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Realism

About: Realism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10799 publications have been published within this topic receiving 175785 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper reinterpreted Max Weber, who is conventionally thought to be one of realism's founding fathers, and suggested that his conception of realism had various ambiguities and tensions.
Abstract: This article `reimagines' Max Weber, who is conventionally thought to be one of realism's founding fathers. While Weber's work had various ambiguities and tensions, we suggest that his conception o...

35 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that the (dialectical) critical realist mode of abstraction ultimately fails to embed concepts and categories internally within the specific ideological and historical forms of social relations.
Abstract: A prominent strand within both sociological and social theory has been concerned to develop a 'systems approach' with which to explore social life One of the most original contributions to a systems approach has arisen within critical realism In particular critical realism demonstrates that it is possible to abstract the causal powers of different objects of analysis to examine their interaction within concrete and contingent 'open systems' The recent dialectical turn of critical realism develops this systems approach in a much more rigorous manner However, in this paper I argue that the (dialectical) critical realist mode of abstraction ultimately fails to embed concepts and categories internally within the specific ideological and historical forms of social relations Or rather, critical realists do not seek to develop concepts that reflect the self-movement of a historical and contradictory essence This self-movement is what I prefer to call a 'system' Consequently critical realists are led to separate method from system in theory construction and such a separation leads to a problematic dualist mode of theorizing I make these observations from a Hegelian-Marxist position

35 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Sep 2017-Synthese
TL;DR: This paper defends the definition of scientific progress as increasing truthlikeness or verisimilitude, but critical realists turn this argument into an optimistic view about progressive science.
Abstract: Scientific realists use the “no miracle argument” to show that the empirical and pragmatic success of science is an indicator of the ability of scientific theories to give true or truthlike representations of unobservable reality. While antirealists define scientific progress in terms of empirical success or practical problem-solving, realists characterize progress by using some truth-related criteria. This paper defends the definition of scientific progress as increasing truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Antirealists have tried to rebut realism with the “pessimistic metainduction”, but critical realists turn this argument into an optimistic view about progressive science.

35 citations

BookDOI
01 Aug 2011
TL;DR: In this paper, a collection of essays by leading philosophers and psychologists on commonsense realism is presented, including the status of causal requirements on perception, the causal role of perceptual experience, and the relation between objective perception and causal thinking.
Abstract: To be a 'commonsense realist' is to hold that perceptual experience is (in general) an immediate awareness of mind-independent objects, and a source of direct knowledge of what such objects are like. Over the past few centuries this view has faced formidable challenges from epistemology, metaphysics, and, more recently, cognitive science. However, in recent years there has been renewed interest in it, due to new work on perceptual consciousness, objectivity, and causal understanding. This volume collects nineteen original essays by leading philosophers and psychologists on these topics. Questions addressed include: What are the commitments of commonsense realism? Does it entail any particular view of the nature of perceptual experience, or any particular view of the epistemology of perceptual knowledge? Should we think of commonsense realism as a view held by some philosophers, or is there a sense in which we are pre-theoretically committed to commonsense realism in virtue of the experience we enjoy or the concepts we use or the explanations we give? Is commonsense realism defensible, and if so how, in the face of the formidable criticism it faces? Specific issues addressed in the philosophical essays include the status of causal requirements on perception, the causal role of perceptual experience, and the relation between objective perception and causal thinking. The scientific essays present a range of perspectives on the development, phylogenetic and ontogenetic, of the human adult conception of perception.

35 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: O'Neill and Korsgaard as mentioned in this paper have developed detailed constructivist interpretations of Kantian ethics, which they believe are more satisfactory than realist alternatives, but both versions of constructivism encounter significant philosophical difficulties, making it worthwhile to consider what a more realist approach to Kant's ethics might look like.
Abstract: Over the past two decades it has become standard to construe Kant’s ethics as a paradigm of constructivism, standing in stark opposition to realism. Under such an interpretation, Kant’s ethics is based on constructive procedures that yield normative practical principles for us, rather than on facts about goodness that might ground such principles. While there is, no doubt, textual support for taking Kant to be specially concerned with such procedures, the motive for construing his ethical theory as constructivist is largely philosophical. Adopting such a constructivist interpretation would allow us to avoid the metaphysical commitments of realism, thus side-stepping the need to provide a metaphysical defense of the values in question, not to mention the difficulties of trying to explain how objective, non-constructed values fit into the metaphysics of the modern world and are consistent with the modern scientific worldview. 1 Onora O’Neill and Christine Korsgaard have developed detailed constructivist interpretations of Kantian ethics, which they believe are more satisfactory than realist alternatives. However, both versions of constructivism encounter significant philosophical difficulties, making it worthwhile to consider what a more realist approach to Kant’s ethics might look like. 2 1. O’Neill’s Critique of Rawls’s Constructivism Onora O’Neill develops her constructivist interpretation and reconstruction of Kant’s ethics in Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy and Towards Justice and Virtue: A Constructive Account of Practical Reasoning. In order to see what is distinctive about O’Neill’s version of constructivism, it will be helpful to see how it contrasts with the view of John Rawls, since it was Rawls who first made the term “constructivism” popular in political philosophy in A Theory of Justice. In “Constructivisms in Ethics,” chapter eleven of Constructions of Reason, O’Neill presents Rawls’s constructivism as an attempt to chart a middle path between realism and relativism. Rawls’s constructivism is anti-realist insofar as Rawls attempts to steer clear of any transcendent metaphysical claims, but, at the same time, it is

35 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023736
20221,471
2021265
2020314
2019346
2018345