Realism, Regularity and Social Explanation

Abstract

could not be considered scientific on consistently applied realist criteria. The article then turns to consider a more promising surrogate for experiment: the search for various forms of regularity to reveal the operation of structures. 3 THE INITIAL PROBLEM: SCIENCE, REGULARITY AND EXPERIMENTIn order to understand the issues facing realist social science we must first consider the realist account of the natural sciences, as laid out in A Realist Theory of Science (Bhaskar, 1997(Bhaskar, [1975). The realist perspective is developed by criticising positivist understandings of natural science, which suggest that scientists are attempting to locate universally occurring regularities of events such that the occurrence of Event C is always followed by the occurrence of Event E. A positivist such as Hempel suggests that scientific laws have the following form:In every case where an event of a specified kind C occurs at a certain place and time, an event of a specified kind E will occur at a place and time which is related in a specified manner to the place and time of the occurrence of the first event. (Hempel, 1965, p. 231-2)

Explanation and quantification in educational research: the arguments of critical and scientific realism

“…The thesis presented here does not claim to be original in disputing these matters with critical realism from a position of scientific realism. Kemp and Holmwood (2003), for example, convincingly argue that regular events occurring in the social world provide an ontological basis for quantification and nonpositivist explanations. And Byrne (1998) similarly concludes that the rejection of statistical methods by critical realism is an error incompatible with the complexity and chaos of the way real societies work.…”

Critical Realism, Dialectics, and Qualitative Research Methods

“…After all, critical realists argue it is necessary to devise hypotheses about the existence of possible structures that will in turn help to explain the interaction of observable components of a concrete event in an open system and such hypotheses are obtained through knowledge already held about structures. “That is to say”, announce Kemp and Holmwood “an event is to be explained using existing knowledge of structures, their causal influence and the conditions of their exercise” (Kemp and Holmwood : 169). For Kemp and Holmwood this is problematic because it means that critical realists rely on a priori information about how structures operate in an open system.…”

Synthesizing Feminist and Critical Realist Approaches to Housing Studies

“…With Bhaskar's ambitious intent of putting forward a world view that had advantages over long standing epistemological positions, it is not surprising that its principles were given rigourous examination and critique. The way in which critical realism developed reflects those critiques, which include those by Benton (1984Benton ( , 1998 on methodological issues and by Kemp and Holmwood (2003) reflecting on epistemology and methodology (see also Manicas's (2009) critique of methodology and a counter-critique by Outhwaite 2009). There has been debate on the potential for further development (e.g.…”