They were dualisms between positivism and hermeneutics; between collectivism and individualism; structure and agency; reason and cause; mind and body; fact and value.

1. Critical Realism Reading Seminars
UCL Institute of Education
Gary Hawke

3. Bhaskar, R. And Collier, A. 1998 Introduction:
explanatory critiques, in Archer et al. (eds) 1998,
pp. 385-394.
Alderson, P. 2013 Childhoods Real and Imagined.
Routledge, pp. 57-62.

6. They were dualisms between positivism and hermeneutics;
between collectivism and individualism; structure and agency;
reason and cause; mind and body; fact and value.
There is a dialectical interrelation
between facts and values, in which we
are never situated in a value free
context. Values always impregnate and
imbue our social praxis and our factual
discourse, but at the same time, facts
themselves do generate evaluative
conclusions.

7. IT is often said that one cannot derive an "ought" from an "is." This
thesis, which comes from a famous passage in Hume's Treatise, while
not as clear as it might be, is at least clear in broad outline: there is a
class of statements of fact which is logically distinct from a class of
statements of value. No set of statements of fact by themselves entails
any statement of value.

9. Bhaskar, R. And Collier, A. 1998 Introduction: explanatory critiques, in Archer et al. (eds) 1998, pp. 385-394.
“The starting point is
that a social science
can study both ideas,
and what those ideas
are about.”

10. “…other things being equal. It
is better that a would-be
murderer should have false
beliefs about his victim’s
whereabouts.”
Collier, A. 1998 Explanation and Emancipation, in
Archer et al. (eds) 1998, pp. 448.
“Further still, particular institutions and
false beliefs about them may be in a
functional relation, such that the false
beliefs serve to preserve the
institutions that they are about. Where
institutions oppress a substantial
number of people, they will only be
stable if protected by such false
beliefs. In such cases, to propound the
truth is not just to criticize, but to
undermine the institution.”
Collier, A. 1998 Explanation and Emancipation, in Archer et al.
(eds) 1998, pp. 446.

11. Unconsciously
Semi
Consciously
Consciously
Interference
Bhaskar, R. 1998
Societies, in Archer et
al. (eds) Critical
Realism: Essential
Readings 1998, pp
235.

12. explanatory critique (EC).
CRITIQUE of a phenomenon that
follows from diagnosing that it is
part of the explanation of why a
false belief is held (cognitive EC), or
why some social or personal ill
persists…
explanatory critical theory : Dictionary of Critical Realism

13. The resulting critical naturalism, which is
grounded in the scientific realism
advanced in chapter 1, permits a
situation of conflicting schools in
contemporary social thought; a
generalised critique of fundamentalist
‘First Philosophy’; a reevaluation of the
problem of the value and a reappraisal of
the character of historical rationality. But
my main concern is to relate this
perspective to the organising theme of
this inquiry: the nature of, and prospects
for, human emancipation.
Bhaskar, R. (2009. pp 69)
Bhaskar, R. (2009). Scientific Realism and
Human Emancipation. London: Routledge

14. Realism and Social Science
(I) identifying problems – unmet needs,
suffering, false beliefs;
(II) identifying the source or cause of those
unmet needs, false beliefs, etc., such as a
particular form of domination;
(III) passing to a negative judgement of
those sources of illusion and oppression;
(IV) favouring (ceteris paribus) actions which
remove those sources.
Sayer A (2000, pp159) - Realism and Social Science SAGE Publications Ltd

16. Bhaskar and critical realism argued that social
science and natural science are underpinned by an
ontology of natural necessity, which operates in
both. He defined natural necessity as ‘a necessity in
nature quite independent of human beings and their
activity’ (Bhaskar: The Possibility of Naturalism,
1998 pp10).” Haji-Abdi A pp14
Critical realism presupposes that ontology is structured,
differentiated and changing. This also involves a switch from events
to mechanisms that generate events. In other words, it puts the
emphasis on what produces events not the events themselves. To
explain the role of mechanisms, events and experiences, critical
realism posits three ontological domains: the real, the actual and the
empirical. The empirical domain relates to our direct or indirect
experience. The actual includes the events happening independently
of our experience. The real domain identifies the underlying
mechanisms that generate events that we experience. Haji-Abdi A pp14

17. At the empirical level are the
identified experiences and sensed
perceptions of knowing subjects,
who test and validate data in
replicable experiments that have
predictable results. Empirical
research may be inductive or
deductive and involves forming
generalisations or hypotheses
related to many observations of
constant conjunctions/repeated
patterns.”

18. The actual level involves the actual objects and events that
occur: many falling objects; subtle genetic changes in birds or
peas over generations. Deduction at the actual level explains
how, rather than why, objects fall or change, and it stands
only as long as there are no exceptions. The hypothesis that
all swans are white lasts until a black swan is observed, or
that all emeralds are green lasts until a blue emerald is found.

19. The real level attends to Levels 1
and 2 and to deeper, unseen
structures and mechanisms.
These generate causes and
effects, and make them available
to experience. The causes are
established,or justified, by their explanatory power. Examples
include gravity, or analysis of the emerald's molecular
structure and its refraction of light. The analysis demonstrates
that, by definition, emeralds must be green; a blue emerald
would not be an emerald.”

20. Almost all the phenomena of the world occur in open systems.
[…] A characteristic pattern for the analysis of explanation of
such phenomena was developed in basic critical realism. This
involves ‘the RRREIC schema’, where the first R or R1 stands
for the resolution of the complex event or phenomenon into its
components; the second R or R2 for the redescription of
these components in an (ideally, optimally) explanatory
significant way; the third R or R3 for the retrodiction of these
component causes to antecedently existing events or states of
affairs; E for the elimination of alternative competing
explanatory antecedents; I for the identification of the causally
efficacious or generative antecedents; and C for the iterative
correction of earlier findings in the light of an (albeit
temporarily) completed explanation or analysis. (Bhaskar et al p 3
2010)!
Bhaskar R, Frank C, Høyer G K, Næss P, and Parker J. (2010). Interdisciplinarity and Climate Change: Routledge

21. All the evidence we have for all emeralds are green is equally evidence
for the statement that all emeralds are grue, when grue means green
up to midnight tonight and blue thereafter. In fact, there is no resolution
to the problem of deduction within the existing actualist problem field
within a problem field that reduces knowledge and the world to one
level.
A Beginner’s Guide to Critical Realism By Professor Roy Bhaskar
Based on “An Introduction to Critical Realism”, a virtual classroom course hosted by Gary Hawke and led by Professor Roy
Bhaskar at the Institute of Education – May to July 2014
So if you take the statement: all emeralds are green, one of our recent
philosophers of science, Nelson Goodman, pointed out that this
statement could be true up to midnight tonight, and after midnight
tonight all emeralds could suddenly become blue.
Final Word From
Roy

22. What a critical realist scientist, or what a critical realist philosopher,
would do is to follow what a real scientist does, and after a real scientist
arrives at what looks like a meaningful regularity in, say, the laboratory,
the critical realist scientist tries to fathom out why it is that these two
predicates - being green and being an emerald - are conjoined. What is
it about emeralds that make them green? That is what the scientist
asks and the scientist goes on to investigate the nature, the intrinsic
qualities of emeralds, in virtue of which they do manifest the property of
being green. In other words, the real scientist follows critical realism in
moving towards the identification of a structure or a mechanism, which
will explain the actual regularity that is observed.
Final Word From
Roy
A Beginner’s Guide to Critical Realism By Professor Roy Bhaskar
Based on “An Introduction to Critical Realism”, a virtual classroom course hosted by Gary Hawke and led by Professor Roy
Bhaskar at the Institute of Education – May to July 2014

23. Critical Realism Reading Seminars
UCL Institute of Education
Gary Hawke