex Callinicos. 'Marxism and Critical Realism: A Debate'. Journal of Critical Realism 1.2 (May 2003): 89-114.
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Review Articles
Morgan, Jamie. 'What Is Meta-Reality? Alternative Interpretations of the Argument'. Journal of Critical Realism 1.2 (May 2003): 115-146.
Download Free PDFHostettler, Nick. 'Form and Substance in Capital: Theses on the Relation between Capital and Dialectic'. Journal of Critical Realism 1.2 (May 2003): 147-173.
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Rejoinder
Patomäki, Heikki. 'After International Relations, after Capitalism: A Rejoinder to Branwen Gruffydd Jones'. Journal of Critical Realism 1.2 (May 2003): 175-181.
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Review
Jessop, Bob. 'Critical Realism and Hegemony: Hic Rhodus, Hic Saltus'. Journal of Critical Realism 1.2 (May 2003): 183-194.
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Click here to view the Journal of Critical Realism catalogue entry at Equinox Publishing Ltd.
