Critical Realism

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CRITICAL REALISM AND DIALECTIC

Roy Bhaskar

§5 Prima facie objections to critical realism

There is one other preliminary matter that should be dealt with here before I turn to Hegelian dialectic. It may be contended that critical realism is, or began as, a philosophy of- and for – science, even if it is conceded that it is not a scientistic philosophy.¹ How then can I treat of theory generally, or by what right do I identify it as a subset of the domain of the real, or indeed envelop in my critique philosophies – including epistemologies – which do not purport to be about science? Let us consider the last objection first. There is an important grain of truth here. There is indeed a big difference between science and everyday knowledge, which ...