Why does sociology need to do ontology? Why should we be concerned with persons? In this interview, Chris Smith addresses these issues and more, arguing for critical realism as a robust metatheory which enables us to own up to our commitments… Read More »Interview with Professor Christian Smith on CR & Human Flourishing
A guest blog by Dr. Joe O’Mahoney (Reader, Cardiff Business School) Dr. O’Mahoney is particularly interested in how to put critical realism into practice and how critical realism impacts the way we do research. He is the co-editor of the… Read More »Putting Critical Realism into Practice
Dr. Timothy Rutzou (Sociology, Yale University) interviews Professor Douglas Porpora (Drexel University) about critical realism, contemporary sociology, and the need for theory.
How does emergence help us to think through issues in social theory, sociology, and social science? Since the webinar the other week with Philip Gorski (available here) I have been contemplating a series of interrelated questions: how do we understand… Read More »Thinking about the Re-emergence of Emergence in Social Theory
This post was originally published on September 9, 2015 on Margarita Mooney’s blog. What might critical realist research methods look like? At the 2015 Annual Meetings of the International Association of Critical Realism, I discussed some common problems I saw… Read More »Critical Realist Research Methods
This post was originally published on September 4th on Margarita Mooney’s homepage. Is Viktor Frankl’s life a story of resilience or vulnerability? It’s both, I think. Frankl survived the Nazi concentration camps and went on to an influential career as a psychiatrist… Read More »Virtue and Vulnerability
It is a prevalent habit of philosophers to periodically proclaim the death of realism. Whether it is Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of truth as being immanent to particular forms of life, Richard Rorty’s neo-pragmatism which shatters the mirror of nature, or… Read More »Demythologizing Realism
The Critical Realism Network is very excited about this new introductory-level critical realism book written by Professor Porpora, Reconstructing Sociology: The Critical Realist Perspective. This book offers a general critique of sociology, particularly in the United States, from a critical realist… Read More »Reconstructing Sociology: The Critical Realist Approach by Professor Douglas Porpora
In November 2014 Roy Bhaskar, whose work helped to crystalize the movement of critical realists, passed away. As a way of remembering him, his theoretical work, and his contribution to this project we would like to take a moment to… Read More »Remembering Roy Bhaskar 1944 – 2014
Welcome to our blog for the Critical Realism Network. We are aiming to provide a dialogue about the current state of sociology and the need for a more robust theoretical framework for our research is conducted. This is certainly not… Read More »Welcome to the Critical Realism Network Blog