Realism

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

A novel defense of scientific realism

Abstract: Vigorous and controversial, this book develops a sustained argument for a realist interpretation of science, based on a new analysis of the concept of predictive novelty. Identifying a form of success achieved in science-the successful prediction of novel empirical results-which can be explained only by attributing some measure of truth to the theories that yield it, Jarrett Leplin demonstrates the incapacity of nonrealist accounts to accommodate novel success and constructs a deft realist explanation of novelty. To test the applicability of novel success as a standard of warrant for theories, Leplin examines current directions in theoretical physics, fashioning a powerful critique of currently developing standards of evaluation. Arguing that explanatory uniqueness warrants inference, and exposing flaws in contending philosophical positions that sever explanatory power from epistemic justification, Leplin holds that abductive, or explanatory, inference is as fundamental as enumerative or eliminative inference, and contends that neither induction nor abduction can proceed without the other on pain of generating paradoxes. Leplin's conception of novelty has two basic components: an independence condition, ensuring that a result novel for a theory have no essential role, even indirectly, in the theory's provenance; and a uniqueness condition, ensuring that no competing theory provides a basis for predicting the same result. Showing that alternative approaches to novelty fall short in both respects, Leplin proceeds to a series of test cases, engaging prominent scientific theories from nineteenth-century accounts of light to modern cosmology in an effort to demonstrate the epistemological superiority of his view. Ambitious and tightly argued, A Novel Defense of Scientific Realism advances new positions on major topics in philosophy of science and offers a version of realism as original as it is compelling, making it essential reading for philosophers of science, epistemologists, and scholars in science studies.

Patterns of Dissent and the Celebration of Difference: Critical Social Theory and International Relations

Abstract: The voices of dissent proliferating in international studies over the past decade are frequently understood by negation, that is, in terms of their criticisms and refusals of positivist/empiricist commitments and political realist perspectives, so long dominant in the discipline. To understand contemporary discourses of dissent in this way, however, is to impose upon them an undue semblance of unity of perspective and purpose-one that mirrors the illusory unities of positivism and realism. It is to fail to acknowledge the variety of dissident voices that have called to account the given, axiomatic and taken-for-granted "realities" of prevailing disciplinary discourses. Concentrating upon what might be called the "agenda of dissent" in international studies, this paper celebrates that variety, that difference, among critical voices in international studies. In particular, it locates prominent themes in critical international relations thinking within the wider arc of debates in Western social theory-interdisciplinary, intercontinental debates whose questions include the Enlightenment concepts of history, rationality, and truth; the subject/object and agent/structure oppositions; the relationship between language and social meaning; the relationship between knowledge and power; the character and function of the human sciences; and the prospects for emancipatory politics today. These debates point to no necessary conclusion. They mandate no single position. Instead, they suggest the opening up of "thinking space," a space of thought that is exploited by a variety of dissident voices who would speak in reply to the dangers and opportunities of political life in the late twentieth century.

Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory

Abstract: Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory. By Simon Caney. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 319p. 24.95 paper.The author's aim in this book is the defense of a “cosmopolitan political morality” that pits cosmopolitan ethics against its communitarian competitors (e.g., realism, the “society of states” tradition, and nationalism) and finds them wanting in relation to a number of key issues: human rights, distributive justice, political institutions, war, and intervention. These issues are addressed in specific chapters, which outline the cosmopolitan positions and then negatively evaluate the alternatives. At the outset, we are informed that this is not intended to be a “neutral account” (p. 3), and the author consistently and methodically picks his way through the book at every turn seeking to reinforce his defense.

Critical Realist Applications in Organisation and Management Studies

Abstract: Part 1: Meta-Theory: Critique and Development 1. An Ontology for Organisation and Management Studies 2. Brands, Boundaries and Bandwagons: A Critical Reflection on Critical Management Studies 3. Idealism and Ideology: The Caterpillar Controversy in Critical Accounting Research 4. The Ontology Of Work: Social Relations and Doing in the Sphere of Necessity 5. Human Resource Management and Realism: A Morphogenetic Approach Part 2: Methodology: Critique and development 6. Methodology for Management and Organisation Studies: Some Implications of Critical Realism 7. Future Directions in Operations Research Modelling: Critical Realism and Multimethodology 8. Temporally Embedded Case Comparison In Industrial Marketing Research 9. Theorizing Networks From A Critical Realist Standpoint: The Discovery of Power and Contextual Issues Within and Outside 'Networks' 10. Competence Theories and their Methodological Implications Part 3: Substantive Contributions 11. Working in Teams: Ethnographic Evidence on the High Commitment Workplace 12. Humour and Subversion in Two Call Centres 13. Tracing the Effects of a Hospital Merger 14. The Moral Management of Nursing Labour Power: Conceptualising Control and Resistance 15. I Say Tomato, You Say Tamato: Putting Critical Realism to Work in Labour Market Recruitment Processes

Handbook of Narrative Analysis

Abstract: The study of narrative has been a continuous concern from antiquity to the present day because stories are everywhere - from fiction across media to nation building and personal identity. "Handbook of Narrative Analysis" sorts out both traditional and recent narrative theories, providing the necessary skills to interpret any story that comes along. In addition to discussing classical theorists such as Gerard Genette, Mieke Bal, and Seymour Chatman, "Handbook of Narrative Analysis" presents precursors (such as E. M. Forster), related theorists (Franz Stanzel, Dorrit Cohn), and a large variety of postclassical critics. Among the latter, particular attention is paid to the ethics of reading, gender theory, and "possible worlds". Not content to consider theory as an end in itself, Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck use two stories by contemporary authors as a touchstone to illustrate each narrative approach, thereby illuminating the practical implications of theoretical preferences and ideological leanings. Marginal glosses guide the reader through discussions of theoretical issues, and an extensive bibliography points readers to the most current publications in the field. Written in an accessible style, this handbook combines a comprehensive treatment of its subject with a user-friendly format, appropriate for specialists and nonspecialists alike. Luc Herman is a professor of American literature and literary theory at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He is a Pynchon specialist and the author of Concepts of Realism. Bart Vervaeck is a professor of Dutch literature and literary theory at the Free University Brussels. He is the author of a study on postmodern Dutch literature.