Towards a Category Theory for Complex Realism

This special issue was based on a flagship panel of the 2022 International Association for Critical Realism (IACR) annual conference held at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague on realist complexity. The aim of this special issue is to capture and specify what Critical Realism (CR) can contribute to the literature on complexity. Against the background of previous attempts that have subsequently coalesced the two under the rubric of ‘Complex Realism’, the primary objective here takes stock of the various analytical shortcomings of ‘Complex Realism’ and aims instead to understand how CR scholars analytically treat complexity. Put differently, the contributors of this special issue problematize the amalgam between CR and complexity evident in ‘Complex Realism’ and ask instead how CR deals with complexity (Realist Complexity). In so doing, they present a variety of arguments and approaches which will be dealt with below. The next section will provide a short background on the origins of complexity sciences before it highlights both the tents and shortcoming of Complex Realism. The final section will provide a summary of all key contributors of this special issue.

One of the fifty most influential living philosophers, a “self-promoting charlatan” (Brian Leiter), and the orchestrator of an “online orgy of stupidity” (Ray Brassier). In Skirmishes: With Friends, Enemies, and Neutrals, Graham Harman responds with flair and wit to some of his best-known critics and fellow travelers. Pulling no punches, Harman gives a masterclass in philosophical argumentation by dissecting, analyzing, and countering their criticism, be it from the Husserlian, Heideggerian, or Derridean corner. At the same time, Skirmishes provides an excellent introduction to the hottest debates in Speculative Realism and Object-Oriented Ontology, a speculative style of philosophy long foreclosed by the biases of mainstream continental thought, but which has turned in recent years into one of the most encompassing philosophies of our time, with a major impact on the arts, humanities, and architecture. Part One considers four prominent books on speculative realism. In dialogue with Tom Sparrow’s The End of Phenomenology, Harman expresses agreement with Sparrow’s critique while taking issue with Lee Braver’s “transgressive realism” as not realist enough. Turning to Steven Shaviro’s The Universe of Things, Harman defends his own object-oriented model against Shaviro’s brand of process philosophy, while also engaging in side-debate with Levi R. Bryant’s distinction between virtual proper being and local manifestations. In the third chapter, on Peter Gratton’s Speculative Realism: Problems and Prospects, Harman opposes the author’s attempt to use Derridean notions of time and difference against Speculative Realism, in what amounts to his most extensive engagement with Derrida to date. Chapter Four gives us Harman’s response to Peter Wolfendale’s massive polemic in Object-Oriented Philosophy, which he shows is based on a failed criticism of Harman’s reading of Heidegger and a grumpy commitment to rationalist kitsch. Part Two responds to a series of briefer criticisms of object-oriented ontology. When Alberto Toscano accuses Harman and Bruno Latour of “neo-monadological” and anti-scientific thinking, Harman responds that the philosophical factors pushing Leibniz into monadology are still valid today. When Christopher Norris mocks Harman for seeing merit in the occasionalist school, he shows why Norris’s middle-of-the-road scientific realism misses the point. In response to Dan Zahavi’s contention that phenomenology has little to learn from speculative realism, Harman exposes the holes in Zahavi’s reasoning. In a final response, Harman gives a point-by-point answer to Stephen Mulhall’s critical foray in the London Review of Books. Amidst these lively debates, Harman sheds new light on what he regards as the central bias of philosophical modernism, which he terms the taxonomical standpoint. It is a book sure to provoke lively controversy among both friends and foes of object-oriented thought.

Describes a new, systematic process philosophy of science and technology focused on the agency and mobility of objects Tells the first history of Western science and technology focused on the agency and mobility of objects Argues that objects are metastable processes, not discrete things, unlike other theories that consider objects as passive and static Surveys many areas of contemporary thought including new materialism and speculative realism as well as quantum theory, category theory and chaos theory Throughout the history of science and technology, objects have been understood in many ways but rarely have they been understood to play an active role in the production of knowledge. This has led to largely anthropocentric theories and histories of science, which treat nature as passive objects viewed by independent observers. Thomas Nail approaches the theory of objects historically in order to tell a completely new story in which objects themselves are the true agents of scientific knowledge. They are processes, not things. It is the first history of science and technology, from prehistory to the present, to illuminate the agency, knowledge and mobility of objects.

In this review essay I offer a critical assessment of the work of David Byrne, an applied social scientist who is one of the leading advocates of the use of complexity theory in the social sciences and who has drawn on the principles of critical realism in developing an ontological position of ‘complex realism’. The key arguments of his latest book, Applying Social Science: The Role of Social Research in Politics, Policy and Practice constitute the frame of the review; however, since these overlap with those of his previous books, Interpreting Quantitative Data and Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences, I consider all three books together. I identify aspects of Byrne’s ontological position that are in tune with the principles of original and dialectical critical realism and aspects that are not. I argue that these inconsistencies, which Byrne must resolve if he is to take his understanding of complexity further, stem from the residual influence of various forms of irrealism in his thinking.

And yet it moves: Process philosophy beyond Speculative Realism and new materialism

The essay presents the traits of what has recently been called new realism in philosophy, arguing that this new trend aims at engaging with the existence of certain classes of objects, trying to avoid devolving to scientific thinking all questions about the existence of reality. The new realistic philosphical approach is indeed closer to 19th-century idealism than to postmodern thought. It finds its forebears in American “new realism” and “critical realism” and tries to oppose the “transcendental fallacy”, that is the confusion between ontology and epistemology, and asks whether the 20th-century wave againt realism, and the deconstruction of metaphysics, meant a comtinuity or a break with 19th-cent idealism. By a survey of the rare new realists who meant to oppose both 20th-century post-idealism and analytical philosophy, new realism tries to oppose the “hermeneutic fallacy”. The author traces the steps by which the notion of new realism came to the fore and highligths: a coming together of new realism, speculative realism, and the realistic elements in phenomenology and analytic philosophy. The essay ends up allowing for the existence of different kinds of realisms: “negative realism”, “neutral realism”, “positive realism”.

This is a contribution to the debate on speculative realism deriving from the book The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism, eds Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman (Melbourne: re.press, 2011). It is also in part a response to Fabio Gironi’s review article on the subject, ‘Between naturalism and rationalism: a new realist landscape’ (Journal of Critical Realism 11(3) 2012: 361–87).

Northern theories like “new materialism” and “posthumanism” are, increasingly, influential in the global productions of knowledge in environmental education (EE). In this latest discursive phase of textualising EE, the conceptual mash of “new/post” idea(lism)s is easily identified, but not critically examined, as is undertaken here via three interrelated critical case studies of key idea(l)s in the new/post. Criticism of the current normative, theoretical, methodological, and empirical mess of environmental education research (EER) must be understood within three historical and structural problems, namely; (i) the formative stages of modern EE in the 1970s, (ii) the escalating importance of theory in the 1990s transition from modern thought to postmodern thinking, (iii) the neo-liberalization of academic identity formations and post-intellectual relations in the audit culture of the corporate university of the 2000s. The first two closely related case studies of the new/post highlight the ahistorical and atheoretical mash of performatively-driven abstract theorizing in EE. Each demonstrates how earlier “founding” policy of EE, its implied pedagogical praxis, and commensurable methodological development in EER have been forgotten. The first critique focusses historically on the allegedly new idea of “agential relations” and its confused discursive claims about “action”. Forgotten is the vital matter of “ecology” and its relational “things”. The second rescues the ecofeminist notion of “embodied materialism”. Ecofeminist praxis has been deactivated by the new/post abstraction of feminist poststructural knowledge claims on “material-discursive practices”. Together, these interrelated critiques retrieve a much needed historical-critical-material frame from which new/post textualism can be conceptually reconstructed and empirically qualified in ways that reactivate the ecopolitical rationale for founding EE. If, indeed, theory is needed in ecopedagogical praxis, an alternative case exists for “bringing theory back in” via, for example, ecophenomenology, ecological anthropology, and ecohumanism. Ecopedagogical practices and their research might then (re)”turn” to a realist ontology via, for example, the “materialisms” of the “new” of “speculative realism” coupled with the “old” (sic) of “critical realism” in, strangely, “post post” claims on knowledge production. At issue in de-abstracting, re-materializing, repoliticizing, and decentering the hubristic authority of theory in new/post EER are numerous axiological commitments, epistemological issues, and methodological dilemmas concerning the onto ∼ ethics ∼ politics of (mis)representation in the global North. Underpinning the two case critiques is a third “criticism” of the postmodern means (mediums/modes) of knowledge production (forms) as they “intersectionally” perform a digitally platformed and instrumental colonization of the global North and South discourse of EER. “Other”wise, in the post-intellectual climate change of a universalizing new\\post technics of “agentialism,”, we misrecognize who we are textually “becoming” and, in being so post-inscribed and newly-mediated, are distracted from what “really” practically matters in the field, and why it “materially” exists.

The word ‘Anthropocene’ has been controversial scientific concept, to name a new geological epoch that situates ‘Anthropos’ or ‘Man’ as an actor changing geological structure, altering the Earth system, and also making in unpredictable planetary changes. Criticism of the Anthropocene is based on Holocene's formal ratification rather than the Anthropocene findings. In addition, this paper will argue a realism philosophical approach though that the Anthropocene is not merely scientific speculation. This paper provides an ontological justification for humanity’s causal power in geological time based on Bhaskar’s critical realism and Graham’s speculative realism. This ontological turn will be a ‘new conceptual ground’ to define the Anthropocene without being imprisoned in ‘Anthropocentrism’ and will contribute to other fields, such as social sciences and humanities, to remake their understanding of the Anthropocene. Therefore, the result will be able to strengthen the Anthropocene ratification indirectly.

This study aims to provide methodological guidance on how researchers can create and implement research design within the framework of critical realist research steps. In this sense, critical realism; It follows realistic research steps to collect and analyze empirical data. These steps offer important expansions in terms of designing the appropriate data collection and analysis process, as well as the relationship between appropriate question design and literature review. In addition, it provides a framework for exploring the causal narratives of social and individual lives and the relationship of these narratives with structures and mechanisms, on the axis of the impact of the period in which the research is conducted and the researcher lives. Therefore, critical realism offers a very important perspective in the process of discovering the ways in which individuals explain, meaning codes, routines, social structures and mechanisms in the research process. In this sense, the main problematic of the research is defined as "how the critical realist research steps are philosophically grounded and how the theoretical-empirical relationality shapes the research design in the critical realist research process". In this context, in this research, which is a theoretical study, content analysis of the philosophy and methodology of the research process was carried out within the framework of critical realist research steps. As a result, critical realism is important in investigating issues such as social inequalities, global issues, health, disability, etc. It offers an important methodological perspective to make sense of both micro and macro processes and to ensure changes in these processes. In this sense, two models have been created to make sense of the effect of the steps of critical realism on the research process. These models illustrate the relationship between the philosophical and methodological perspectives of critical realism and the steps. At the same time, it emphasizes the contextuality of these steps with interpretive frameworks and philosophical assumptions. Keywords: Critical realism, abduction-particularism, retroduction-regression, philosophical assumptions, interpretive frameworks, theoretical-empirical relationality.

This paper takes up the problem of correlationism from a phenomenological perspective. Speculative realists, such as Quentin Meillassoux and Graham Harman, seek to establish new forms of Continental realism largely because, in their view, phenomenology cannot adequately account for the real. To counter these claims, I will use what I call a “critical phenomenological approach”, which critically delimits the real from the intentional relation, and thus makes possible a phenomenological theory of the real. This approach to realism establishes not only that the real is independent from the intentional relation but also that the intentional relation itself is contingent with regard to the real. Furthermore, it also shows that the human being is exposed to the real in an originary way that calls into question the adequacy of Meillassoux’s and Harman’s forms of realism.

The article considers speculative posthumanism as an actual approach in researching posthuman being condition. The article examines the influences of critical posthumanism and speculative realism on speculative posthumanism and at the same time, it argues the originality of speculative posthumanism, which consists in becoming divergential life-forms and their events. Trends, which significantly impacted on critical posthumanism and became its component parts of such as deconstruction, deleuzian conception and so on are considered in the article as a background for speculative posthumanism and are naturalizing and vitalizing. For example, rhizome is understood as a biological network of wide human descendants that are appropriate to human and nonhuman traits something like a human centipede. Thus principal excess of living in its immanence is stressed and the living is been considering as a specter or plenum, which resists to any metaphysical bounds. Instead of a metaphysical vitalism is used a strategic vitalism in the context of which multiplicity is been structuring fractally or aleatory, mixing human and non-human, digital or animal and so on, traits. Therefore, the article compares philosophical naturalism and vital realism, which in object-oriented ontology context deals with even non-living entities. Acceleration and singularity in such a case imply the dissipation of intensities in the death drive movement which is understanded as a (w)holeness and plexivity from templexity to teleoplexity. Thus, a living appears as a being-nothing, the form of form, the creation of creation. The article draws a contemporary conception of posthuman in the speculative posthumanism context as an ontogically uncertain one in principal. This article will be useful for developing a theoretical framework the realizing of posthuman being.

Semiosis develops under the conditions of semiotic complexity. Translation directly addresses such conditions, like non-linearity, perspective pluralism, emergence, material diversity. In this work, I suggest that the complexity of sign processes is related to their time. I make use of C. S. Peirce’s theory of categories and process philosophy, to suggest that the complex nature of sign action is related to the way the time of signs is multilayered. In this framework, translation can be conceptualised as a temporal operation that redistributes the time of signs so that source signs habitually recur in target signs. This approach suggests a focus on the irreducible gaps in the time of signs, such as in situations of surprise, or break of habit.

Abstract. Ian Barbour's Religion in an Age of Science is a welcome systematic, theoretical overview of the relations between science and religion, culminating his long career with a balanced and insightful appraisal. The hallmarks of his synthesis are critical realism, holism, and process thought. Barbour makes even more investment in process philosophy and theology than in his previous works. This invites further inquiry about the adequacy of a highly general process metaphysics in dealing with our particular, deeply historical world; also further inquiry about the adequacy of its panexperientialism and incrementalism.

A Relational View on Organization Ontology: Insights from Methodological Relationism, Process Philosophy, and Critical Realism