Critical Realism

 

I have found the form of ‘critical realism’ associated with Roy Bhaskar to be a particularly congenial dialogue partner in formulating a scientific theology. My ‘scientific theology’ trilogy represents the first significant theological application of Bhaskar’s critical realism, and represents a landmark in exploring its potential use in religious contexts. See further Brad Shipway. "The Theological Application of Bhaskar's Stratified Reality: The Scientific Theology of A.E. McGrath." Journal of Critical Realism 3 (2004): 191-203.

I first encountered this approach to realism in 1998. I had been aware of the importance of Alasdair MacIntyre’s tradition-mediated approach to rationality since 1989, and – especially as a historian, with a keen sense of the historical vulnerability of the modernist project – found it a highly persuasive means of dealing with the impasse arising from the failure of the Enlightenment. It also had a powerful resonance for Christian theology, on account of its implications for the role of the Christian community or the institution of the church in theological and ethical reflection – an agenda advanced with particular skill by Stanley Hauerwas.

This did not, however, resolve the many issues arising from another aspect of the scientific theology project – namely, the question of the involvement of the knower in the process of knowing. I had long been dissatisfied with certain realist accounts of pure ‘objectivity’ which seemed to fail to take account of either the observer’s involvement in the process of knowing, or the observer’s location within history, and hence at least partial conditioning by the contingencies and particularities of that location. My discovery of Bhaskar’s critical realism dates from late in 1998, when I came across his Possibility of Naturalism, then in its third edition. It immediately became clear to me that this approach made considerable sense, not least on account of its obvious resonance with the actual working assumptions of the natural sciences. I then went on to explore this further, using four of Bhaskar’s works as primary sources for his ideas:
The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 1998.
A Realist Theory of Science. 2nd ed. London: Verso, 1997.
Reclaiming Reality: A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy. London: Verso, 1989.
Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation. London: Verso, 1986.
Bhaskar’s approach must be distinguished from other forms of ‘critical realism’ currently in circulation, especially within ‘science and religion’ circles.

Bhaskar sets out the ‘basic principle of a realist philosophy of science’ as the belief ‘that perception gives us access to things and experimental activity access to structures that exist independently of us’. A helpful way of beginning to clarify the concept of ‘critical realism’ is to compare it with two alternative approaches, as follows:
Naïve realism: Reality impacts directly upon the human mind, without any reflection on the part of the human knower. The resulting knowledge is directly determined by an objective reality within the world.
Critical realism: Reality is apprehended by the human mind which attempts to express and accommodate that reality as best it can with the tools at its disposal – such as mathematical formulae or mental models.
Postmodern antirealism: The human mind freely constructs its ideas without any reference to an alleged external world.

This contrast immediately identifies the distinctive features of the approach. Against postmodernism, critical realism affirms that there is a reality, which may be known, and which we are under a moral and intellectual obligation to investigate and represent as best as we can. Against certain types of modernism, critical realism affirms that the human knower is involved in the process of knowing, thus raising immediately the possibility of the use of ‘constructions’ – such as analogies, models, and more specifically social constructs – as suitably adapted means for representing what is encountered.

The importance of the active involvement of the knower was stressed by the noted psychologist William James. In his 1878 essay ‘Remarks on Spencer’s Definition of Mind as Correspondence,’ James drew attention to the fact that the knowing agent received knowledge actively, not passively:
The knower is an actor, and co-efficient of the truth on the one side, whilst on the other he registers the truth which he helps to create. Mental interests, hypotheses, postulates, so far as they are bases for human action – action which to a great extent transforms the world – help to make the truth which they declare.
James’s important point does not pose a challenge to the notion that there exists a world, independent of the observer. The point he is making is that the knower is involved in the process of knowing, and that this involvement must somehow be expressed within a realist perspective on the world.

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