Critical Realism Study Group

Two housekeeping notes, maybe before I proceed. The first is that I'll be reading from my slides given that my slides constitute a breakdown of a short piece that I've actually written for the purposes of today.

So if you see me, you know, looking at my work, my physical copy of the slides, that's just because I'm just keen to keep track of my train of thoughts and just be true to the piece of work. The written piece of work that I've prepared for today and then later broke down into slides.

The second housekeeping note is person and in a sense, if I just to stop for a moment, I'm simply collecting my thoughts. I'm gathering my thoughts. Hopefully there's nothing physically wrong with me.

I hope it's just a matter of, you know, keeping that train on track without further ado or I'm sorry, just before I actually start. That's the link. The slides will be shared formally on the study group's website after the session, if not.

Day the next week, and you're absolutely more than welcome to go to the teacher, education pedagogy and curriculum hub web page and then to the sub web page for the critical realism study group. We've got so many resources, research centres, research hubs at other universities.

Essential readings on critical realism to begin with books, journal articles, conference papers, and it's constantly being updated as well. So do actually pay this web page a visit.

My agenda for today is simple and complex to be oxymoron. Equally the same time I'm going to start by 4 caveats. I'm going to then move to three philosophical Lemonis I don't know why I've chosen this hard word.

4 research preliminaries after my 3 philosophical preliminaries and then one research example of I've kind of like worked hard to put this example together and I was really grateful that I found a very good example. I'd like to think. Actually it's an excellent example.

From conflict studies, not necessarily conflict and education conflict more, but it's a very good application in my opinion or implementation of critical realism, philosophical and research principles. And then you can ask as many questions as you want. So that's the agenda for today for.

By three, by four by one, and then as many questions as you want. The caveats critical realism to begin with is difficult to define, but this is not an inherent noise. Critical realism is this good.

Great. Thank you. Critical realism is difficult to define. I have to begin by saying, but this is not an inherent difficulty. Rather it reflects the general challenge of articulating philosophy. I'm reminded here of the words of the philosopher sociologist.

Pierre Wardio to his interlocutor Wacom. To paraphrase in my own words.

One can be difficult to understand not because they wish to sound complex, but because they are genuinely struggling to express something that is complex.

This paraphrase is based on a court found in this paper. It's one of my favourite papers, actually, that guided my methodological work on the PhD level. That's the conversation or the interlocution really, between back home and.

The second caveat is that critical realism is not only difficult to define, but even where definitions exist. And there are plenty consensus remains elusive. Some argue that it shouldn't be defined at all.

Yet again, this difficulty is not inherent, in my opinion, to critical realism itself. The difficulty of definition, in other words, and try defining neoliberalism, or for that matter, post neoliberalism. Nowadays, for your colleagues or students. So these difficulties I'd like to think they're not really inherent to critical realism, and you might you want.

Wondering why is he pontificating? Really about the difficulties of defining critical realism and so on and so forth, even before talking about it. Well, that's because it is in fact recognised, especially by people who've worked on pedagogizing critical realism like myself as quite a tricky really to approach.

In terms of definition, Archer ET al. In 2016 say that there is not one unitary framework set of beliefs, methodology or docma that unites critical realists as a whole, so that also speaks to the.

That's what I'm trying to establish here in terms of a main caveat or argument regarding difficulties of definition.

My 4th caveat, and I'd really love to emphasise this because I hear it quite a lot, not necessarily from colleagues, but students, including PhD students working on critical realism or using the critical realism, operationalizing it methodologically in the projects.
There's this. It does fascinate me in a sense. When people say that critical realism is common sense, you would ask the students why critical realism? Why are you using that philosophy of knowledge? Why are you keen on methodologizing it in your work? And they would say it appeals to me because it's common sense. I very much like the end.

Emphasise for my third caveat, and I do actually, I mean, I do commit that error in a sense, in my own book chapter, but in the, you know, reflecting on my own work and critical realism more broadly, I would say that critical realism is not common sense.
If it were, then why isn't postmodernism given the state of today's political world considered common sense as well? In fact, one could argue that postmodernism, for me, at least the one here, is me. I could argue that postmodernism now has a stronger claim stronger than critical realism, to be perceived to be.

Received off as common sense than ever before in the history of postmodernism. Really, I would suggest that this tendency to mistake a critical realism for common sense stems from something that I've recently been thinking about and thinking to write about as well. The over pedagogyization of philosophy.

In this case, the attempt what I mean by the over pedagogyization of philosophy, specifically critical realism in this instance of discussion, it's the attempt to make a critical realism more accessible and operational within methodological frameworks.
Once we pedagogized it for research practise, it became common to common sensically describe critical realism as a middle ground. In fact, we do teach critical realism. We're kind of like guilty of that on our research training provision courses in Morehouse, we do teach it as middle.

Because some literature actually does say that and does put it forth or put it forward. Sorry quite strongly this is not entirely accurate. There is the middle groundness if you wish to critical realism, but in my opinion.

Middle groundness is reductive, and so I would like to believe that critical realism is not common sense.

Fourthly and finally, in terms of caveats, critical realism is really a broad church.
In some classifications, critical realism is bifurcated into three schools of thought. In other classifications, it's bifurcated into or ramified rather more, properly speaking, into five schools of thought, the last of which being the philosophy of materiality.

And some critical realists identify with the 1st and 2nd schools of thought. They find the 3rd and the 4th problematic because of Frey bhaskar's intervention into metaphysics really, and the question of God.

But regardless, three schools of thought, 3 iterations, 5 schools of thought, or five iterations. Critical realism. That's my caveat. #4 is a broad church, and it is important to acknowledge I have to say that it is not beyond critique.

Take, for example, this fairly recent article published by Tong Tong Zhang from the Department of Finance Oslo, Oslo University. Zhang's recent intervention, taken in his exact as an example here he argues that critical realists.

Often assume that their engagement with the philosophy of science enables them to do better social science.

And he gives this rather interesting example. He says you don't have to be a linguist to write a good novel. In fact, many novelists are very bad linguists. And So what he's trying to say is that we do not need the philosophy of knowledge.

We do not need the philosophy of social science to do social science. In fact, many colleagues, many students, do social science without any notion of what constitutes philosophy of knowledge. So why does critical realism, and for that matter, perhaps other other schools of thought, other traditions, really?

Insist on the connection between philosophy of knowledge and knowledge or knowledge production. In this case, Zhang pushes back. Must one have a philosophy? He asks. Must one have a philosophy of social science to do social science?

Do critical realists not conflate the two? Thereby, Zhang puts it very boldly at the end of his article, thereby leading astray. He does actually accuse critical realists of leading astray. The entire anti positivist endeavour.

So there are, I have to say, Zhang is a sociologist applying critical realism or does not apply critical realism because of so many reasons. But again, the issue here is about the connection between doing social science and doing philosophy of social science, or to be more specific, philosophy of social science.

Scientific knowledge. Do you need the one for the second? Do you need the first? Sorry for the 2nd and so on and so forth. All to say this. What I'm going to talk about today is not without its criticisms. There are plenty, in fact, another very well rehearsed criticism of critical realism is that it's magic.

Because of the use of free production, I'll come to that in in Minutes 3 philosophical and back again to trying to pronounce my hard word 3 philosophical preliminaries.
I've tried as much as possible to be direct and neat, really in in in presenting my thought to you today, so I've divided it into three questions which I'd like you to escort me really in this journey to answer the 1st is can we know?

Can we know at all the 2nd is can we know with certainty?

And the third is having answered the 1st and the 2nd. How do we come to know in the first place?

But before I dive into the attempt or conduct the attempt really to answer these 3 broad philosophical questions, why philosophy? Why philosophical preliminaries?

Social science, particularly sociology, and the work of Margaret Archer, is what led me personally to critical realism. So you could say I started upside down inverting the logic of enquiry.

If you're a bit old fashioned like me, you might think that one should begin with philosophy. This is why this lecture, the first lecture organised by the critical realism study group. This is why this lecture is a restoration of the proper logic of inquiry that is starting with philosophy.

Critical realism, as evident in the writings of Roy Bhaskar and others, indeed has deep roots in history, including in early English philosophy. More specifically, early English political philosophy, and I really find it remarkable that political philosophy in the 16th and 17th century.

In England and in other places in Europe, continental Europe was not really divorced from the philosophy of scientific knowledge. People would talk about politics and science in one breath, but this is all to say that I am starting with philosophy because I actually did not do that when I was a PhD student.

I started with sociology, the work of Margaret Archer. Margaret Archer is a critical realist. I was like, what the hell is that? And so that led me from Archer to Bhaskar. But in my opinion that is not proper.

And I have to begin with philosophy and This is why exactly we have this lecture today, before we talk about research before we talk about methodology and so on and so forth. It's really fundamental to answer certain philosophical questions beginning with this.

Can we know?

I'm going to read this quote taken from Tuck. I love the series. It's an excellent series, very short into the Oxford very short introduction series. Thomas Hobbes is specifically this book is about Thomas Hobbes, but of course Tuck is more generally more generally speaking.

On the question of can we know more broadly, the sceptics in the ancient word, again, words I cannot pronounce. I couldn't really bother chat. GPD them I'm gonna. I'm gonna go with Pyro and Carnitis. OK, so excuse my ignorance. The sceptics in the ancient words such as Pyro or Carnitis argued that that nothing could be non secure.

Purely about either the moral or the philosophical word, knowledge about the moral word or the formal word was vitiated by irresolvable disagreement. In fact remains vitiated, you know, with or by every irresolvable disagreement between different cultures and ages.

While knowledge of the latter, that is the physical word, was prevented by the varying and inaccurate character of a human observation, optical illusions as an example, the sceptics, they urged instead, the cultivation of what they called atorexia the complete suspension of belief.

And consequently, of all emotion and involvement with anything, so you cannot know anything at all. That's anorexia, to an extent. Scepticism of this kind joined hands with another ancient philosophy, stoicism.

For while the Stokes did not rule out the possibility of knowledge per SE, they also stressed that the path of wisdom was the elimination of all emotion and passionate commitment and the entering into a state of a path. Yeah, if that's the correct association of that.

However, I do know actually at that actually I'm pronouncing that quite well.
So these people, the sceptics really in the ancient philosophical bird, believed in ataraxia. You cannot know anything at all. Now, how does the critical realist respond to that? And hence my answer to the first question can we know?

A critical realist would actually begin from opposition to Anthraxia and to the many sceptical traditions that have emerged from it since antiquity and into the contemporary era. For instance, postmodernism. They would begin with that position of opposition to Anthraxia to argue.
So that we can know we can know the words and realities that constitute our existence, both natural and social. This is because the subject of potential knowability, in this case the reality itself, is indeed constructed by human agents, yet perceptively and conceivably announced.

As something distinct from us in mind in reality is by definition mind independent in critical realism. As Bhaskar argues, the the structures of reality. It's the structures are dependent upon our consciousness.

Dependent upon the consciousness with which the agents who reproduce or transform them have yet these structures of reality are by no means reducible. They are not reducible to this consciousness.

In conclusion, to answer this question, can we know if reality is separate from us, which is very essential? I would say in critical realism, if reality is fast separate from us, we we can only exist in the relations of intelligibility to it.

Relations that make knowing and knowledge, howsoever fallible, possible.

Intelligibility is not possible in the 1st place without acknowledging that reality is separate from us. So we begin by that acknowledgement that reality is separate from us. That gives legitimacy to intelligibility, and then intelligibility gives legitimacy to know ability and then knowledge.

Yeah.

We can know Fallibly absolutely, but nevertheless we can know. So critical realism does not come from a position of scepticism, but from a position of secure knowability and desire and knowledge production about the word, be it physical or social.

To come to my second question, so we've established that in critical realism, reality can be known. The social work can be known, and so on and so forth. The question then becomes, can we know with certainty?

And I'm introducing my body here. One of my favourite philosophers, John Locke. I have this court actually in my home in Beirut, in Lebanon on my wall, not in Edinburgh. I just love it. I don't know why. Let me see what you think.

Can we know with certainty this is John Locke answer? In January 1698, in a letter to his friend, Locke summed up the convictions of a lifetime.

He's a bit sarcastic here. Look, if I could think that discourses and arguments to the understanding our understanding were like the several sorts of gates, foot stuff to different palates and stomachs, some nauseous, some destructive, which are pleasant and restorative to another.

If this is actually the state of thinking, the state of understanding that it's only a matter of taste, then Locke says I should no more think of books and study and instead should employ my time at pushpin than reading and writing.

But I am convinced of the country. I know there is truth opposite to falsehood, that it might, or it may be found if people will and is worth the seeking and is not only the most valuable, but he says the pleasantest thing in the world.

So for lock it's not only that we can know we can know for with certainty because there is always truth opposite to falsehood.

A critical realist as such would argue to answer the second question, can we know with certainty a critical realist would argue not only that it is possible to know because we are separate from the world owing to our non coterminous existence with the world or our non?

Determinist relationship with reality, so a critical realist would argue that it is not not only that it is possible to know owing to the non ceterminist existence of reality with us, but also that it is possible to approximate the truth. So it's not as absolutist as John Locke puts it. But it's close to that position by John.

And this is I'm quoting John Locke. Again, I know there's truth opposite to falsehood. So we can know with a bit of certainty, I would say to qualify approximate here we can know with the desire to approximating truth. The fact that there are multiple descriptions or explanations of the.

Knowable does not imply that some are not better than others. Andrew Sayer, in this book, articulates this distinctively critical realist position on proximate truth or proximate certitude. More properly speaking.

To quote what reason have we for accepting this basic critical realist proposition of the mind, independence of the word? I would argue, sayeth says, that it is evident for the ability of our knowledge, the experience of getting things wrong, of having our expectations confounded, and of crashing into things that justifies us in belief.

Believing that the word exists regardless of what we happen to think about it, let me just simplify that for a bit. Reality is mind independent.

For Andrew Sayer, because of our day-to-day existence and what that tells us, Andrew here, more profoundly speaking is saying the following. We should come to the conclusion that reality is indeed independent or mind independent.

Because we all have expectations confounded in life, we all crash into things.

That justify that reality is actually not coterminous with us, but actually separate from us the the the good example I actually give to my students almost every single year is train cancellations.

Train cancellations as a reality that you have no power over and it's a good example in my opinion of that non caterminous relationship between reality and us as a human agents. And we say it continues. If by contrast the word itself was a product or construction of our knowledge.

Then our knowledge would surely be infallible. For how could we ever be mistaken about something that we've constructed?

If, As for instance, for structuralist or postmodernist argue, oh, it's all our construction really, and reality does not become mind independent. Then Andrew almost genuinely wonders how can you actually construct something that turns against you?

Don't you have full command of it? How could it be said that things were not as we supposed, we constructed it, so how could it be said that things were not as we supposed? Realism is therefore necessarily a fallibilist philosophy, and one which.

Must be wary of simple correspondent correspondence concepts of truth. That's a response to positivism. In a sense, it must acknowledge realism that the word can only be known under particular descriptions in terms of available discourses. Nobody is arguing with that, though it does not fall.

From this that no description or explanation is better than any other.

So we can know, yes, we can know with a bit of certainty with approximating truth, yes. And here it's important.

To revisit lock. Really, it's important in my opinion, to note that this foundational assumption about knowing with certainty with approximation to truth in the critical realistic tradition is also informed by the possibility of agreement in human thought.
So for those who say that no, it's not possible to know a certainty, then how would you justify consensus?

How do you justify consensus? How do you justify human agreement throughout history? The very idea that some descriptions or explanations are better than others implies that with time, effort, and a genuinely scientific mindset, one that one that conceives of science as a deliberative democratic endeavour among intellectuals and scientists.

Of all kind, it becomes possible to reach consensus, even if that consensus is open to contestation. We're not talking about whether things are open to contestation or not, but the possibility of reaching them in the 1st place is there. There is the possibility of agreement in human thought. There is the possibility of consensus. Some argue life itself is not possible without that.

And that sort of feeds into the argument about knowing with certainty this is what I'm trying to establish it through this slide through this specific piece of the argument, really, to acknowledge the possibility of a human agreement is to acknowledge knowing the possibility, at least, of knowing with certainty.

Indeed, agreements have always occurred and will continue to occur throughout the human history, and it is precisely because agreement is possible that knowing with certainty, IE, truth seeking is itself possible in the episode to the reader, his preference to an essay concerning a human understanding.

Locke reassures us of this possibility of this very possibility of agreement. To quote Locke, I am apartment to think that men, human beings, when they come to examine them, IE their ideas.

Find their simple ideas all generally to agree, though in this course with one another they perhaps confound one idea with another confound one another with another, with different names. In other words, they human beings have a tendency to call their ideas different names, really, but they're the same ideas.

In a sense, I imagine that men who abstract their thoughts and and do well examine the ideas of their own minds cannot much differ in thinking. This is not basically arguing for the possibility of agreement in human thought.

Which again feeds into, reinforces the possibility of knowing with certainty with approximation to the truth.

This brings me to how do we come to know?

The the third philosophical preliminary that I'd like to tackle today and finish perhaps with that the first section complete the first section of this lecture. I'm in depth to this to Eileen Dr Eileen Nardo. For those who don't know, she's my wonderful colleague. And she's the course organiser for the philosophy of education.

Course and also the Co leader of the teacher, education pedagogy and curriculum hub, under which the critical realism study group is organised or sits. I'm adapted to her because she included the speeding in the philosophy of education course this year.
I'm going to start by reading this fabulous code.
Gosh, I sound this is also another philosopher's surname that I cannot actually bring myself to pronounce from Henry. So I'm just going to go with Henry as if, you know, I'm seeing him this evening for drinks. Henry, my body.

But I'm going to read this quote from rhythm Analysis, his 2004 book, and then answer the question how do we come to know symbolically? Henry says so-called modern society underwent something that recalls the great changes in communications, its source cylinders, Pistons and steam jets on steam engines.

It's so the machine start up, pull work and move electric locomotives, by contrast, present to the eye only a big box that contains and can sees the machinery. One sees them start up, pull and move forward. But how?

The electrical wire and the pole that runs alongside it say nothing about the energy they transmit. In order to understand, one must be an engineer, a specialist, and know the vocabulary, the concepts, the calculations. The same goes for our.

Economical political society. The visible moving parts hide the machinery and then Henry asks is there nothing left of the visible? The sensible is our time only accessible after patient analysis that break up the complexity and then endeavour.

To piece it back together, and then he answers, it is not necessary. It is not necessary. Sorry to go too far. A truth pushed beyond its limits becomes an error. The gaze and the intellect can still grasp directly some aspects of our reality that are rich in meaning.
So it's not necessary, it's not necessary really to be a specialist and engineer. Again, this is Henry answering himself, a truth pushed beyond its limits becomes an error. The gaze and the intellect can still grasp directly some aspects of our reality that are rich in meaning. The everyday does suffice.

Notably, the everyday and rhythms it's rhythms now, how would a critical realist answer this? How would a critical realist respond to Henry? What would their rejoin there be?

Well, a critical realist would argue that the everyday and its analysis rhythms and rhythm analysis are not enough.

We come to know not merely through the empirical or observable, but through intensive theory, testing and retesting, and in many and sorry as in many historical cases through retroduction, which are modes of inquiry that lead us from the empirical to the real.

While this has more directly or historically applied more directly to the natural sciences, it does hold potential for the social sciences.

And let me just exemplify what I mean by saying that we don't know life and reality through the everyday only there's always re level. There's always intensive theory, testing and retesting because otherwise how do we know such things as temperature?
Do you see it? When was the last time you saw temperature? When was the last time you saw pressure? When was the last time you saw speed? When was the last time you saw distance? When was the last time you saw time for that matter? When was the last time you saw you saw consciousness or subconsciousness or the subconscious?
But it's impressive that we do actually know they're real. So how we? How have we come to them historically? Scientifically, how have we come to them? One would say at least me for the purposes of this lecture, not through the everyday and the examination of its rhythms, but through.

Deeper inquiry through deeper inquiry into the RE levelled levels of things through testing theory, testing and retestings that's retesting. We all accept that such things to answer that third question.

How do we come to know we all accept that such things as temperature, pressure, speed, distance and time as well as consciousness and the subconscious, are real, yet they are real not merely because they are rhythms, but because they are causal mechanisms.

This is how Bhaskar describes the process of coming to know, emphasising the primacy of mechanisms in life.

The aim of science and he means both natural and social, the aim of science is the discovery of the mechanisms underlying the production of phenomena in nature. It proceeds through a dialectic of taxonomic or descriptive and explanatory knowledge, in which the conflicting principles of.

Criticism and rationalism can be reconciled a dialectic with no foreseeable end.
Now there's another dimension to answering this question, which I'd like to address briefly here, and I've answered this question how do we come to know by saying that in critical realism you only come to know through the uncovering of the hidden, the real mechanisms of things.

And for those who object to the argument about the hidden, it does actually fascinate me why they would object to the argument of the about the hidden. Why? Because let me say the following.

Science as a form of historical knowing in my opinion, has quite remarkably ascertained prehistorical knowing.

Think about how people knew in pre political times through the hidden assumptions about God, assumptions about the otherworldly assumptions about the metaphysical. We've always known through the attempt to identify the hidden, and so science, really.
Did not come to change that. In fact, science, both natural and social, ascertained it.
Fixed it just like prehistorical knowing scientific knowing.

For all its differences, obviously, notwithstanding its differences with scientific knowing, but for all those, notwithstanding these differences, there are similarities, really between scientific knowing and prehistorical knowing.

It is at this hidden or real level that it becomes possible to posit and explain the causal mechanisms that make the word the way it is that sustain the continuities, and by implication reveals the conditions of discontinuity of its phenomena and events.

Bhaskar argues that mechanisms are enduring. They are nothing but the power of things. The word consists of enduring and trans factionally active things, mechanisms, and structures which endure and act in their own way. Unless acted upon, that is unless transformed.
We come to know through the hidden, even if that knowledge is foldable. And again scientific, knowing in that respect does not strategically distance itself from forms of prehistorical knowing and in fact it continues in the tradition of prehistorical knowing by a certain.

Obtaining the argument for the hidden.

One also finds in early English philosophical thought, a recognition of this inevitability of the hidden.

This is.

This is what Thomas Seidenham was a physicist. This is what he told his friend Locke.
True knowledge grew first in the word by experience and rational observation, but proud man not content with the knowledge he was capable of and which was useful to him, would need penetrate into the hidden causes of things. The observable, the empirical what's on the surface, the rhythmic, the everyday that's not.
Suffice.

The propensity toward the hidden is inherent in US, and that's why Sydenham says, you know, we can actually live, but there's this.

There's this very strong urgency to penetrate into the hidden causes of things, lay down principles, establish maxims to himself about the operations of nature and thus vainly accept that nature, or in truth God should proceed according to those laws which his maxims had prescribed to him. This is.

I'm just I'm, I'm quoting Sydenham here to again emphasise the answer to this question coming to know through the uncovery or uncovering the hidden, mentioning Sydenham, a physician, and Locke, a philosopher, brings me to another interesting dimension of the question of how we come to know.

Namely, the relationship between knowing the natural and knowing the social or the relationship between the knower of the social and the knower of the natural. For Bhaskar the latter, knowing the social, social science, can, and indeed should aim to uncover the deeper reality of social mechanisms and structures, much as the natural sciences.
Aim to uncover the causal mechanisms underlying natural phenomena. I've already sort of on the previous slide, discussed the hidden, and given you actually both natural and social examples. So just like natural science is capable of telling us that temperature, speed, distance and time are real and not just rhythms of life, but.

Actually causing mechanisms Bhaskar and myself for that matter, do subscribe to the argument that this thinking is also possible. The identification depositing the explanation of the hidden in social science itself, and many people have done it. Freud, for instance, has done it.

And just to to to caution here, you know Bhaskar, he does, however caution us that the naturalism, this belief in a real objective, independent and investigable world or reality shared by both natural and social sciences, should be a critical one, not a naive naturalism, one that allows for non deterministic.

Possibilities of change or transformation and the process of uncovering the deeper layers of reality.

But my question is and this is something that I was myself thinking about, so this is something that I am personally proposing. What then becomes of the relationship between the roles of the natural scientist and the social scientist? So I want you to picture lock and side and hand in mind.

OK, both have the same aim. Both have the same purpose, uncovering the hidden, but the relationship we all know that the relationship between the natural scientist and the and the social science and the social scientist is a very tricky relationship. Why is that the case?

If the possibility of naturalism applies to both natural and social science, exactly what I was saying, then surely it is reasonable to assume that the roles, IE the roles of the natural scientists and the social scientists, should be complementary. They're both concerned with the hidden.

For instance, lock. If you look at this quote lock in this passage from the episode to the reader, he proudly describes himself as an under labourer for his friend Mr Newton. You know, for the incomparable Mr Newton, he says it is ambitious.

Enough for me, IE lock. It is ambition enough for me lock to be employed as an under labourer in clearing the ground a little, removing some of the rubbish that weighs in the way of knowledge. He's saying that about himself as a philosopher in modern day language, perhaps as a social scientist.

Fair enough, because we've already determined that there is this complementarity between natural science and social science.

But this is my argument between brackets here as you can see on this slide. I do wonder though why it is that while I.

Omar, as a social scientist, readily accept the task of under labelling for the natural sciences. I don't have a problem under labelling for the chemist, for the physicist, the question is why is it that the natural scientist historically?

Seems less inclined to under Labour for me.

Research preliminaries. Distilling really extrapolating rather from, but also distilling. You know these four or three sorry philosophical preliminaries into four research preliminaries. Ontological, realism, relativism, judgmental rationality, and ethical naturalism.
I appreciate that this is when it becomes perhaps real or more perhaps concretely connected to the tasks of research.

From these three philosophical preliminaries, we can deduct 4 principles explicated by Archer ET al, 2016, ontological realism ontology, the inquiry into the nature of things precedes epistemology in critical realism.

Which came to dominate. Now you know that discussion. Why is it that critical realness always talk about ontology and epistemology? Well, this is because epistemology came to dominate as a result of the prevalence of hermeneutical philosophical projects in the social sciences.

It is that prevalence. In fact, nowadays the preponderance of epistemology that begs really for an ontic recentering of knowledge, and This is why for a critical realist there is the primary the primacy of ontology.

The view that reality exists independently of our awareness or knowledge, and that many of its features are hidden and resist straightforward articulation in theory, language or numbers justifies the need for retroduction to posit the causal mechanisms that explain phenomena and event. So that's a distillation if you wish, that's a constant.
Situation for a better word, a concentration of what I've been discussing about the hidden on previous slides. It is. It is very much because of that because so many aspects of reality are inaccessible through language and numbers. Remember what I said about the everyday rhythms?

They're not enough, really. We need to dig deeper to get to the hidden. It's because of that that it's because of that, that in critical realism, the need for reintroduction, asking yourself what causal mechanisms underpin phenomena and events?

Is justified. Critical realism does not subscribe. Importantly to though, as a caveat, it does not subscribe to mechanical or successionist cessation. That's a rejoinder or a response if you wish to classical positivism and classical empiricism. It does not subscribe to mechanical or successionist.

So when a critical realist says I believe in causation, they do not mean that a needs to be the way a success in it a successionist would believe in it. Rather, it recognises the complexity and heterogeneity of the social word. Therefore subscribing to open and the degenerated causation.

This is what you see in almost all critical realist research. Any paper that claims to being, you know, a paper based on a critical realist methodology deploys this, which is a graphical illustration of bhaskar's and others social ontology of reality.

This is not without its problems, by the way. Remember what I said in my first? Or maybe second or third caveat about the over pedagogization of critical realism or philosophy? For more generally speaking, for that matter, so we move from the primacy of ontology if you wish, or ontological realism.

And let's move to epistemic relativism. Yes, as we established in our research preliminaries, critical realism entails a commitment to truth, to the approximation of the truth. But before that, and importantly, it says truth exists, but it does also let us not forget that it does have.

A commitment to fallibilist science, in other words, while it commits to truth, it recognises that there are no truth values and criteria of rationality that exists outside the forces of history.

There will always be a a multiplicity of interpretations and representations of a truth of truth. Sorry. A multiplicity of descriptions and explanations. Hence epistemic relativism, and by implication, methodological pluralism.

So critical realism does not have quarrel quarrels really with epistemic relativism and methodological pluralism. In fact, it is this that makes it so much connected to mixed methods. Research for Pora, the sociologist argues that the critical realist project, both in philosophy and in the social sciences.

Resists the deagentification of the agent. The derogation of the lay actor. Why? Why is this important? Remember what I said about critical realists? Critical realists? Being interested in causing mechanisms in the hidden at what in what underpins the empirical and the observable, and so many would say, oh, what?

What about the lay actor? What about the agent? The subject? That is a rejoinder. Well, we're not really against that. As critical realists, we do not actually subscribe or allow for the derogation of the lay actor because we do believe in a multiplicity of interpretations.

It's just that one interpretation might be better than the other.

Within critical realism, there lies significant potentials for the revaluation and revaluation of agency agents and agentic and social knowledges. This is a very important one judgement of rationality. If one is realist in ontology and relativist in epistemology, then it follows.

Because that one must believe that certain explanations of phenomena and events are rather better than others. Absolutely I do very strongly myself believe in that there is a multiplicity of interpretations, hence relativism in epistemology.

But because I'm a realist on ontology, I cannot possibly allow for anything goes in in science, not anything goes.

Bhaskar argues that epistemic relativism should be distinguished from the false doctrine of judgmental relativism. So if you are epistemically, epistemologically, for a matter of word, if you are epistemologically a relativist, this shouldn't automatically read you to judgmental relativism. Why?

On what basis, really?

What what is judgmental relativism? It asserts that all beliefs or arguments are equally valid and that there can be no rational grounds whatsoever for preferring one argument, 1 interpretation 1 description to another. In contrast, the critical realist researcher is capable of exercising their judgmental rationality.

They can adjudicate between claims, believes arguments, rival accounts, explanations and models, better explanations of reality are relatively justified, and indeed necessary for social science to collectively progress and to be taken seriously by policy makers, I would say.

This does not contradict the historicity of explanation, so to say that one explanation is better than the other is not to deny the historicity of explanation, and it's not to say that one explanation is outside the forces of history. It's simply better.

Here is a wonderful quote in my opinion, and I think I'd like to think that it will help us simplify meanings here. Bhaskar draws an analogy here to action, so this is about interpretations, right and arguments and whether.

They're all equally valid, or one is better than the other. Well, Bhaskar invites us in this court to think about action. For an analogy, it is clear that if one is to act at all, there must be grounds for preferring 1 belief about some domain to another, and that such activity.

Is typically codifiable in the form of systems of rules, implicitly or explicitly product. What Bhaskar is saying in this court is that.

Why are you objecting to judge mental rationality when we actually practise judge mental rationality every single day? The fact that I'm here in this lecture, wearing these clothes, talking to you, being very conscious of my gesturing.

Being very conscious of what I'm saying, aren't these all acts that have come from me being able to be judgmentally rational and capable fast of exercising decision making?
And it's all within a certain system. I cannot just begin shouting right now, and I don't know what acting weirdly, Ali would be, very would very upset, very upset. But I think this is I'd like to think.

It's a good analogy really. The analogy between interpretation and action really. To understand what Bhaskar means by saying every single day, we actually decide that there are certain actions that are better than others, and this is how we live. So why not actually?

Take that into the domain of interpretation. Finally, ethical naturalism. I should actually begin with the bolded statement between brackets. Ethical naturalism refers to a naturalism that incorporates ethics within its scope of inquiry and not to the idea that.
But naturalism itself is ethical, just because of confusion, really, when, when, when? When somebody says ethical naturalism, it means a naturalism that incorporates arguments for ethics, for values, for for morality, say, into it, and not it itself as ethical.
Critical realism is both fact and value theoretic.

I have explained how it is fact theoretic in the sense that it is a philosophy that subscribes to the possibility of naturalism. That is the possibility of investigating an independent reality, to posit the underlying mechanisms that generate facts. So fact theoretic here means oriented toward facts.

It's oriented toward that, specifically the generation of course, and mechanisms that lead to facts on the actual level or empirical level for that matter. However, critical realism is also value theoretic insofar as this very naturalism in fact does take very seriously.

Rather than dismissing as arbitrary subjective articulations or dispositions, the values of a human beings, so it's not oriented towards facts. It's also oriented towards value and value. In this context, is subjectivity value in this context is personal judgement or personal argument. What have you critical realism?

Does take these into consideration. Its value theoretic, or subjectivity theoretic or subjective theoretic as much as it is fact theoretic critical realism can be said to endorse an ethical naturalism. Unlike positivist social science, it does not negate values.

Because it does believe that values can lead us to facts. The the the famous saying and you all know this, I take it for granted. Allow me that facts are value laden, right. We hear that often facts are value laden. Equitical realist would say. Values are also fact laden.

How are values fact laden? Because it is through understanding the values of people and their.

Interactionist relationship with these values that you might come to a certain truth.
Yeah.

Because values inevitably enter the work of explanation, it becomes unavoidable for social science to have something to say about the good life or the human flourishing or human flourishing. Now this is an area Arshad ET al. Say where it becomes contentious. Why? Because if you're saying that critical realism is not just interested in facts, but it's also interested.

In values, because values might lead us to facts. Then what are you? What are you? What are you essentially saying? You're essentially saying as well that on that basis, social science can make arguments for which life is better than another life for what constitutes good life, human flourishing.

Philosophy does that natural science does that social science as well can, because it does into consideration. It does take into consideration. Sorry, the question of value social science as such can actually make arguments about human flourishing or the good life.

Now, not many critical realists like that.

They they'd like to stick to the, you know, tradition and sort of post positivist scientific way of doing things, distancing themselves from the question of the subjective or or the question of the of the question of values more, more, more broadly speaking.
Now I'm gonna conclude with with this. Really I hope that this will really clarify in conclusion. So many sorry I should stand here. So many of the things that I've been saying, I love this book I've recently.

Porsches, this book. I know I'm taking you to play a completely different terrain here, so please bear with me. But I'm. I'm gonna show you now an application of everything that I've said and in words explicitly in words. This is a book by a New York University, if I'm not mistaken. Scholar Jason.

It's a book about the Congo, the East Congo conflict.

I consider this book from modern conflict studies to be a notable example of how the principles of critical realism can be adopted and applied in research. In it, the author Stearns seeks to understand why the devastating conflict in eastern Congo.
With its heavy human toll persisted since 2003, by the way, not the originality of inquiry or subject of inquiry or aim of inquiry here it's it's this is very distinctively critical realist, like asking yourself why something persisted steers is asking himself in this book.

Why in hell this very devastated conflict in eastern Congo, with its heavy human toll, persisted since 2003, that desire for understanding, for digging deeper in his own words which reflect a critical realist perspective, he says on page 55, I pursued proximate.

Essentially this is generativization. In order to posit the mechanisms and processes that explain the escalation of conflict from 2003 approximately, I would say to 2023.
The critical realist underpinnings of Stevens methodology, and I really love this, led him to a compelling finding and I hope that this will, in a sense, condense for you the meaning of doing critical realist research, Stevens.

In addition to the well rehearsed causal mechanisms of the eastern Congo conflict identified by previous scholarships, these are examples of causal mechanisms and and he does actually tackle all of them. So resource extractive geopolitics.

Power, political power struggles, Western interventionism. In addition to these causal mechanisms, he identified and thoroughly explained a central causal mechanism that the Congolese conflict has become a social condition in and of itself.

And this is how he defines social condition, an outcome that may not have been the intended objectives of any of the protagonists to the conflict, but which has produced its own actors, cultures and interests. It is through his critical realist research and project, by, by the way, students might kill me if he said I don't know.

He's a critical realist. I have to say. I must have started by he does not specifically say I am a critical realist, but critical realism is all over his work. But from this I'd like us the take away. For me at least, is that.

This gigantic research led him to the identification of that extra causal mechanism. That is a stance contribution to Congolese to to scholarship. Sorry and research on the Congolese situation. It's not just Western interventionism.

It's not just political powers I have to say. He does not deny that at all. In fact, he has his chapters about each, but he says it's also a social condition that is almost self sustainable. That's the mechanism that he's identified. And look at that slide. I hope we're going to share the slides. I hope you're going to love this mapping.

This is what I've done. Is literally take one page from Cern's methodological note, pages 13 and 14, and map it out against the four principles of research in the critical realist tradition that I've explored on the previous slides.

Note his data is interview data 305 interviews. This is to answer my students who say I'm a critical realist. Can I use interviews? Of course. Remember, because critical realism is value theoretic, it's interested in value. Value is a very broad concept here. It's interested in what people have to say in their own judgments in their own.

Own explanations and their own interpretations and their own subjective beings really. So This is why students conducted 305 students and his research team conducted 305 interviews. Note here that CR strongly supports interviews as a method for data conduction because they provide access to subjects internally.

Conversations, but not just subjects internal conversations. Also, the conversations that subjects have with objective social structures, which is something we do every single day and you're doing right now even without noticing it, without being conscious of it. You have your own internal conversation and you're also in conversation with reality.

So we do value interviews and not by the way, his choice of methodology. A very interesting choice of methodology. I love it myself. I might recommend it to some of my students if it's applicable to the project process tracing. How does he define process tracing? He quotes this researcher. It's the.

Analysis of evidence on processes, sequences and conjunctions of events within a case. Why am I analysing processes and sequences and conjunctions of events for the purposes of either developing or testing hypotheses about causal mechanisms that might causally explain the case? This is why I'm saying students is not a critical.
But I'm sure that you could tell from this is from this person who steer escorting and adopting his logic of inquiry, that this is characteristically critical realist, and this that there are so many events and processes and consequence and sequences, sorry, and they're all are underlined by certain causal mechanisms.

That beg positing. This is ontological realism, not here. The choice of methodology process tracing, which is based on the premise of a real, independent and investigative reality that can be explained by testing or hypothesising about causal mechanisms that underpin the empirical.

And then the second paragraph on this page 1314.

Not his ethical naturalism, not how he's interested in facts, but also interested in value, not how he applies critical realism in a way that is both fact theoretic and value theoretic. What does he say? Oh, I'm interested in causality. Make no mistakes. I'm interested in causality within single cases. Why?

Very important auxiliary while remaining sensitive to social relations and interests, and he admits he acknowledges, which are difficult to capture quantitatively. What is this? This is both. It encapsulates both the fact theoretic and the value theoretic. This is ethical naturalism and epistemic.

Nativism. Note here the author's adherence to a naturalist logic of inquiry. Why naturalist? Because it's interested in the uncovering of the course in mechanisms that made the eastern Congo conflict endure for so long more than 20 years.

But this does not preclude values contextual sensitivities, which also show traces of an appreciation for epistemic relativism.

And then the final step Siran says, which I employed in my analysis of each armed group, there are hundreds of them really in in eastern Congo. He says that the final step that he employed in his analysis.

Follow with me here to elaborate competing hypothesis to elaborate competing hypothesis and their observable observable sorry implications and to test these against the facts. There are so many hypothesis. I love the use of the word competing here.
They're competing hypotheses or interpretations or what have you, but one must be better than the other. That's why they're competing and elaborate. Here comes in the meaning of using my judgmental rationality. My read through my judgmental rationality.
The researchers role in adjudicating between competing claims. There are so many hypotheses to explain the conflict they're competing. I must elaborate on them elaborate in the sense of exercise, my judgement, rationality. So to adjudicate between claims, arguments, accounts more than to generate a better explanation of reality. What is the reality?

Quality insurance book why the conflict endured in eastern in eastern Congo?
And I just wanted to say, I don't know what what arrow this is exactly pointing to by. Oh, this one. Sorry, this is this arrow should be elevated a bit when he says sorry, I should have tackled that before when he says that he's using induction and deduction. But at the same time incorporating theory.

To try it out against the facts, this is characteristically reproduction. It's a multi logic approach. Instruments work that allows for positing mechanisms while maintaining the possibility of the force refiability.

That is to say, yes, I identified this mechanism. Remember what mechanism did I identify the war as a social condition? But then he says, you know, they this all mechanisms, including the mechanism that I've identified through my work war as a social condition, can be revisited for refinement.

Because they are contingent historical subject to change so.

Thank you very much actually for listening. I mean nobody wants a lecture on critical realism, you know, on Friday afternoon. I've really tried my best. I don't know. I've tried my best to philosophically and then, you know, distancing down to research. I hope that you and we're going to share the slides. I hope that this will be helpful.

Somehow, you know, tried as much as possible to make the the the mapping of the methodological note against the principle quite direct, really rather than confusing you, and so on and so forth. I wasn't aware of time, are we, are we? Are we OK on time?
OK. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much really.

Questions please.

Yes.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. We're gonna.

I don't think so. Fatia just one. That's OK, we can just, yeah, just basically. Thank you.
All right. Thank you so much. Omar. I have to say it was such a privilege to have this, this lecture and you've done something really difficult, which is to span this range from philosophy right into practise. So I mean, I was extremely impressed. I have actually many questions, but I'll, I'll.

Focus on the thing you said towards the end in relation to values, so I found it really interesting. This idea of values being fact laden and but I do wonder.

So I I got everything you said about in social science, we can create a certain certainty around knowledge that we create because we can test it. We can. You know, there's some things make more sense than others with values.

I see that I find it difficult to imagine because people have so many different perspectives right on what they care about the environments they're in, the the problems, even that they're faced with, and a lot of the social sciences is concerned.

With the creation of values and with the examination of values rather than with the creation of knowledge and so I'm curious about this idea of consensus when it comes to values and how.

How do we explain the lack of like the utter lack of consensus in societies today when we want to say that there is something like, oh, we can, we can actually say this, this value system is maybe makes more sense than this one, I guess, yeah. There, that's where I'm kind of hung up.

Yes, I'll give you that the the microphone backs.

Faith to lose my thoughts, Eileen. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Eileen, for an excellent question.

Maybe to start from the last bit that you've said and I don't think we disagree on that. I think that was an excellent question of what's exactly happening today in terms of consensus for. But let us not forget, for instance, that in this country, for instance, the UK and in so many Western countries, you've had a consensus over liberal.

The democracy from 1945, for instance to 1970. That was a remarkable consensus. And with that came social, social dash, distributive logics of policy and policy making, until it fell apart. So I think I think this is what.

Critical realists mean, and for that matter, it's a very, very ancient argument about the possibility of agreement in human thought, no matter how much it's open to contestation, but that it is not possible is is something that we would.

Contend is perhaps inaccurate. As critical realist. Your other excellent question and I apologise for Elin and everybody because I didn't actually have time to elaborate on this slide. Just to clarify briefly really in one or two sentences.

Or sorry to give you a concrete, I hope it's a concrete example of what I mean by values being fact laden. What I did not include on this slide is is a discussion really.
Within critical realism or an approach to that discussion from a critical realist perspective, which is the question of the Holocaust.

Yeah.
Uh.

The fact that we should actually honour values it is because of our honouring of values and when I say values I mean subjective interpretations. I mean subjective statements about reality. It is because of that honouring of the value that we've been able to subsequently honour the oral testimony.

Of the Holocaust survivor and then reach the fact that what happened in the concentration camps happened. So this is one example of what's meant by a critical realist saying you cannot ignore values because there are certain moments in history that you need values to lead you to facts.

Otherwise, so many things about the horrors of the the unspeakable horrors about the Holocaust would quiet literally have not been uncovered if it wasn't, or if it hadn't been for the appreciation of value and oral testimony specifically in this case, which is an example of value, I think that's what's meant by saying.

I'm really sorry, I should have clarified that that's what's meant by saying that a value system is fact laden. The more you listen to people, the more you might be LED and will be LED to facts.

Sometimes you have no option really, but to listen to people. I don't know. I hope that answers the question, Eileen.

Yeah, yeah. Or I can we I can then say it out loud, if that's it, yeah.
The specialist.

Then I think this will be no, this doesn't work.

Or maybe just so the question that we have is from Meta Catherine, who has joined online and the question is how could one say that critical realism is an attempt to moderate?

The dominance of naturalism social sciences, abdominance the might and does, I think, says the author feel like a strain go.

What?

And if so, this critical realism would go far enough, or has it so far only taking token steps in its endeavour? Or have I got it all wrong?

Well, that is what, for instance, if you recall my, that's an excellent question. Thank you very much for the person who asks it. It's really an excellent question and I think it kind of it kind of shines with what one of the caveats, one of one of the caveats that I've started with actually say.

Sorry, exactly. Where's my navigator? Oh, sorry. There it is.

Isn't this one more?

Oh, the very last one. Yeah, it does shy. Well, the way I see it at least is that it does shy with what Zhang is saying. It's a great article, by the way, if you want to read it kind of like, you know, sits at the intersection of philosophy and sociology. Many would say that.

I I would be quite reluctant to say that it's only taking tokenistic steps, I mean this this lecture is not obviously focused on.

Articulating a genealogy of critical realism. This is not a genealogy of critical realism, but we do have various schools of thought and.

Hundreds of attempts really with an each school of thought, really to address this, so I wouldn't necessarily couch it as tokenistic, but but there is the criticism that some say not tokenistic, but futile.

You're futile in the sense of why are we exactly doing this? Like Zhang would say, why are we exactly doing this? Why are we so much interested in questions about the philosophy of knowledge and the questions questions, for instance, about, onto, onto formativity and ontology and so on and so forth.

Is this really important for the advancement of social science? And he I mean, the reason one of the one another reason if you wish, why I like this piece is is quite like personal on some pages and where he says, I mean I do my sociology research and I don't find myself having to ask myself. I don't find that I have to ask in situations where I.
I have to ask myself these very profoundly difficult questions about, for instance, the primacy of ontology or the over epistemology, and so on and so forth. So I think it's taken certain steps. I'm not sure to answer the question more directly, whether it's a question of tokenism or a question of futility.

Where I I definitely see the arguments for all of these things, but to answer the first bit of of the question, if I may, about whether it's a moderation of naturalism in in the sciences more broadly and specifically not natural science. Absolutely, I think that is argued explicitly in more than one source, including by Roy Bhaskar himself.

An answer to positivism. And that's why, for instance, many scholars as well draw certain interrelationships between post positivism and relativism. So there's definitely that. There's definitely that which is critical realism, responding indeed, as as the kind.
Person who asked the question put it to moderate naturalism and may I say as Bhaskar. I think sorry, I can't really recall exactly which writing it is, which piece it is not just a moderation of naturalism. I would even agree with many critical realist scholars who say it's not just a moderation.

Of naturalism or a response to naturalism, positivism, naive naturalism. It's a revolutionization of naturalism that's key to the project of critical realism. So we're not just responding to positivism. We're actually being kind to positivism by refining it, by revolutionising it.

You'll ask me how exactly what do you mean by the revolutionization of positivism? Well, just like Karl Popker did. You know, opening it to contestation, you know, it's not just not just opening it to contestation, but also diversifying its theoretical methods.
It's not just verification and falsifiability. It goes more than that. The question of the hidden and so on and so forth. So yeah, I hope that answers the question is, is well, who would like to go first? Doesn't matter. Like instead of responding to what you just said. Oh, and then mine is also connected to.

But you can go. So I find the Zhang's critique interesting in the sense that, like, it doesn't seem to me that anyone is claiming that one has to have a philosophy of social science in order to.

Through CR, but considering the nature of epistemology and ontology and the relationship between them, surely facilitates enhanced rigour in terms of critical reflection and critical thinking.

So I think we can do research that can be rigorous and suggest findings, but it's also really important to have the skills and frameworks to be able to critically question and challenge that research, and that's what exploring or what do we think about the nature of what we know?

And how we know and how we experience being in the world and how these things interconnect and in fact diverge, it's it's really important and really valuable I think and it's I can understand like I think there are some researchers who struggle with that kind of work and that's fine and it doesn't invalidate their work, their work.
Can still be incredibly valuable, but I think you really need the people who have that philosophical philosophical approach to be able to to challenge and and to question like I think it. I think it's essential actually.

Briefly, actually, thank you very much for your excellent invention. I may very briefly comment on what my colleague here has said. So yeah, Zang is saying, why do we need the philosophy of knowledge? I'll try as much as possible to revisit this and the draw it can create link to it okay.

So we need a critical realist. You know, somebody like me for now at least would argue that, Oh yes, we need the philosophy of knowledge. Why? Because the philosophy of knowledge would enable you to make certain arguments about the primacy of one level of analysis over another. In this case, the primacy of ontology.

Over epistemology, which is exactly what students did, even without knowing it, so for students.

This to, to paraphrase it for students, I pictured him in my mind, taking a step back and saying to himself.

Do we actually understand the reality of what's happening in East Congo? That is an ontological question. Why is it that when so many foreign armies actually withdrew from the Congo, the Congo gained its independence?

Why is it that there is continuing bloodshed that is pretty much if I say, you know, an ontological question and you're only led to the making of that question through the prioritisation of philosophy, as you were saying?

And then through his research, so having having prioritised ontology over epistemology and then asked the ontological research question, which is why does this conflict persist? Is there a certain thing to it's a reality that we are oblivious to?

And he was led to that conclusion. Yes, there is something in the reality of this conflict, which we are very much oblivious to, not to deny the other causal mechanisms, but it seems to me Stevens is saying, it seems to me, oh, this war.

Has become a social condition of existence. That is why it's just not. It's not stopping. How do you come to that? Well, you come through philosophy first and and and in your mind, putting as #1 questions of ontology.

More very, very, very broadly very broadly, just as another bit of comment very broadly, it does boggle the mind. It does boggle my mind, at least why many wouldn't accept the whole discourse around ontology and epistemology and the primacy of ontology over epistemology.

When they do that, they put me under the impression that they know exactly the realities of everything, every single event and phenomena. Do you do you do. We know? Do we know we do. We know the realities of everything. I would argue that no, we don't.

We don't necessarily.

And so hence the primacy of such philosophical questions.

I think my question is quite related. I understand the positivism versus critical realism, the conflict, but can you please unpack a little bit more post positivism versus critical realism? Again, the the main difference be like between these two. It's for critical realism, it's.

Ontologies prioritise than the epistemology, because if we look at the car Popper he also says that we can only know to a certain extent right now. So I think if you can unpack this a little bit that will be helpful. Also I have another technical question about epistemic relativism. How is it different from epistemic cost?

Correctionism or is it's just the the way that you just refer to it technically, so if you can unpack it a little bit, that will be very helpful. Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you. Again, excellent questions. Thank you, Fatih. I'll begin with the second question. Really, I I yeah, it might, as you guessed, really, as you rightly intelligently guess, it might be just a difference in nomenclature. Really. I'm not myself aware there might be certain differences.

Or certain conceptualizations of ethical constructivism as different from relativism. But I I I I think it's a matter of terminological dispute, really, that rather than anything that speaks to the heart of the matter, if you wish.

Your first question, another excellent question, the second excellent question about the differences between post positivism and critical realism. I would put it in one sentence by saying that while post positivism is a refinement, only a refinement, only trying you know.

Slightly better to make, sorry only trying slightly, let me to define empiricism. Empiricism, as everybody knows, is knowledge can be produced on the basis of.
Observation, experimentation, experience, and so on and so forth. What positivism has done is say oh, we can refine that. We can refine that by, for instance, falsification. So it's not simply verifying what we know.

It's actually trying to falsify it, which is why Karl Popper, for instance, says truth can only be known probabilistically, probabilistically but but not with me. Here Fatih not with me that it is simply an enhancement on empiricism or a refinement on empiricism.
It does not revolutionise it critical realism says. We cannot be stuck at the level of observation, experiment and experience.

And then, you know, measure our theories against other theories or test our theories and retest them, which is basically what knowing probabilistically means. Critical realism says we should go beyond that and look for the hidden for causal mechanisms. So for a short answer.

In my opinion, in my view you would say that you know this thing, the hidden, the causal, very deeply causal mechanisms and so on and so forth. Knowing beyond the observable beyond what naive empiricism really allows for. That is the key difference really between.

Post positivism and critical realism, one is a stuck at the level of the thus theory, of course, but maybe stuck at the level of the observable. The you know, and so on and so forth. The other digs deeper, in a sense, maybe, maybe to answer your question differently as well, the similarity of you wish you know to answer the question in a upside down logic.

The the the similarity between both is definitely the fallibilism of knowledge. That is what they agree on. That is where they intersect. Knowledge is fallible.

We're gonna wrap up okay. Well, I'm wrapping up. You know, this could go on and on and on. I just would like, really, on behalf of my colleague, Co leader of the critical realism. So the group Doctor, Alejandra Balachi and myself. Omar Casey.

Thanking you really for being here today. I really enjoyed this. I I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you've enjoyed it, but this is not the last really that you're gonna hear from us.
We're actually only starting, you know, we've only started this back in September or early October. We have a website, we already have two videos recordings really about critical realism. One is more general, one is about methodology. We have resource lists.
We have resource lists and so many other things as well.

And I just wanted to, well, maybe we'll share it later. I just wanted to highlight the link, really the link to the web page. So if you go to that Web page, you'll find everything that I've been this thing you know and do get in touch with Ali, with myself. We're you're more than welcome really to ask questions. We have other events.

Coming up one with Professor Albush Mysuria, I think in was a critical realist and education policy professor in in in February there will be more details about that later and we also we're thinking really of doing other things such as reading groups, you know, monthly reading groups and so on and so forth.

And well, I don't know. Thank you very much again and enjoy the weekend. Maybe when it comes. Thank you. Thank you.