Critical Realism

14

REALISM AND MORPHOGENESIS

Margaret Archer

Social theory has to be useful and usable: it is not an end in itself. The vexatious fact of society has to be tackled in theory and for practice. These two tasks cannot be separated, for were practical utility to be the sole criterion we would commit ourselves to instrumentalism – to working with theoretically ungrounded rules of thumb. Conversely, a purely theoretical taming of the vexing beast may give a warm inner glow of ontological rectitude but is cold comfort to practical social analysts. They want a user-friendly tool kit and although it cannot come pocket-sized with an easy reference manual, customer services have every right to complain when handed an unwieldy device without any instructions ...