Showing papers on "Realism published in 2016"

Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams

Abstract: This volume is the first comprehensive synthesis of economic, political, and cultural theories of value. David Graeber reexamines a century of anthropological thought about value and exchange, in large measure to find a way out of ongoing quandaries in current social theory, which have become critical at the present moment of ideological collapse in the face of Neoliberalism. Rooted in an engaged, dynamic realism, Graeber argues that projects of cultural comparison are in a sense necessarily revolutionary projects: He attempts to synthesize the best insights of Karl Marx and Marcel Mauss, arguing that these figures represent two extreme, but ultimately complementary, possibilities in the shape such a project might take. Graeber breathes new life into the classic anthropological texts on exchange, value, and economy. He rethinks the cases of Iroquois wampum, Pacific kula exchanges, and the Kwakiutl potlatch within the flow of world historical processes, and recasts value as a model of human meaning-making, which far exceeds rationalist/reductive economist paradigms.

Controversy in Marketing Theory: For Reason, Realism, Truth and Objectivity : For Reason, Realism, Truth and Objectivity

Abstract: In this book distinguished theorist and author Shelby D. Hunt analyzes the major controversies in the "philosophy debates" raging throughout the field of marketing. Using an historical approach, Hunt argues against relativism and for scientific realism as a philosophy for guiding marketing research and theory. He also shows how the pursuit of truth and objectivity in marketing research are both possible and desirable. Specific controversies analyzed in the book include: Does positivism dominate marketing research? Does positivism imply quantitive methods? Is relativism an appropriate foundation for marketing research? Does relativism imply pluralism, tolerance, and openness? Should marketing pursue the goal of objective research? An ideal companion to Hunt's classic text, Foundations of Marketing Theory, this volume will be equally useful on its own in any graduate level course on marketing theory.

Realism, Liberalism and Non-ideal Theory Or, Are there Two Ways to do Realistic Political Theory?

Abstract: The charge that contemporary political theory has lost touch with the realities of politics is common to both the recent ideal/non-ideal theory debate and the revival of interest in realist thought. However, a tendency has arisen to subsume political realism within the ideal/non-ideal theory debate, or to elide realism with non-ideal theorising. This article argues that this is a mistake. The ideal/non-ideal theory discussion is a methodological debate that takes place within the framework of liberal theory. Realism, contrary to several interpretations, is a distinct and competing conception of politics in its own right that stands in contrast to that of liberal theory. While the two debates are united in a sense that contemporary liberal theory needs to be more realistic, they differ significantly in their understanding of this shortcoming and, more importantly, what it is to do more realistic political theory.

Raymond Geuss’ radicalization of realism in political theory

Abstract: Raymond Geuss has been viewed as one of the figureheads of the recent debates about realism in political theory. This interpretation, however, depends on a truncated understanding of his work of the past 30 years. I will offer the first sustained engagement with this work (in English and German) which allows understanding his realism as a project for reorienting political theory, particularly the relationship between political theory and politics. I interpret this reorientation as a radicalization of realism in political theory through the combination of the emphasis on the critical purpose of political theory and the provision of practical, contextual orientation. Their compatibility depends on Geuss’ understanding of criticism as negative, of power as ‘detoxified’ and of the critical purchase of political theory as based on the diagnostic engagement with its context. This radicalization particularly challenges the understanding of how political theory relates to its political context.

Making the Cut: An Agential Realist Examination of Selfies and Touch

Abstract: This article leverages the work of Karen Barad to analyze digital self-imaging research. Drawing on findings from four interviews with avid selfie authors, this article argues that agential realism...

Realist Strategies of Republican Peace : Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and the Politics of Patriotic Dissent

Abstract: Acknowledgements Prologue: A Note on Jeremiads and Jeremiahs Introduction. Beyond Just War or Democratic Peace Part I. Intellectual Trajectories One Puritan Ambiguities: America as Destiny or Design? Two The Puritan Legacy in Modern America Part II. Strategic Developments Three Reinhold Niebuhr: A Realist Ethics Between Responsibility and Humility Four Morgenthau: The Realist Polity Between Purpose and Dissent Part III. Political Implications Five Beyond Just War: Realism, Republicanism and the Politics of Patriotism as Dissent Epilogue: What the Left Might Learn From the American Jeremiad

D. M. Armstrong, Universals and Scientific Realism Vol- ume 1: Nominalism and Realism; Volume 2: A Theory of Universals; both vols. (Cambridge, 1978).

Abstract: Armstrong's latest book is excellent. [1] It compares favorably with most contemporary contributions to ontology. For one, Armstrong's style is transparent and unaffected. More importantly, his positions are stated clearly. This quality cannot be praised enough, for being obscure seems to be a prerequisite for being in philosophical fashion. Just think of the ink that has been spilled on what indeterminacy of translation really means. Or try to puzzle out what the causal theory of names has to do with philosophy. Many a thesis, I fear, will receive more attention when formulated indistinctly than when espoused by Armstrong with his customary clearness. Furthermore, Armstrong's book contains an abundance of arguments. And arguments, as most of us have realized, are hard to come by in ontology. Arguments are usually supplanted either by ringing profession or else by slander of the opposing view. Some philosophers, for example, rest content with announcing that they shall not countenance abstract entities, as if such entities could be blustered out of existence. Others make fun of other minds by calling them "ghosts in machines," as if they could be shamed out of existence. Seldom do we find arguments, as I said, and even rarer is a book, like Armstrong's, which tries to be fair to the opposition. Finally, this book is written from a, point of view''scientific realism," as Armstrong calls it-and thus presents us with a metaphysical frame df reference. One can easily see how some of Armstrong's fundamental assumptions originate in his empiricistic Weltanschauung. In the first volume, Nominalism and Realism. Armstrong argues persuasively against three ontological ppsitions. Firstly, he considers and rejects all forms of nominalism, that is, of the view that there are nothing but particulars. A property, he shows, is neither a predicate, nor a mental concept. nor a class, nor a concrete (spatio-temporal) whole. Nor can it be reduced to a resemblance relation between particulars. He thusjoins that small group of contemporaries, consisting mainly of Bergmann and his students, which holds that properties form an irreducible category of the world. But even though Armstrong's conclusions are not new, nowhere else has the case against nominalism been presented as clearly and cogently as in this volume. And the same can be said about Armstrong's treatment of the other two ontological positions. He argues. secondly, that "Particularism" is false. According to this view, held by such famous Brentano students as Husserl and Meinong, and most ably defended by Stout, the ordinary properties of things are particular. For example, the particular color shade of a billiard ball is said to be particular in that no other entity as a matter of ontological necessity can possess this identical color.

Political realism and the crisis of world politics

Abstract: Originally published in 1960 by Princeton University Press, this volume contends that a full understanding of the underlying philosophy of political realism is necessary if American statesmen and scholars are to advance public understanding and awareness of the realities of international life and close the gap between what leaders feel and do and what the people imagine they do. The author's central aim is a careful explication of the origins of political realism as an approach to American foreign policy and of its implications for the major unsolved fundamental problems of America's relations with the rest of the world.

Manifest reality: Kant's idealism and his realism

Abstract: This eagerly awaited book is an important addition to the literature on Kant's transcendental idealism and is sure to generate a lot of discussion. Drawing together her influential previous work al...

From Scepticism to Liberalism? Bernard Williams, the Foundations of Liberalism and Political Realism

Abstract: Bernard Williams was an ethical sceptic, but he was also a proponent of liberalism. To what extent can one finally be both? This article explores this question through a particular emphasis on Williams, but seeks to draw wider lessons regarding what ethical scepticism should and should not amount to. It shows how ethical scepticism can be reconciled with a commitment to what Williams, following Judith Shklar, called ‘the liberalism of fear’, which is revealed as an ecumenical outlook for different stripes of ethical sceptic. The article concludes by drawing some lessons for the recent ‘realist’ turn in political theory.

What Makes a Utopia Inconvenient? On the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Realist Orientation to Politics

Abstract: Contemporary politics is often said to lack utopias. For prevailing understandings of the practical force of political theory, this looks like cause for celebration. As blueprints to apply to political practice, utopias invariably seem too strong or too weak. Through an immanent critique of political realism, I argue that utopian thought, and political theory generally, is better conceived as supplying an orientation to politics. Realists including Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss explain how utopian programs like universal human rights poorly orient their adherents to politics, but the realists wrongly conclude that utopias and other ideal theories necessarily disorient us. As I show through an analysis of utopian claims made by Michel Foucault, Malcolm X, and John Rawls, utopias today can effectively disrupt entrenched forms of legitimation, foster new forms of political identity, and reveal new possibilities within existing institutions. Utopias are needed to understand the political choices we face today.

Catching up with things? Environmental sociology and the material turn in social theory

Abstract: Environmental sociology was born to study the interaction of human societies with the material world, yet the concept of matter has been neglected. Possibly for this reason, the material (or ontological) ‘turn’ taking place in social theory has involved the discipline more marginally than other fields. The relevance of new materialist positions to environmental sociology is addressed. On one side, the realism/constructionism diatribe is sidestepped by an understanding of knowledge and materiality as mutually constituted and incessantly remoulded, and of agency as distributed among human and non-human entities, hence humble and non-dominative. On the other, the traditional idea of critique is replaced by a case for affirmative, embodied practices, arguably exemplified by emergent environmental mobilizations. At a closer look, however, new materialist standpoints result embroiled with the Western metaphysical tradition, neglecting how today non-dualist modalities may end up supporting, rather than opposing,...

Naturalism, Realism, and Normativity

Abstract: This essay describes three commitments that have become central to the author's philosophical outlook, namely, to liberal naturalism, to metaphysical realism, and to the epistemic and ontological objectivity of normative judgments. Liberal naturalism is contrasted with familiar scientistic versions of naturalism and their project of forcing explanations in every field into models derived from one or another particular science. The form of metaphysical realism that the author endorses rejects every form of verificationism, including the author's one-time ‘internal realism’, and insists that our claims about the world are true or false and not just epistemically successful or unsuccessful and that the terms they contain typically refer to real entities. ‘Representationalism is no sin’. The central part of the essay is an account of truth based on a detailed analysis of Tarski's theory of truth and of the insights we can get from it as well as of the respects in which Tarski is misleading. (This part goes beyond what the author has previously published on the subject.) The account of the objectivity of the normative in this essay draws on insights from Dewey as well as Scanlon.

Nuclear Realism: Global political thought during the thermonuclear revolution

Abstract: What is a realist response to nuclear weapons? This book is animated by the idea that contemporary attempts to confront the challenge of nuclear weapons and other global security problems would benefit from richer historical foundations. Returning to the decade of deep, thermonuclear anxiety inaugurated in the early 1950s, the authors focus on four creative intellectuals – Gunther Anders, John H. Herz, Lewis Mumford and Bertrand Russell – whose work they reclaim under the label of ‘nuclear realism’. This book brings out an important, oppositional and resolutely global strand of political thought that combines realist insights about nuclear weapons with radical proposals for social and political transformation as the only escape from a profoundly endangered planet. Nuclear Realism is a highly original and provocative study that will be of great use to advanced undergraduates, graduates and scholars of political theory, International Relations and Cold War history.

Reviving the Russian empire: the Crimean intervention through a neoclassical realist lens

Abstract: Although many policy-makers and scholars maintain that international norms have altered the motivations underlying state behaviour, this article argues that states continue to pursue national self-interest, but in ways that remain understudied. While traditional realist assumptions explain a great deal of state behaviour, they have not been widely used to account for important alternative tools of state intervention, such as economic and normative strategies. Focusing on the case of Russia's 2014 intervention in Ukraine, this article offers insights into how, and under what circumstances, these tools are used to accomplish traditional state objectives. Guided by the tenets of neoclassical realism, the article argues that in the case of Russia, military force is no longer the sole, or even the primary, means used to accomplish traditional security goals. Such dynamics have significant theoretical and policy implications for contemporary international relations.

Kant's transcendental idealism as empirical realism

Abstract: This thesis examines Kant’s transcendental idealism. It argues that the key to understanding Kant’s idealism lies in appreciating how it is compatible with Kant’s empirical realism. It suggests against the so-called traditional view that transcendental idealism is not a distinction between illusion and reality, where appearances are how things merely seem to be to us in virtue of the nature of our minds, and where things in themselves are understood to be how things really are. Instead, it argues that transcendental idealism, when charitably interpreted, reveals how minds such as ours can have genuine cognitive access to reality, based on exploring the links between the conditions of experience, in terms of a priori forms of intuition and categories that the cognitive subject supplies to its experience, and the conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience, in terms of the necessary ontological structures that objects of experience must have in order to be representable through human forms of intuition (space and time). The thesis suggests that Kant uses his transcendental distinction between appearances and things in themselves in at least three ways and that unpacking these three uses helps us to get a better grasp on Kant’s idealism. The three senses of the transcendental distinction are: (1) the traditional phenomenalist conception, according to which appearances are ‘mere representations’ and things in themselves are the putatively ‘real’ things, (2) the notion that things in themselves are ‘objects of a pure understanding’ and (3) that appearances are conditioned phenomena while things in themselves are the unconditioned ground of phenomena. The thesis argues that senses (2) and (3) can be combined to yield transcendental idealism as empirical realism, while the arguments and passages that turn on sense (1) must be rejected.

The ersatz realism of critical realism: A reply to Porter:

Abstract: Biblical exegesis refers to the scholarly methods used for the investigation and determination of the meaning of sacred texts. The goal, sometimes known by the Latin phrase sensus plenior, is to demonstrate the additional deeper meaning, intended by the author, but not always appreciated in certain over-literal and simplistic interpretations of key passages. Unsurprisingly, since some form of ‘Holy Spirit’ is often considered to have inspired the divine text, the task of exegesis has proved controversial, resulting in rival schools of thought on how ‘authentic meaning’ is to be established (Hayes, 2007). I was reminded of these altercations in reading Porter’s (2015) critique of my critique (2013) of some of Bhaskar’s (1979) ideas on how research should be conducted in complex, open, adaptive systems. For the record, Porter’s exegesis can be found in volume 21(1) of this journal. His ire is targeted at a small section of Chapter 4 of my Science of Evaluation, the overall purpose of which was to rebut a wide range of fallacious propositions, Bhaskar’s included, on how get to an empirical grip on complexity. Let us rejoin the discussion with a little textual deconstruction of Porter’s tale. The dramatis personae are as follows: Bhaskar, of course, is the muse; Porter is the wise interlocutor; Pawson is unlettered in critical realism and thus sadly inclined to those over-literal and simplistic interpretations. The narrative structure is basically for Porter to interrogate the passages I have extracted from Bhaskar’s texts and then counter them with additional quotations from the same works, thus revealing my misunderstanding of the sensus plenior. Whilst I’m a little unsure that I really want to win this battle of expositions, since it requires more wrestling with Bhaskar’s prose, it clearly behoves me to try and try again. In my original remarks, I didn’t really have room to address the underlying problem for evaluation researchers who choose to seek guidance in Bhaskar’s work. The fundamental difficulty is that Bhaskar was a philosopher, writing for philosophers about philosophy, with the consequence that he

Realism, Empiricism, and Fetishism in the Study of Entrepreneurship:

Abstract: We challenge a stream of thought that focuses on drawing what we see as a frivolous contrast between creation and discovery view of entrepreneurship. Its detachment from the empirical world is tantamount to theoretical “fetishism”. We see opportunities as emergent structures, with ontologically real components, epistemologically real functional relationships, and requiring real human actions and interactions to come to fruition. This calls for building theory based on the strengths of both discovery and creation assumptions.

Peripheral Realism Revisited

Abstract: In this article we summarize the precepts of Peripheral Realism, its place in the intellectual history of International Relations Theory, its contributions to interpreting Latin American international politics and its insights for the future. After revising the intellectual merits and tenets of the theory in the four initial sections, we show how it predicted the behavior of Latin American states under unipolarity. Finally, we review its implications for a world where China may hold economic primacy.

Introduction: Responsible leadership - realism and romanticism

Abstract: It is time for the development of a new kind of business leadership. Global needs call for a revision of market capitalism and a move towards moral capitalism; a move "from value to values, from shareholders to stakeholders, and from balance sheets to balanced development" (Kofi Annan). With the challenge of this transition in mind, this book argues that it is time for a new understanding of leadership, a new romanticism which looks behind the overvalued, heroic leadership notion. The editors explore a romanticized rhetoric and situate it within current discourses of authentic, distributed and ethical leadership, where societal, economic and environmental challenges require us to take a collective lead towards doing good and growing well. Exploring this dichotomy of romantic ideal and essential requirement, this book combines the insights of leading academics and with those of practitioners in the field. Thought-provoking and engaging it will challenge both thinking and practice, and is essential reading for all those operating or researching in the field of leadership, particularly those who realize the overwhelming challenges of sustainability, and corporate social responsibility which the world now faces

Playing the God game

Abstract: To what extend can someone who treat religious discourse as fictional discourse live a religious life, that is, one that is informed by that discourse? To what extent can they be integrated into a religious community in which the realist approach is dominant, or at least significantly represented? This paper explores both the possibilities and limitations, of religious fictionalism, and compares it with other non-realist approaches. Finally, a certain kind of agnostic position is presented, one which has something in common with fictionalism, and it is suggested that this latter position may offer the best way of combining religious engagement with a retreat from traditional realism.

Overcoming ‘Gnosticism’? Realism as political theology

Abstract: This paper takes issue with approaches that relate realist political theology exclusively back to its Schmittian and neo-orthodox roots. While not entirely denying those influences, it argues that realist thought is more accurately described as rooted in the tensions characterizing Augustine's anti-heretic diatribes rather than taking inspiration from Schmittian political theology or the ‘Gnostic’ tendencies in Protestant neo-orthodox theology. Augustine's refutation of both the Manichaean Gnostic and the Pelagian solutions to the problem of evil gave rise to a complex understanding of the relationship between human free will and original sin based on a combination of ontological monism and ethical dualism. Building on this heritage, realists can be read as rehearsing Augustine's ambiguous gesture of overcoming Gnosticism with equally uncertain success. In responding to the modern ‘Gnostic’ challenge in terms that recognized the dialectical tension between ontological monism and ethical dualism, realists ...

Educational Studies and the Domestication of Utopia

Abstract: This paper offers a critique of educational real utopias. Real Utopias are experimental forms of thought and practice intended to harness the transgressive force of traditional utopianism while avoiding its associated dangers. The concept has been embraced by the field of educational studies and applied to the study of various educational settings, institutions and processes. This paper does four things. Firstly, it outlines the concept of utopian realism and highlights those aspects that are said to differentiate it from the utopia that supposedly played a role in the human catastrophes of the twentieth century. It then evaluates a selection of educational real utopias to assess whether they can, in fact, be said to have succeeded in the task of harnessing the intellectual force while overcoming the dangers of traditional utopianism. Thirdly, the paper offers a critique of utopian realism, arguing that the concept of utopia has become thoroughly domesticated. Finally, the paper defends the expans...

An Ethos of Politics between Realism and Idealism: Max Weber's Enigmatic Political Ethics

Abstract: Recent scholarship has stressed the centrality of ethical concerns to Weber’s thought, while leaving the nature and implications of his ethical stance, and the relationship between his ethical views and political positions, disputed. This article shows how Weber sought to analyze the influence of different types of personal character or spirit—or “ethos”—on politics; and to inculcate an ethos that might save politicians from the dangers of moral purism, ruthless moral maximalism, and “realist” cynicism. A reconstruction of this ethos, and the accounts of political judgment and responsibility to which it was connected, reveal Weber to offer a a more complicated and suggestive account of the ethics of political action—and one with more to contribute to the defense and practice of liberal politics—than portrayals of him as a champion of political “realism” and value-neutral “instrumental” reasoning, or a forerunner of Schmittian “decisionism,” allow.

Reductionist Moral Realism and the Contingency of Moral Evolution

Abstract: Reductionist forms of moral realism, such as naturalist realism, are often thought immune to epistemological objections that have been raised against nonnaturalist realism in the form of reliability worries or evolutionary debunking arguments. This article establishes that reductionist realist views can only explain the reliability of our moral beliefs at the cost of incurring repugnant first-order conclusions.

Can Realism Move Beyond a Methodenstreit

Abstract: Is there more to the recent surge in political realism than just a debate on how best to continue doing what political theorists are already doing? I use two recent books, by Michael Freeden and Matt Sleat, as a testing ground for realism’s claims about its import on the discipline. I argue that both book take realism beyond the Methodenstreit, though each in a different direction: Freeden’s takes us in the realm of meta-metatheory, Sleat’s is a genuine exercise in grounding liberal normative theory in a non-moralistic way. I conclude with wider methodological observations. I argue that unlike communitarianism (the previous contender for the discipline’s renewal), realism has the potential to open new vistas, though their novelty is to a large extent relative to the last forty years or so: realism is best thought of as a return to a more traditional way of doing political philosophy.

How ‘realistic’ should global political theory be? Some reflections on the debate so far:

Abstract: This article reviews the recent debate on realism in political theory (including the articles in this symposium) and examines its implications for global political theory. It distinguishes two versions of realism – contrasted, respectively, with political utopianism and political moralism – and argues that the second of these realisms fails to be sufficiently realistic by the standards of the first. In particular, it exaggerates the extent of political disagreement within domestic societies and underestimates the unifying force of national identities. In international relations, by contrast, disagreement over values runs deeper, and the pursuit of national interest remains a serious obstacle to co-operation, as classical international realists insisted. Current proposals for global democracy and global distributive justice therefore run into serious difficulties over agency and legitimacy: who might have reason and capacity to create the institutions needed to deliver these goals, and how could these inst...

Basic Contents and Contributions of Hacking’s Experimental Realism

Abstract: Based on the debate between scientific realism and anti-scientific realism and philosophy of science is too theoretical, Hacking put forward experimental realism. Experimental realism illustrates the importance of experiments in science, and put forward its four basic propositions: (a) Experiment is the basis of science. (b) The experiment entity operable. (c) The content of experiment is operating experimental entity. (d) Experiment entity causal attributes the fundamental basis of experimental research. “The experiment has its own life” is a special proposition and its connotation is: (a) Experimental entity is independent of the specific theoretical certainty and stability. (b) The experiment system has its own independent status and structure. (c) Laboratory activity and result are decided by its own true nature. Experimental realism resolved the conflict between scientific realism and anti-scientific realism, broke the theorical tradition, understood the relation between the experiment and theory, and promoted the development of scientific practice philosophy.