•  4
    Bhaskar's philosophy supports society via a process of homeostasis to resist socioecological system disintegration by developing its values and ethics in response to endogenous and exogenous change. To the contrary, positivist (first generation) and hermeneuticist (second generation) approaches to systems theory have distorted humanity's mechanism of homeostasis because, amongst other things, they disallow the use of facts to guide values/actions. Since acting on knowledge is, ceteris paribus, a…Read more
  •  4
    Interdisciplinarity, health and well-being
    Journal of Critical Realism 20 (5): 449-457. 2021.
    This themed issue of Journal of Critical Realism has a focus on interdisciplinarity, health and well-being.1 Specifically, the articles address topics such as homelessness, obesity (Kana...
  •  12
    Many people no longer trust mainstream science. It seems reasonable to assume that this unfortunate state of affairs - which...
  •  6
    Andrew Collier, Marxism and emancipation
    Journal of Critical Realism 19 (3): 207-216. 2020.
    Volume 19, Issue 3, June 2020, Page 207-216.
  •  14
    The possibility of deep naturalism: a philosophy for ecology
    Journal of Critical Realism 18 (4): 352-367. 2019.
    ABSTRACTThis article presents a philosophy of science for ecology – deep naturalism – based on Roy Bhaskar’s transcendental realism. It includes a model of the emergence of ecosystems, analogous to...
  •  27
    Introduction to the special issue: normativity
    Journal of Critical Realism 18 (3): 221-238. 2019.
    Volume 18, Issue 3, June 2019, Page 221-238.
  •  11
    A return to common-sense: why ecology needs transcendental realism
    Journal of Critical Realism 18 (1): 31-44. 2019.
    Empirical realist ecologists, such as C. S. Holling, face significant methodological contradictions; for instance, they must cope with the problem that ecological models and theories of climate change, resilience and succession cannot make predictions in open systems. Generally, they respond to this problem by supplementing their empirical realism with transcendental idealism: they therefore say that their models are simply metaphorical or heuristic, that is, 'not true' in that they are not empi…Read more
  •  10
    The Contemporary British Novel. By Philip Tew (review)
    Journal of Critical Realism 5 (2): 409-414. 2006.
  •  320
    Hume maintained that, philosophically speaking, there is no difference between exiting a room out of the first-floor window and using the door. Nevertheless, Hume’s reason and common sense prevailed over his scepticism and he advocated that we should always use the door. However, we are currently living in a world that is more seriously committed to the Humean philosophy of empiricism than he was himself and thus the potential to act inappropriately is an ever-present potential. In this paper, I…Read more
  •  13
    ABSTRACTThis is an account of the emancipatory struggle that faces agents who seek to change the oppressive social structures associated with neo-liberalism. We begin by ‘digging amongst the bones’ of the calls for resistance that have been declared dead or assimilated/co-opted by neoliberal theorists. This leads us to unearth, then utilize, Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness and Shiv Visvanathan's ideas; which are examples of Roy Bhaskar’s transformative …Read more
  •  26
    Introduction to the special issue: applied critical realism in the social sciences
    with Lee Martin
    Journal of Critical Realism 17 (2): 89-96. 2018.
  •  1
  •  40
    There are grave issues with how the U.K. government approaches the issue of wellbeing. Specifically, policy interventions that might improve the material conditions of citizens are being down-played, and at times out-rightly dismissed. Instead, an individualist, instrumental message is being promoted, namely, that the best way to improve wellbeing is by improving individual happiness and mental health. I argue that this instrumental message – which in practice blames the victims for their lack o…Read more
  •  7
    Critical Realism, Environmental Learning and Social-Ecological Change (edited book)
    with Heila Lotz-Sistka
    Routledge. 2015.
    Southern Africa, where most of these book chapters originate, has been identified as one of regions of the world most at risk of the consequences of environmental degradation and climate change. At the same time, it is still seeking ways to overcome the century long ravages of colonial and apartheid impositions of structural and epistemic violence. Research deliberations and applied research case studies in environmental education and activism from this region provide an emerging contextualized …Read more
  •  45
    Critical Realist versus Mainstream Interdisciplinarity
    Journal of Critical Realism 13 (1): 52-76. 2014.
    In this paper I argue for the superiority of a critical realist understanding of interdisciplinarity over a mainstream understanding of it. I begin by exploring the reasons for the failure of mainstream researchers to achieve interdisciplinarity. My main argument is that mainstream interdisciplinary researchers tend to hypostatize facts, fetishize constant conjunctions of events and apply to open systems an epistemology designed for closed systems. I also explain how mainstream interdisciplinari…Read more
  •  7
    Editors' Note
    with Lee Martin and Dustin McWherter
    Journal of Critical Realism 16 (1): 1-1. 2017.
  •  24
    This study originates out of my experience as an environmental educator working within business and industry in Zimbabwe and South Africa. It is motivated by my observation that, despite much environmental rhetoric and training, environmental education in industry rarely leads to significant advances towards environmental protection. I assume that the problem of the mismatch between rhetoric and action involves both semiotic and non-semiotic components and therefore, after a thorough exploration…Read more
  •  19
    Review of The Contemporary British Novel by Philip Tew (review)
    Journal of Critical Realism 5 (2): 409-414. 2006.
    In this book review, I explore Tew’s underlying philosophy, which I argue is not critical realist, despite Tew’s references to realism and Bhaskar. I would then like to demonstrate how Tew’s philosophy leads to a position on identity, in particular identity in/of marginalised people, which is not supported by critical realism. Note that this review is part of a document that contains reviews of several unrelated books by different reviewers. It is found on pages 409-414.