Introduction: de/humanization and critical realism

Critical Realism and Semiosis I --introduction

This paper explores the mutual implication of critical realism and semiosis. Three key questions can be posed in this regard. 1 The first (discussed in Section II) concerns how far critical realism needs to include semiosis, provisionally defined as the intersubjective production of meaning, 2 in its more general approach to social relations, their reproduction and transformation. In exploring ...

Critical Realism

Critical Realism (CR) states that knowledge (epistemology) is different from being or existence (ontology). There is a reality (unobservable structures) which exists independent of human thought. Critical realists believe that these unobservable structures cause observable events. Therefore, the social world can be understood only if people understand the structures that generate events. This i...

Critical Realism and

ion and explanation A CR approach to the explanation of concrete phenomena such as semiosis analyses them as conjunctions of structures and causal powers co-producing specific effects. To do this it abstracts these structures, identifying them and considering their respective causal powers and liabilities. Having done this, it then moves back towards the concrete, combining the abstracted const...

Marxism and Critical Realism

Bhaskar defines the philosopher differently: the philosopher observes the scientist, and sees that the scientist is able to expand knowledge about the world using the methods he is using. The philosopher concludes from this: obviously, the world is such that the methods applied by the scientists allow them to gain knowledge about it. This tells us something very important about the world. The p...

Polanyians on Realism: an Introduction