Social Ontological and Epistemological Principles of Critical Realism, with Emphasis on Roy Bhaskar’s Viewpoints

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Professor, Department of Sociology, Tabriz University

2 Professor and Henry Marshall Tory Endowed Research Chair at University of Alberta, Canada

3 Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Tabriz University

4 Professor, Faculty of Law and Political Science, the University of Tehran

5 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology, Kharazmi University

Abstract

The objective of this study is to introduce the social ontological and epistemological principles of the school of critical realism and to explain the approach of this school in relation to social world and its event to show how by utilizing the principles of this school one can attain a better explanation of social realities. Although this school is realist from ontological perspective and is interpretative-hermeneutic from epistemological perspective, it has serious criticisms on these two schools and accuse both of them of epistemic fallacy. In viewpoint of critical realists, the nature of social reality has three layers, i.e. real, actual, and empirical. The real layer is the very fundamental mechanism of creation and development of social realities that should be emphasized and studied by social sciences researchers. However, most of social researches are limited to the discovery of actual layer of social reality. Bhaskar, by offering RRREIC schema (resolution, redescribing, retroduction, eliminating, identifying, and correcting), tries to understand the more fundamental layers of social reality and also believes that continued criticism of human findings and experiences of human society leads to acquisition of reliable knowledge and prepares the grounds for possibility of redemption. Attempt has been made in this article through development of this method and its employment for explanation of one example of social realities to provide answer to the claim that critical realism has remained at the level of a philosophical school and has not been able to provide an applied methodology for analysis of social events.

Keywords

Strategy for Culture
Volume 11, Issue 44
March 2019
Pages 29-57

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