Why Not Adopt Critical Realism?
Recently, I stumbled over a thesis which used a critical realist methodology. So I wondered how group analysts felt about critical realism. In my opinion, it is compatible with Group Analysis, because it is based on a realist ontology and idealist epistemology. Of course, this does not mean that every group analytic researcher will draw on this philosophical position. Whereas research questions should guide the philosophical framework one adopts, all researchers are nevertheless influenced by the philosophical schools of science they favour. So even if it does not tally with their methodologies, some novice researchers try to make them fit. Then they become frustrated, if they end up with philosophical assumptions about the world, which are inconsistent with their approach. Let me give you an example.
If you adopt critical realism (Bhasker, 1978), but conduct randomized controlled trials, then you’ll have a problem. Such trials rest on positivist assumptions, which are based on a strong realist ontology and epistemology. Positivism wants to identify scientific knowledge by uncovering laws. Observation, deductive logic, experimentation and statistics are pillars of the nomothetic paradigm, which assumes that generalisable laws exist in nature, which can be objectively discovered and applied to the social sciences. Positivism relies on the Correspondence Theory of Truth: D is true only, if D is consistent with reality. Here truth corresponds with an objective reality.
Critical realism rests more on an epistemology, which is somewhere in the middle between realism and relativism. So it is not predicated on the Correspondence Theory of Truth. Some critical realists would argue that our knowledge of the social world is inescapably socially constructed, which means that there is not one absolute truth. Critical realism provided a rebuttal to the positivist doctrine of uniform laws and additionally provided arguments against relativism (Bhaskar, 1986). Hence, Bhaskar (1978) developed critical realism primarily as an alternative to those two extreme positions. His view about reality is interesting. He stratified reality into a domain that is not only independent of our thoughts, but even of our existence as human beings. Within this causal domain of reality, lower- and higher-level mechanisms exist. Two further domains exist. Another one, the actual, is observable or can be experienced in events. Finally, there is the domain that seeks to find law-like connections, called the empirical domain. Critical realism prioritizes reality (ontology), the causal domain, over epistemology, which can be regarded as a system of understanding the world. Critical realism has been used in all kinds of research. Sociotechnical transitions have been explained by relying on a critical realist framework, which considered the relationship between the constituent parts of a structure.
Bhaskar (1978) argued that ontology was crucial for providing a realist account of science. So he asked: what must the world be like for knowledge of it to be possible? For knowledge to be explicated, Bhaskar argued, we must separate knowledge (epistemology) from reality (ontology). The difference between transitive (changing knowledge of something), and the intransitive (unchanging elements which we want to know) is crucial.
If you don’t fully embrace positivism, you could adopt ‘weaker’ forms of realism and objectivism. For example, if you believe that things are not exactly as you perceive them to be, that images of the physical world are deceptive and do not portray the real world, and that not everything is directly observable, and furthermore that observations may not present the socio-political world as it actually is, then critical realism is an alternative to positivism. Critical realists distinguished between transitive (things change) and intransitive (unchanging) dimensions of reality (aliens may inhabit a dimension in space regardless of whether humans exist). Bhaskar (1978) argued that there was a need for a structured and differentiated ontology.
If you are curious about critical realism, you might find these books interesting: Bhaskar R (1978) A Realist Theory of Science. Brighton: Harvester Press; Bhaskar R (1986) Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation. London: Verso; Bhaskar R (1989) Reclaiming Reality. London: Verso.
After reading Bhaskar, and/or other critical realists, you might find that you have been a critical realist without realizing it.
Happy reading.
Cheerio,