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matters of cultural criticism and literary
description ‘we must imitate the naturalists’.
It is this possibility ofnaturalismthat has
propelled realism in philosophy, science
and the social sciences (Bhaskar, 1998 [1979])
‘Scientific realism’ asserts the existence of
various observable and unobservable entities of
which it claims to be capable of giving the best
representations. Many scientific realists sub-
scribe to an ‘entity’ realism, which asserts the
existence of many, well-established theoretical
entities (various atomic particles, for example),
but not necessarily to a ‘semantic’ realism, or
belief in the truth of any one theory about such
entities that correctly represents or mirrors ‘the
way things really are’ (Hacking, 1983). There
are also profound differences amongst scientific
realists on notions of truth, reference, inference
and explanation (Psillos, 1999). Matters are a
little simpler in the social sciences in that a
particular version of realism, critical realism,
has become dominant and the focus of most
debate. This is a version particularly associated
with the work of Bhaskar (1986, 1989, 1998
[1979]) and Sayer (1992 [1984], 2000).
Early formulations of critical realism typic-
ally developed its main elements by asking
what reality must be like to make the existence
of science and its successes possible, which
leads to a critique of the impoverished assum-
ptions underlyingempiricismor positivism.
Critical realists reject the possibility of basing
science on a ‘flat’ontologyof atomistic sense
impressions. They make more complex onto-
logical claims, distinguishing the empirical
(events that we experience), theactual(events
that happen whether we experience them or
not) and the real (a deeper dimension of
objects, structures and generative mechanisms
that produce events).
Critical realists also reject a restricted, posi-
tivistic view of causality as the constant con-
junction of observable events (a ‘regularity
view’ of causation): ‘If A, then B’ (seelaw,
scientific). Critical realists point out that the
social sciences usually deal withopen systems,
rather than closed systems that can be artifi-
cially produced in a scientific laboratory.
Although regularities are rare in such open
systems, this does not mean that causes are
not at work. Causes are thus best thought of
as tendencies of objects, with distinctive
powers in virtue of their essential structures,
to act in certain ways. However, it is con-
tingent whether and how those powers are
activated in different combinations in different
contexts to produce varying effects. Predictive
success is thus difficult to achieve, but it maybe possible to identify the underlying causal
mechanisms beneath the flux of surface phe-
nomena. The distinctive mode of inference
to such mechanisms is called variouslyabd-
uction, retroduction or inference to the best
explanation.
Powers are also often ‘emergent’ in the
sense that the powers of objects or structures
to produce effects are not reducible to those of
their constituents (e.g. the powers of classes or
groups may be more than the sum of the
powers of their individual members). Reality
is thusstratifiedin the sense that powers and
mechanisms operative in one strata are not
simply reducible to those of a lower strata.
Critical realists also make an important dis-
tinction between necessary and contingent
properties or relations. Objects are necessarily
or internally related if they are what they
are by virtue of their relationships to each
other (e.g. the relationship between land-
lords and tenants – each requires the other
in order to be what it is). What we term
‘structures’ are made up of such networks of
internal relationsand define positions to be
occupied by actors. However, it is often
contingent who occupies these positions
(landlords may be young or old, male or
female etc.).abstractionis defined as the
key procedure for identifying such structures
by disentangling what are necessary from what
are contingent relationships.
Critical realism also offers a distinctive per-
spective on familiar agency–structure dualisms
that bedevilhuman geographyand, indeed,
the humanities and social sciences more gen-
erally (seehuman agency). Individual agency
presupposes a social structure, and vice versa,
but social structure and agency are ontologic-
ally distinct levels with different properties and
causal powers (e.g. social structures are enab-
ling and constraining; individuals have self-
consciousness and reflexivity). Individuals
may reproduce social structures through their
everyday practices and understandings, but
the ‘critical’ moment in critical realism lies in
thebeliefthatbringing underlying structures
and their unconscious reproduction to the
level of consciousness opens the way for eman-
cipatory critique and social change.
Critical realism provides a philosophical
framework for social science, but it does
not prescribe a particular methodology. It is
compatible with a range ofqualitative tech-
niques and quantitative techniquesthat
can aid the identification of causal structures,
including hermeneutic and interpretivist
approaches.Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_R-new Final Proof page 622 2.4.2009 9:12pmREALISM