Tuukka Kaidesoja on Critical Realist Transcendental Realism

Internal Realism: Transcendental Idealism?

Structural Realism and Abductive-Transcendental Arguments

The paper deals with an attempt to present an “abductive-transcendental” argument in favour of a particular version of structural realism (SR), dubbed Intermediate SR. In the first part of the paper the general structure of transcendental arguments is scrutinized with a close view on Kant’s original version and the prospect of their abductive variation. Then the role of symmetries in modern phy...

The uncritical realism of realist evaluation

This paper is a response to Ray Pawson’s critique of critical realism, the philosophy of science elaborated by Roy Bhaskar. I argue that Pawson misinterprets critical realism’s positions on both natural and social science. His charges concerning its totalising ontology, its arrogant epistemology, and its naive methodology are largely unfounded, such that the differences between critical realism...

Comment on Naturalizing Critical Realist Social Ontology

This comment discusses Kaidesoja (2013) and raises the issue whether his analysis justifies stronger conclusions than he presents in the book. My comments focus on four issues. First, I argue that his naturalistic reconstruction of critical realist transcendental arguments shows that transcendental arguments should be treated as a rare curiosity rather than a general argumentative strategy. Sec...

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...