Practical Realism Research Articles

Practical Critical Realism for Liberal Arts in Language Education

Critical realism is the middle road between the extreme versions of constructivism and objectivism. It is applied here to liberal arts education in general, and specifically to liberal arts education for learners of English. Critical realism can help promote greater coherence in liberal education, and educators can apply critical realism as they develop a unified and purposeful curriculum of liberal arts content for learners of English. Critical realism also influences how teachers perceive the learning environment, and it affects how educators think about learner and teacher beliefs regarding education. Moreover, critical realism can influence education in moral and political terms, enabling educators to critically infuse moral realism into the study of the liberal arts and sciences.

Australia and North–South Political Relations

North–South issues as such do not figure prominently in Australia's international policy but are mostly implicit. These issues arise particularly in the context of Australia's relations with countries in its immediate vicinity, including the South Pacific, Indonesia and East Timor. There are also some global issues in the North–South context where Australia is affected. Australian governments, in developing policies relating to this context, have been influenced by a ‘practical realism’ that puts first priority on Australian interests as perceived by governments at any given time. The way in which those policies have been developed, in both the regional and the global contexts, can be assessed through an examination of issues relating to security and international economic relations. Australia's alliance relationship has a strong bearing on the way Australia approaches the security issues. In relation to international economic issues there are many commonalities with fellow producers of raw materials in the Global South.

The Social Study of Human Rights.A Review Essay

It is noteworthy—and at the same time a bit disappointing in a what-took-so-long sort of way—that a recent innovation in the study of human rights should involve a focus on the lives of the people directly affected by them. To explain this delay of the obvious would probably call for a review of the persistent influence of Kantian transcendentalism, the quasi-utopian search for ideal justice, and the inherently abstract nature of law in its quest for impartiality. A similar effort could be applied toward fully understanding the changed circumstances that encouraged the shift toward practical realism. It would have to take into account the surprisingly late elaboration and popularization of human rights instruments, the proliferation of transnational NGOs that act on new opportunities to exercise moral and political influence, and the growing reach of new technologies of information and communication (necessary tools for the emergence of transnational NGOs). All of these developments have raised the prominence of legal issues and strategies among those once considered isolated and, in varying degrees, uncivilized. But whatever the dominant trends might once have been, and whatever new, enabling circumstances have recently emerged, there can be little doubt that over the last several decades a shift has taken place in the study of human rights toward practical or applied realism, with a focus on ordinary actors.

The autonomy of chemistry: old and new problems

The autonomy of chemistry and the legitimacy of the philosophy of chemistry are usually discussed in the context of the issue of reduction of chemistry to physics, and defended making use of the failure of reductionistic claims. Until quite recent times a rather widespread viewpoint was, however, that the failure of reductionistic claims concerns actually epistemological aspect of reduction only, but the ontological reduction of chemistry to physics cannot be denied. The new problems of the autonomy of chemistry in the context of reductionism seem to be ontological and metaphysical. In the present paper it is argued that there is no need for some kind of metaphysical-ontological underpinning for rejection of the secondary positions of chemistry and philosophy of chemistry with respect to physics and philosophy of physics. The issue can be elucidated in terms of the philosophy of science accepting practical realism (also known by other names).

W sprawie realizmu praktycznego

Realizm praktyczny jest koncepcją etyczną Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego, która spotkała się z poważną krytyką — głównie ze strony Henryka Elzenberga. Autor artykułu, uznając słuszność niektórych zarzutów Elzenberga, stara się ich uniknąć dzięki interpretacji postulatu realizmu praktycznego, sugerowanej przez pewne wcześniejsze teksty Kotarbińskiego. Postulat ten, tak rozumiany, nie wyznacza naczelnego ideału naszego postępowania, tylko podaje warunek moralnej dopuszczalności dążenia do przyjętego przez nas ideału. Warunkiem tym ma być nasza troska o dobro innych ludzi, w szczególności — „obrona ich przed nieszczęściem”.

Recepcja etyki Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego w Polsce

Artykuł jest szkicem odpowiedzi na pytanie: dlaczego etyka Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego, będąc w istocie typem do brze znanej filozofom etyki autonomicznej, a normatywnie bliska ideom chrześcijańskiego miłosierdzia, stała się popularna i żywo dyskutowana w Polsce drugiej połowy XX wieku. Autor omawia ówczesne dyskusje, wskazując na powody zainteresowania stanowiskiem etycznym Kotarbińskiego w kręgu polskich myślicieli chrześcijańskich (ich siedzibą był Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski). Jego źródeł upatruje w reakcji na program uniezależnienia postaw etycznych od sporów światopoglądowych. Jednocześnie zwraca uwagę, że w kręgu szkoły lwowsko–warszawskiej i jej wpływów etyka Kotarbińskiego miała poparcie, ale i spotkała się z krytyką. Zastrzeżenia epistemologiczne wobec niej wysuwała Maria Ossowska. Po stronie Kotarbińskiego opowiedział się Tadeusz Czeżowski, występujący z bardziej precyzyjnie sformułowaną ideą etyki empirycznej, wykazując z czasem, że jest to etyka typu aksjomatyczno–dedukcyjnego, a nie indukcyjnego. Akceptując intuicjonizm jako epistemologiczny fundament etyki, do normatywnych idei Kotarbińskiego nawiązywali w sposób twórczy również Ija Lazari–Pawłowska i Marian Przełęcki. Autor przekonuje, że nie jest bezzasadnym przypuszczenie, że program uniwersalnej etyki, niezależnej od sporów światopoglądowych i religijnych, wpłynął także na Marka Fritzhanda interpretację etyki w marksizmie oraz korespondował z tendencjami do budowania etyki dialogu i odpowiedzialności w polskich dyskusjach etycznych w czasach dominacji etyki światopoglądowej.

Teaching software engineering through game design

Many projects currently used in Software Engineering curricula lack both the "fun factor" needed to engage students, as well as the practical realism of engineering projects that include other computer science disciplines such as Software Engineering, Networks, or Human Computer Interaction. This paper reports on our endeavor to enhance interest and retention in an existing Software Engineering curriculum through the use of computer game-based projects. Specifically, a set of game-centric, project-based modules have been developed that enable students to: (1) actively participate in the different phases of the software lifecycle taking a single project from requirement elicitation to testing and maintenance; (2) expose students to real issues in project and team management over the course of a 2-semester project; and at the same time (3) introduce students to the different aspects of computer game design. Preliminary results suggest the merits of our approach, showing improved class participation and performance.

Realism, Narrative, and Happenstance: Thucydides' Tale of Brasidas

Neorealism and some versions of realism seek to furnish nomothetic theories of the international system at the same time that they also strive to prescribe policy for political leaders. Insofar as practical advice is insufficiently articulated by means of either nomothesis or the structural theoretical framework that (neo-)realist paradigms supply, these two aspirations seem contradictory. This essay is an examination of what contemporary realism and, especially, neorealism require to make practical wisdom available for practitioners. It argues that narrative, which is exemplified in the so-called classical realism of Thucydides, remains a crucial component of practical realism and neorealism.

Between Baghdad and Birmingham: Minorities--Christian and Muslim

This paper deals with majority-minority relations that very much condition relations between Muslims and Christians. The first part gives some factual data about Muslim minorities in Europe and Christian minorities in Muslim countries and makes some comparisons between their situations at present. The second part questions the very idea of speaking of Muslims and Christians in terms of majority and minority, since this imposes a political scheme on human reality, neglecting existing diversities within the communities and in the relations between them. More important questions are: what have Muslims and Christians done with their religions in minority and majority situations? How can a model of participation in civil society replace the traditional Middle Eastern model of social separateness with religiously justified antagonisms? How can the positive potential of minorities be better appreciated? The author pleads for practical realism and enlightened participation instead of fixing and quantifying Muslim and Christian religious communities as closed social entities.

Practical Realism?1

Practical Realism?¹

Philosophy in Mediis Rebus

Philosophy should begin in the middle of things. I distinguish two ways in which I think that philosophy should begin in the middle of things, and then I describe the two dominant approaches to analytic philosophy today: scientific pragmatism and conceptual analysis (or, more broadly, “a priorism”). After giving reasons for dissatisfaction with both of these dominant approaches, I set out my own view – Practical Realism – and argue for the merits of its methodological and metaphysical components.

Convergence or Divergence? Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing

As AN "EVENT AT THE LIMITS," the Nazi Holocaust highlights one of the fundamental dilemmas for historians at the end of the twentieth century: if historical inquiry is admittedly a subjective endeavor, are historians still capable of establishing some form of stable truth and rejecting certain emplotments such as denial? Recent years have seen a proliferation of works that attempt to wrestle with such issues in historiography and memory, including their moral implications. Historian Martin Jay, among others, has called attention to the mechanism that militates against the unfettered freedoms of historians to narrate arbitrarily, arguing that history is not so much a single historian emplotting the past "but rather the institution of historians, now more often credentialed than not, trying to convince each other about the plausibility of their reconstruction."1 The "common, if not universal, acceptance" of a historical narrative, in his view, depends on the "intersubjective judgment of the community rather than on any congruence with the 'truth' of what really happened."2 Advocating "practical realism," Joyce Appleby and others characterize historians as "seekers of a workable truth communicable within an improved society."3 In this sense, consensus or even convergence in the community of historians may take on the significance of a reasonable measure of truthfulness. Obviously, whether a strategy of intersubjective judgment can satisfactorily reconcile the contradiction in historical inquiry concerns historians in all fields. In view of its wider implication for the issue of historical truth, this essay addresses the question of whether there has been any significant convergence among historians writing on the Rape of Nanjing, or the Nanjing Massacre, which is often considered the single most notorious Japanese atrocity during the entire Asian-Pacific War.4

Explaining Attitudes: A Practical Approach to the Mind

Explaining Attitudes is an important contribution to philosophy of mind. It is latest installment in Lynne Rudder Baker's work, which began with her equally important book, Saving Belief, to restore attitudes to their proper place.' In Explaining Attitudes, she undertakes two important projects. The first is a critique of recent attempts to either naturalize mind or to cast folk psychology as a discredited theory. The second is development of an alternative view of mind, one that adheres with and illuminates our ordinary practices of psychological explanation and ascriptions. The first half of Explaining Attitudes is devoted to explaining and then undermining what Baker calls the Standard View of attitudes, which is a view that materialists, functionalists, and dualists share. According to Standard View, beliefs are states of some proper part of a person. For dualist, they are states of some immaterial Cartesian ego. For noneliminative materialist, they are either identical with or constituted by brain states. For functionalist, they are functional states realized by some physical state of brain. Since philosophers whom she criticizes are not dualists, Baker argues throughout book against claim that beliefs are brain states. She also argues against thesis that beliefs would not have causal explanatory properties they have unless they were brain states or were constituted by them. The second half of Explaining Attitudes is devoted to presenting and defending Practical Realism, which Baker characterizes thus:

Don Quixote and the Problem of Idealism and Realism in Business Ethics

I discuss the characters Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and their relationship in order to understand better the place of idealistic theory and realistic practice in business ethics. The realism of Sancho Panza is required to made the idealism of Don Quixote effective. Indeed, the interaction and development of these characters can serve as a model for both the effective communication between and blending of the idealistic moral theoretician and the practical businessperson. Specifically, I argue that a quixotified Sancho Panza, as a combination of theoretical idealism and practical realism, is necessary for managerial statesmanship. I first consider the position that this concept is unrealistic. In the final section, however, I show that a number of leadership and business theorists believe that managerial statesmanship requires a quixotified Sancho Panza. I also consider the question, what helps to make a quixotic vision for business ethical, and what is its content?

Don Quixote and the Problem of Idealism and Realism in Business Ethics

Abstract:I discuss the characters Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and their relationship in order to understand better the place of idealistic theory and realistic practice in business ethics. The realism of Sancho Panza is required to made the idealism of Don Quixote effective. Indeed, the interaction and development of these characters can serve as a model for both the effective communication between and blending of the idealistic moral theoretician and the practical businessperson. Specifically, I argue that a quixotified Sancho Panza, as a combination of theoretical idealism and practical realism, is necessary for managerial statesmanship. I first consider the position that this concept is unrealistic. In the final section, however, I show that a number of leadership and business theorists believe that managerial statesmanship requires a quixotified Sancho Panza. I also consider the question, what helps to make a quixotic vision for business ethical, and what is its content?

The Virtues of Externalism

The Southern Journal of PhilosophyVolume 34, Issue 3 p. 285-299 The Virtues of Externalism Jonathan Jacobs, Jonathan Jacobs Colgate University Jonathan Jacobs is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colgate University. His most recent book is Practical Realism and Moral Psychology (Georgetown University Press, 1995). He has published several articles in ethics and metaphysics including articles in Review of Metaphysics, American Philosophical Quarterly, and Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.Search for more papers by this author Jonathan Jacobs, Jonathan Jacobs Colgate University Jonathan Jacobs is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colgate University. His most recent book is Practical Realism and Moral Psychology (Georgetown University Press, 1995). He has published several articles in ethics and metaphysics including articles in Review of Metaphysics, American Philosophical Quarterly, and Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.Search for more papers by this author First published: Fall 1996 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-6962.1996.tb00793.x Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume34, Issue3Fall 1996Pages 285-299 RelatedInformation

Explaining attitudes: a practical approach to the mind

Explaining Attitudes offers an important challenge to the dominant conception of belief found in the work of such philosophers as Dretske and Fodor. According to this dominant view beliefs, if they exist at all, are constituted by states of the brain. Lynne Rudder Baker rejects this view and replaces it with a quite different approach - practical realism. Seen from the perspective of practical realism, any argument that interprets beliefs as either brain states or states of immaterial souls is a 'non-starter'. Practical realism takes beliefs to be states of the whole persons, rather like states of health. What a person believes is determined by what a person would do, say and think in various circumstances. Thus beliefs and other attitudes are interwoven into an integrated, commonsensical conception of reality.

Pragmatism to the Rescue?

In Telling the Truth about History, Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob challenge the argumentative camps of metaphysical realism and anti-realism under the guise of relativism. They offer middle ground-practical realism which they defend as the best route to discovering the Best in the descriptive sense that it properly captures how historians work. Best prescriptively in the sense that it properly allows for the advocacy of seeking as collective enterprise in which many voices should be heard. For the authors, practical realism offers to steer course between what they think of as the absolutism of metaphysical realism and the nihilism of anti-realism. They also argue that practical realism itself finds its direction from core elements of the American pragmatist tradition. As the authors tell the story, we labor in the shadow of tradition which they call the model. This misleading model presents as absolute truth and not just as true enough for the time being but as true always and absolutely.' Beyond this conception of truth, the heroic model carries particular view of knowledge, namely, that things can be known in ways that correspond to actual objective existence and that there is a tight fit between nature and human knowledge.2 The counterpoint to this tradition, born, the authors argue, in reaction to it, is family of relativisms that reaches its most extreme manifestation in the non-referential views about language championed by poststructuralists and associated views which undermine the value of truth-seeking as an enterprise understood as anything that has much to do with truth. In contrast to these polar alternatives, the authors offer third way dubbed practical realism which owes its core to conception of pragmatism: emerges in collective enterprise even if tentatively and contingently.

Whose Truth, Whose History?

Telling the Truth about History calls for an amiable approach to studying the past, one in which democratic and consensual historical truth as laid out in narrative instructs us and helps anchor our democratic identities. We enjoy this civilizing kind of history, the authors believe, because much of the arrogance and error of heroic science, a science on which professional history chose to base itself since the nineteenth century, was discredited in the twentieth century as one witnessed the horrors science could inflict on the planet. Instead of following the heroic model, we now engage in and produce a democratic version of history that includes minorities, the underclasses, and women, while the more or less totalitarian kind of objectivity adhered to by professional historians of other generations recedes. The only threats to the steady progress of history are from relativists and postmodernists, who reject the Enlightenment commitment to rationality and intelligibilty. Otherwise a pragmatic commitment to practical realism in historical practice coincides in history as it does in politics to the authors' goals of using historical truth to promote democratic politics and vice versa. I suppose that most historians are indeed practical realists and thus refrain from delving into larger epistemological issues on the grounds that these are marginal to pragmatic questions of writing and teaching. Before celebrating the many promises today's enlightened profession has to offer, Telling the Truth about History recounts the rise of historical science from the late eighteenth century onwards. This account is one that might have been written differently, despite its accurate outline of the commitments of canonical scholars to political history and to archival research. The authors suggest that gender can be included in historical narrative and analysis, and yet almost all the historiographical sections eliminated women and gender from the story of historical science. Historical truth is the achievement of certain great academic historians, who, following the example of natural science, have devised a set of rules and procedures that will ensure objectivity and thus truth. By writing a unitary and essentially univocal account in the heroic mode, Telling the Truth about History provides an example of the ways in which issues of truth are discussed and anchored by excluding

Operational risk management: a new paradigm for decision making

The need for more effective ways to manage the risk and safety of technological systems has been widely recognized and accepted by government and industry. Traditionally, risk analysis has been considered as part of the process of planning a technological system and addressed the risk inherent in its day-to-day operations. However, risk must also be considered when responding to episodic events whose uniqueness requires taking actions that are variants of, or different from planned operational procedures. The purpose of this paper is to present a new paradigm for real-time risk analysis that capitalizes upon the advances in computer power, human-machine interfaces, and communication technology. A new process for risk assessment and an appropriate reasoning algorithm for choice has been developed which supports the human operator in analyzing risks and making decisions in real-time during unexpected disruptions in the operations of large-scale systems. The process recognizes that although advances in technology may automate many tasks, humans will always be an integral part of managing large-scale systems. The practical realism of the new approach of operational risk management is illustrated by two examples, hazardous material transportation and emergency management. The first example is discussed within the context of a prototype decision support system for interactive real-time risk management.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>