Critical Realism, Feminist Epistemology, and the Emancipatory Potential of Science: A Comment on Lawson and Harding

Abstract

In a recent contribution to this Journal , Tony Lawson (1999) claims that the methodological framework of critical realism fits the "explanatory and emancipatory projects" of feminist economics. This essay challenges his claim on the basis that a "naive" notion of science underlies critical realism. It argues that for feminist economists, a rethinking of traditional notions of scientific inquiry is just as important as the rethinking of methodology, and that one cannot be done without the other.