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The Realist Critique of Materialism
Just invoking materialism without specifying exactly what the sense is does not get you very far. It is often claimed that ideas and ideology have a material existence ultimately rooted in physical...
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Being dragged onto Wikipedia against your will
A couple of weeks ago I wrote this quick post about Roy Bhaskar’s writing methods. It’s now been incorporated as a source (6) into the ‘criticism’ section of Bhaskar’s wikipedia page. For the first...
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Roy Bhaskar on the Fetishisation of Facts
What is a ‘fact’? This deceptively simple question provides a route into the most pressing issues concerning the philosophy of science. In a short essay, “Philosophies as Ideologies of Science: A...
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Rorty, Realism and the Idea of Freedom
In contrast to the scorn which Rorty’s name now provokes in some quarters, it’s arresting to see the esteem in which he was held by Roy Bhaskar in the late 80s, albeit in the context of a trenchant...
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Is speculative realism just critical realism without the sociology of...
An interesting post on An und für sich reminded me of this question which I’ve long wondered about the answer to. From what I know of speculative realism, Graham Harman is the thinker who appeals to me...
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A glossary of critical realist terminology
I hadn’t realised this was still online. It’s a very useful resource: Absence Actualism Change Closed and Open Systems Completion Constellation Critique and Transcendental Argument Determinism...
View ArticleDenial and the Antinomies of (Post)Truth
Rarely can a film have been as timely as Denial. It tells the story of the libel action the holocaust denying historian David Irving took against Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, alleging that she...
View ArticleTwo modes for becoming who we are
The self as painting: we become who we are through repetition and representation. Encumbered only by our imagination and the culture in which we find ourselves, we craft ourselves through iterated...
View ArticleBhaskar’s concept of ‘present-moment awareness’
Summarised on pg 127 of Jamie Morgan’s extremely useful review article: In the first instance, as a singularized embodied entity the individual is nowhere but where they are, doing what they are...
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