Realist Account Research Articles

The Symptomatology of Crises, Reading Crises and Learning from Them: Some Critical Realist Reflections

This contribution considers the potential of critical realism to illuminate the nature of crises, crisis management, and crisis lessons. After reviewing key aspects of critical realism in general, the analysis notes the challenge of developing critical realism in particular by identifying appropriate entry-points and standpoints for the analysis of specific explananda. It then provides a general critical realist account of the nature of crises in the social world and of learning in, about, and from crisis. A key concept here is symptomatology — the exploration of the contingently necessary relation between actual symptoms and underlying causal mechanisms. This is related in turn to the crucial distinction between scientifically adequate explanations of crisis and conjuncturally ‘correct’ readings of the potential for transformative action in the face of crisis. This has important bearings on the emancipatory contribution of critical realism in the context of a continuing critique of ideology and domination. The article then provides particular critical realist accounts of (1) the abstract possibility of crisis in the capitalist mode of production and (2) its concrete actualization in the complex, overdetermined cases of the North Atlantic Financial Crisis and the Eurozone Crisis. It ends with some general remarks on the potential of crisis as an entry-point into the analysis of the contradictory nature of social structures.

Photography, Performance, Ruin: Performing photography in site of architecture

This essay is written from the perspective of a photographer aware of the flaws of the medium in providing an accurate account of reality. Photography and the act of photographing are considered in performative terms and the value of performance in extending photography's penetrative and illuminating power is discussed. In exploring these ideas the essay considers photography in relation to time, history and ruin. A reading of a photograph as a premonition of ruin is considered in relation to the photographic representation of architecture. The author's own photographic encounters with the exterior of the Bank of England are examined in terms of how the performative act of photography, coupled with the medium's relation to ruin, may reveal something of that building's history – as an institution founded on abstract notions of money and power. The author's subjective experience with photography is considered in relation to the interpreted spatial and temporal dynamics of performance and ruin manifest in the work of Robert Smithson. Of interest here is Smithson's approach to photography, clashing the matter-of-factness of mechanical photographic reproduction with allegorical interpretation and allusion to the ruinous forces of entropy. The visual and conceptual resolutions of Smithson's ideas are considered in relation to Walter Benjamin's advocacy of subjective interpretation and his envisioning of a messianic redemptive arc enabling the past to break the continuum of history. The essay argues that photography is more effective as a revelatory medium if enacted in ways that draw attention to the medium's limitations. The photograph's own signification of inevitable ruin – enhanced through photography's alignment with performance – is key to its illuminating power.

Present Signs, Dead Things: Indexical Authenticity and Taxidermy’s Nonabsent Animal

Contemporary art’s recent turn to taxidermy as a sculptural medium aims both to unsettle earlier traditions of realist taxidermy and to allow new explorations of the troubling authenticity derived from the recycling of animal bodies. Developing an analogy between the preserved and mounted animal skin and Roland Barthes’s realist account of the photograph as an emanation of the referent, this essay turns from art to literature to introduce a third, mediating term, dermography , in response to the insistent presence of skin in the questions raised by the new taxidermy. The authors propose the ontological category of the nonabsent animal as an aid to understanding a temporally defined punctum associated with an authenticity grounded in the index.

Personality assessment, ‘construct validity’, and the significance of theory

Personality assessment helps us to predict how people behave under various circumstances or how well a person might perform within certain roles. However, there are reasons to question the supposed ‘construct validity’ of tests designed to assess various personality attributes including dispositional traits. To demonstrate this, the paper first discusses a realist account of test validity where validity requires that both the attribute exist and that changes in the attribute are causally related to changes in test scores. The paper demonstrates that the validity for tests of dispositional traits is questionable given conceptual problems with traits existing as within-person attributes capable of causing changes in test scores. The widespread reliance on Likert-style response formats is then discussed in relation to the assumed quantitative structure of personality attributes. Based on a realist view of measurement, the uncritical adoption of a representational theory of measurement within personality research means that the validity of all personality tests claiming to ‘measure’ personality attributes is questionable. Suggestions for addressing test validity in personality assessment are then discussed in terms of paying greater critical attention to personality theory itself and adopting a realist theory of assessment and measurement.

EU Legitimacy in a Realist Key

This paper provides a conceptual analysis of the EU’s legitimation status through the lens of a realist account of legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams’ theory of liberal legitimacy, and use it to make sense of the widely perceived legitimation crisis of the EU. In Williams’ well-known formula, “Basic Legitimation Demand Modernity = Liberalism”. Drawing on that model, we put forward three main claims. (i) The right side of the equation is insufficiently sensitive to the importance of popular sovereignty in Western constitutional traditions; (ii) The left side of the equation is best thought of as a ‘legitimation story’: an account of what plausibly sustains belief in legitimacy. This is, however, not a purely descriptive notion: attending to the meaning of politics in the relevant context rules out both violent domination and ideologically distorted legitimation stories, thus providing a non-moralised normative component for the position. (iii) While most EU member states ostensibly support the Union, the legitimation story offered by the member states to its citizens draws upon a tradition of popular sovereignty that sit badly with the supranational pooling and delegation of sovereign powers that characterises the EU rule. That, we maintain, explains the current legitimation crisis of the EU. Further, we argue that the realist framework requires a solution to the legitimation problem before any advances can be made on the front of social justice.

Property-Awareness and Representation

Is property-awareness constituted by representation or not? If it were, merely being aware of the qualities of physical objects would involve being in a representational state. This would have considerable implications for a prominent view of the nature of successful perceptual experiences. According to naive realism, any such experience—or more specifically its character—is fundamentally a relation of awareness to concrete items in the environment. Naive realists take their view to be a genuine alternative to representationalism, the view on which the character of such experiences is constituted by representation. But naive realists must admit qualities or property instances as items of awareness if they are to remain wedded to common sense, and the nature of property-awareness may smuggle constitutive representation into the naive realist account of character. I argue that whether property-awareness involves representation, and consequently whether naive realism is distinct from representationalism or not, depends on what qualities are fundamentally. On universalist and nominalist accounts, property-awareness turns out to involve representation. Not so under tropism.

The Presence of School Absenteeism

In the vast majority of Swedish schools, computer software is used for the registration of the absences and presences of students. How can the material-discursive engagements and practices of registration be researched? The article elaborates, from an agential realist account, on “doing research” in relation to the phenomenon of school absence. Through experimenting with int raviewing, the expressions and actions of materialities are acknowledged and the subject-centrism of conventional humanist qualitative interviewing is questioned. The posthumanist theories engaged with open up a rethinking of the production of data within qualitative research, and a discussion of the inseparability of data, analysis, thinking, and writing. The knowledge created on registration as an embodied, material, affective, and intraactive practice produces school absence as a reality where the computer software is always already a part of the phenomenon and thus needs to be an agential part of researching registration.

Realism and religious experience

AbstractIn this article three types of objection to a realist account of religious experience are explored: (1) the unusual character of its object; (2) its unusual accompanying conditions; and (3) the conflicting content. In response to (1) it is noted that despite divine freedom not all types of encounter preclude predictability, while parallels are drawn with perception of other complex objects such as persons. At the same time the whole notion of simple perceptions is challenged. In response to (2) parallels to the affective element are found not only in moral and aesthetic experience but more widely. Finally, in response to (3) apparent irreconcilable conflicts are lessened by observing how all such experiences take place within the context of traditions whose surface incompatibility does not necessarily indicate deep divisions.

A Social Realist Account of Curriculum Development and Implementation in Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2004: With Special Reference to the Education with Production Model

Following the attainment of independence in Zimbabwe in 1980, the dual education system for blacks and whites was abolished and an experimental education system linked to the Marxist concept of polytechnic education known as Education with Production (EWP) was introduced to model the country's socialist ideology. The aim of this article is to evaluate, through a social realist theoretical framework, using the concepts of structure, culture and agency the implementation of the EWP educational innovation. This was a qualitative study conducted through interviews and document analysis. The finding in this article is that while structures were put in place to implement the new curriculum, at the level of culture, teachers largely inherited from the colonial education system were not adequately oriented or prepared for the new education system, neither was public debate opened on the envisioned education system. In terms of agency, the paper argues that preparation of personnel and the involvement of stakeholders before an innovation is implemented are crucial for the successful implementation of such an innovation.

"These Are the Days of Elijah": The Hermeneutical Move from "Applying the Text" to "Living in Its World"

ABSTRACT This article offers a critique of—and an alternative to—the commonly held view that one of the goals of the interpreter is to "apply" the Bible to today. First, we will consider an exemplar of this sort of approach (Howard Marshall's Beyond the Bible), an account not atypical of common hermeneutical concerns. I then suggest that one key theological notion that does not sufficiently trouble this account is that of canon, in particular the two-testament structure of Christian Scripture. This has immediate implications for the resultant figural structuring of time, which maps OT into NT in ways that are theologically programmatic for how we understand "today" (as long as it is called today). More briefly, I also argue that the canon sets forth a "secondary world" or a realistic account of reality that again requires something other than a notion of moving from "then" to "now" (or from "there" to "here"). In conclusion, I wager that, if one pursues this kind of enriching or intensifying account of the relevance of Scripture to the present day, then the kinds of issues and questions that will end up emphasized and probed will be both theologically important and also of relevance to today's differently shaped issues and questions.

Thomas Hobbes as a Theorist of Anarchy: A Theological Interpretation

SummaryScholars of international relations generally invoke Hobbes as the quintessential theorist of international anarchy. David Armitage challenges this characterisation, arguing that Hobbes is regarded as a foundational figure in international relations theory in spite of as much as because of what he wrote on the subject. Thus, for Armitage, Hobbes is not the theorist of anarchy that he is made out to be. This article agrees with the general thrust of Armitage's critique while maintaining that it is still possible to imagine Hobbes as a theorist of anarchy. Hobbes is a theorist of anarchy, not in a political sense, but in a metaphysical sense. This conception of anarchy is a reflection of a comprehensive theological account of reality that is grounded in an omnipotent God. Any historical inquiry into the foundations of modern international thought must take account of theology, because theology defines the ultimate coordinates of reality in terms of which the concepts of international thought are intelligible.

A Social Realist Account of Curriculum Development and Implementation in Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2004: With Special Reference to the Education with Production Model

Following the attainment of independence in Zimbabwe in 1980, the dual education system for blacks and whites was abolished and an experimental education system linked to the Marxist concept of polytechnic education known as Education with Production (EWP) was introduced to model the country’s socialist ideology. The aim of this article is to evaluate, through a social realist theoretical framework, using the concepts of structure, culture and agency the implementation of the EWP educational innovation. This was a qualitative study conducted through interviews and document analysis. The finding in this article is that while structures were put in place to implement the new curriculum, at the level of culture, teachers largely inherited from the colonial education system were not adequately oriented or prepared for the new education system, neither was public debate opened on the envisioned education system. In terms of agency, the paper argues that preparation of personnel and the involvement of stakeholders before an innovation is implemented are crucial for the successful implementation of such an innovation.

Let’s be critically honest: towards a messier counterstory in critical race theory

This paper utilizes tools of critical race theory to interrogate the racial politics of the everyday. The authors contend that this type of critical policy analysis can yield understandings of/about the world that are too often silenced or ignored altogether. This paper argues that critical race theory does not aim to tell a “truer” account of reality, but a more honest one. Therefore, critical race scholars need not ask permission – nor seek forgiveness – for their counterstories, but hold themselves accountable to communicate stories and narratives that are not only honestly critical, but critically honest.

Crisis of political parties and representative democracies: rethinking parties in associational, experimentalist governance

The contrast between the normative functions of political parties in representative democracies and their empirical working is stark and rapidly increasing. This article starts from a sober, realist account of the empirical state of affairs and from structural problems of democracy and participations – in terms of limits of time, information, qualification and relevant expertise – that have to be acknowledged by any realist–utopian proposal of alternatives beyond the exclusive alternative of ‘thin, realist democracy’ or emphatic ‘strong, participatory, direct, or mass democracy’. We can do better. My search for institutional alternatives looks not for the replacement of political parties but for their relief. Many, not all, of their normative tasks can be shared with other functional networks, associations and organizations. In exploring such a new division of political labour I draw on older debates and designs of associative democracy and on recent discussions to democratize expertise and to expertise democracy in order to address urgent societal problems of high-risk decisions under conditions of extreme complexity, contingency, unpredictability and uncertainty and deep contestedness of our knowledge, problems that turn out to be unmanagable by party politics and representative democracy.

Legitimacy in Realist Thought

What, if anything, can realism say about the normative conditions of political legitimacy? Must a realist political theory accept that the ability to successfully employ coercive power is equivalent to the right to rule, or can it incorporate normative criteria for legitimacy but without collapsing into a form of moralism? While several critics argue that realism fails to adequately differentiate itself from moralism or that it cannot coherently appeal to normative values so as to distinguish might from right, this article seeks to help develop a realist account of legitimacy by demonstrating how it can successfully and stably occupy this position between moralism and Realpolitik. Through this discussion, however, the article also argues that political rule necessitates the use of coercive power which is (at best) imperfectly legitimated, and that this blurs the distinction between politics and successful domination which lies at the heart of many recent accounts of political realism. In at least this sense, realism retains important and under-acknowledged affinities to Realpolitik.

Incomplete, but Real

Various theories of referent are critically but briefly surveyed from the perspective of structural realism; a constructivist version of structural realist account of referent is outlined, and its implications for history of science and for descriptive metaphysics are briefly indicated.

Just My Imagination? – Creation for Creationists

AbstractIn the debate on the ontology of fictional entities realists claim that fictional characters exist. Some fictional realists are Platonists. They claim that fictional characters are abstract entities that exist necessarily and are non-spatial and timeless. It seems that the author’s job is just to discover these entities. Other realists claim that fictional characters are abstract artefacts. Obviously these abstract artefacts do not have much in common with platonic entities. »Abstract« means, according to this creationistic account, that these artefacts are non-spatial entities. But as artefacts they are created and thus depend on someone who creates them and on the act of creation. Surprisingly, those realists do not say much about this process of creation. This article proposes an addition to the realist account at this point, focusing on the question of how fictional characters are created. However, my proposal is only concerned with the creation of fictional characters within the framework of fictional stories told by means of linguistic utterances. Therefore my question is: how can authors create fictional entities by telling fictional stories? I will begin by discussing whether an utterance act or a mere mental action, namely someone’s imagining something, is necessary or sufficient for the successful creation of fictional entities. I will distinguish two different interpretations of the claim that a person creates entities by imaging something and I will argue that realists should reject both versions of this claim. Constructively, I will go on to emphasize similarities between fictional entities and social entities like contracts and marriages. This is important because realists in the debate about social entities provide more detailed descriptions of the creation of social entities, details which can be adapted in order to describe the process by which fictional entities are created. I emphasize that this process, namely the fictional story telling, is a social practice. The social character of this practice will be shown in mainly two aspects: Firstly, I will argue that similar to the creation of other social entities for the creation of fictional characters there has to be a collectively recognised institution, namely the institution of fictional story telling. Thus, collective intentionality plays a crucial role in the process of this creation. As such an institution plays a decisive role I will go on to claim that the creation of an abstract artefact requires the performance not only of a mere utterance act, but of a successfully executed illocutionary act. By following Austin and Searle I will finally argue that only utterance tokens which in the specific situation are necessary to realize the illocutionary point or purpose can count as performances of illocutionary acts. In order to perform an illocutionary act successfully, the utterance must bring about an illocutionary uptake in the recipient/hearer, i. e. she must understand the utterance. Therefore, illocutionary acts can in general not be performed successfully without a hearer/recipient. Thus, to understand fictional story telling and the creation of fictional characters as a social practice means that the creative process cannot be explained exclusively in terms of imaginings. This does not mean that imagination does not play any role in producing or reading fiction. But creationists need more than imagination to explain how fictional characters are created. The aim of this paper is to take a step forward towards an explanation of the creation of fictional characters and thus to rendering the creationist’s account more plausible in (1) naming necessary conditions for successfully telling a fictional story, (2) describing it as a social praxis and (3) explaining the role collective intentionality plays in this practice, we have.

Social Emergence: Relational or Functional?

This paper outlines a relational variety of the theory of emergence and claims that it can be applied more fruitfully to sociology than the functional variety advocated by Keith Sawyer. Sawyer argues that the wildly disjunctive multiple realizability of social properties justifies a nonreductive approach to causal explanation in the social sciences (but also ontological individualism). In response, this paper argues, first, that the social properties he discusses are not wildly disjunctive, and secondly, that we can explain their causal significance more effectively with a relational emergence theory linked to the critical realist account of causal powers. Although these properties are multiply realizable, they are not emergent because they are multiply realizable, but despite being so.

Machinic Interagency and Co-evolution

Machinic Interagency and Co-evolution

The phenomenological directness of perceptual experience

When you have a perceptual experience of a given physical object that object seems to be immediately present to you in a way it never does when you consciously think about or imagine it. Many philosophers have claimed that naïve realism (the view that to perceive is to stand in a primitive relation of acquaintance to the world) can provide a satisfying account of this phenomenological directness of perceptual experience while the content view (the view that to perceive is to represent the world to be a certain way) cannot. I argue that this claim is false. Specifically, I maintain that the only acceptable naïve realist account of the relevant phenomenology is circular and that the content view can provide a similar account. In addition, I maintain that a certain specific variety of the content view provides a non-circular and thus more satisfactory account of this phenomenology. If so, then contrary to what is commonly assumed there are powerful phenomenological grounds for preferring the content view to naïve realism.