BBR Twilight Zone Session 1 Introduction to Ontology and Epistemology

Editor's Notes

1. Margaret Archer et. al., Critical Realism: Essential Readings Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science   ​Critical realism is concerned with the nature of causation, agency, structure, and relations, and the implicit or explicit ontologies we are operating with. It asks what we mean by realism in the social world? Whether there are social kinds? Do capitalism, or classes, or the state, or empires exist as social entities? What constitutes a social entity? Are there consistent traits of fascism? Are there consistent traits of any social entity? These are not only questions which need to be the subject of empirical investigation, they are investigations undergirded by deeply philosophical ones. These meta-theoretical investigations have a bearing upon our accounts of the social world, but do not necessarily determine or legitimate any particular approach, or empirical investigation. While our models need to be answerable to empirical investigations, we need to be sufficiently “ontologically reflexive” and “vigilant” about our investigations.