scholarly journals Epistemological Turn and The Ontology of Philosophy of Science -The Ontology That Based Upon The Epistemology Towards Critical Realism From the Scientific Conception of The World-

Author(s):  
Ömer Faik ANLI
Author(s):  
Dominik Giese ◽  
Jonathan Joseph

This chapter evaluates critical realism, a term which refers to a philosophy of science connected to the broader approach of scientific realism. In contrast to other philosophies of science, such as positivism and post-positivism, critical realism presents an alternative view on the questions of what is ‘real’ and how one can generate scientific knowledge of the ‘real’. How one answers these questions has implications for how one studies science and society. The critical realist answer starts by prioritizing the ontological question over the epistemological one, by asking: What must the world be like for science to be possible? Critical realism holds the key ontological belief of scientific realism that there is a reality which exists independent of our knowledge and experience of it. Critical realists posit that reality is more complex, and made up of more than the directly observable. More specifically, critical realism understands reality as ‘stratified’ and composed of three ontological domains: the empirical, the actual, and the real. Here lies the basis for causation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 239-241
Author(s):  
Wayne C. Myrvold

This chapter reflects on the contents of earlier chapters and ties them in with other currents in the philosophy of science. These involve concepts that go beyond the familiar dichotomy of subjective and objective. A complete description of the world need not invoke concepts of this sort. They are, however, significant for agents such as ourselves, situated in a world to which we have limited epistemic access.


Author(s):  
David Wallace

This chapter briefly discusses central key topics in the philosophy of science that the remainder of the book draws upon. It begins by considering the scientific method. ‘Induction’—the idea that we construct scientific theories just by generalizing from observations—is a very poor match to real science. ‘Falsification’—Popper’s idea that we create a theory, test against observation, and discard it if it fails the test—is much more realistic, but still too simple: data only falsifies data given auxiliary assumptions that can themselves be doubted. The issues are illustrated through an example from modern astrophysics: dark matter. The chapter then explores how we can resolve issues of underdetermination, where two theories give the same predictions. Finally, it introduces ‘scientific realism’, the view that our best theories tell us things about the world that go beyond what is directly observable.


Author(s):  
Grant Banfield

While specific applications of critical realism to ethnography are few, theoretical developments are promising and await more widespread development. This is especially the case for progressive and critical forms of ethnography that strive to be, in critical realist terms, an “emancipatory science.” However, the history of ethnography reveals that both the field and its emancipatory potential are limited by methodological tendencies toward “naïve realism” and “relativism.” This is the antimony of ethnography. The conceptual and methodological origins of ethnography are grounded in the historical tensions between anti-naturalist Kantian idealism and hyper-naturalist Humean realism. The resolution of these tensions can be found in the conceptual resources of critical realism. Working from, and building upon, the work of British philosopher Roy Bhaskar, critical realism is a movement in the philosophy of science that transcends the limits of Kantian idealism and Humean realism via an emancipatory anti-positivist naturalism. Critical realism emerged as part of the post-positivist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. From its Marxian origins, critical realism insists that all science, including the social sciences, must be emancipatory. At its essence, this requires taking ontology seriously. The call of critical realism to ethnographers, like all social scientists, is that while they must hold to epistemological caution this does not warrant ontological shyness. Furthermore, critical realism’s return to ontology implies that ethnographers must be ethically serious. Ethnography, if it is to hold to its progressive inclinations, must be about something. Critical realism for ethnography pushes the field to see itself as more than a sociological practice. Rather, it is to be understood as a social practice for something: the universalizing of human freedom.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 230-238
Author(s):  
Mehri Mirzaei Rafe ◽  
Khosrow Bagheri Noaparast ◽  
Afzal Sadat Hosseini ◽  
Narges Sajadieh

AbstractThis article will investigate the philosophy of science of Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014) as a coherent basis for environmental education. The work of Bhaskar serves as an in-depth approach to understanding how to apply critical realism (the critical and the realist) to matters such as environmental education, because he concretely theorises the connections between science, social change and metaphysics. By mobilising key Bhaskarian motifs — that is, the primacy of ontology over epistemology, the laminated system as a means to understand reality, the ways in which inquiry may be organised through the real, actual and the empirical, and the positive application of dialectics — this article constructs a new approach to environmental education and positions it in the field of environmental education by comparing it to posthumanism and the new materialisms. This article contains inquiry-based study outlines for enhanced thinking around: (1) climate change and social justice; (2) movements towards a carbon-free economy; (3) water, food and population; and (4) the future of human habitation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Simons ◽  

Among the contemporary philosophers using the concept of the Anthropocene, Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers are prominent examples. The way they use this concept, however, diverts from the most common understanding of the Anthropocene. In fact, their use of this notion is a continuation of their earlier work around the concept of a ‘parliament of things.’ Although mainly seen as a sociology or philosophy of science, their work can be read as philosophy of technology as well. Similar to Latour’s claim that science is Janus-headed, technology has two faces. Faced with the Anthropocene, we need to shift from technologies of control to technologies of negotiations, i.e., a parliament of things. What, however, does a ‘parliament of things’ mean? This paper wants to clarify what is conceptually at stake by framing Latour’s work within the philosophy of Michel Serres and Isabelle Stengers. Their philosophy implies a ‘postlinguistic turn,’ where one can ‘let things speak in their own name,’ without claiming knowledge of the thing in itself. The distinction between object and subject is abolished to go back to the world of ‘quasi-objects’ (Serres). Based on the philosophy of science of Latour and Stengers the possibility for a politics of quasi-objects or a ‘cosmopolitics’ (Stengers) is opened. It is in this framework that their use of the notion of the Anthropocene must be understood and a different view of technology can be conceptualized.


Author(s):  
Fábio Gabriel Nascibem

Resumo: Verificamos que as discussões na sociedade têm tendido a extremos: há visões em que negam totalmente a primazia da explicação científica e, por outro lado, visões que centram toda validade na ciência. Defendemos uma que se estabeleça diálogo entre saberes. Levantamos algumas questões: Como pode ser abordado o tema do diálogo entre saberes? Quais potencialidades? Quais contribuições para o ensino e para a sociedade tais discussões podem trazer? Nosso objetivo neste artigo é esclarecer temas relacionados ao diálogo entre saber científico e saber popular à luz de teorias da filosofia da ciência a partir de duas obras cinematográficas. As obras que analisamos foram: o “Escolarizando o Mundo - O último fardo do homem branco” e o filme “1984”. Ambos fornecem subsídios para uma discussão madura do tema, com potencialidades para a sociedade, por meio de uma postura que privilegie diálogos, bem como para o Ensino de Ciências.Palavras-chave: Saber Científico. Saberes Populares. Obras Cinematográficas. The dialogue between knowledges from films: contribu-tions for science, society and educationAbstract: We note that discussions in society have tended to extremes: there are views that totally deny the prima-cy of scientific explanation and, on the other hand, views that focus all validity in science. We support a dialogue to be established between knowledge. We raise some questions: How can be addressed the issue of dialogue between knowledge? What potential? What contributions to education and society can such discussions bring? Our objective in this article is to clarify themes related to the dialogue between scien-tific knowledge and popular knowledge in the light of theories of the philosophy of science from two cinematographic works. The works we analyzed were: the “Schooling the World - The White Man’s Last Burden” and the film “1984”. Both provide subsidies for a mature discussion of the theme, with potential for society, through a posture that favors dialogues, as well as for Science Teaching.Keywords: Cinematographic Works. Scientific Knowledge. Popular Knowledge. 


Author(s):  
Р.Я. Фидарова ◽  
И.А. Кайтова

Критический реализм художественный метод, с помощью которого осетинская литература отражает жизнь в формах самой жизни, в образах, создаваемых посредством специфических приемов типизации различных явлений и фактов действительности. Именно он дает возможность литературе стать важнейшим средством познания мира и человека, раскрыть порой противоречивую сущность жизни, процессуально показать взаимодействие героя и действительности, влияние социально-исторических обстоятельств на формирование личности человека. Одной из важнейших функций осетинского искусства критического реализма является художественное исследование социальной действительности в поступательном ходе ее развития, т.е. изучение и анализ не только уже существующих в обществе форм взаимоотношений людей между собой, но и процесс вызревания также и новых типов людей, характеров и обстоятельств. В целом это существенно меняет характер и сущность осетинской литературы. Критический реализм в осетинской литературе воплощает принципы жизненно-правдивого изображения действительности, целью которых является глубокое, последовательное и осмысленное познание человека и окружающего его мира во всей их противоречивой сути. Как форма общественного сознания, осетинская литература критического реализма отражает сущность объективного мира осетин, но не пассивно и зеркально. Осмысление гносеологических основ ленинской теории отражения приводит к пониманию важности и необходимости постановки вопроса о философских основах критического реализма в осетинской литературе. В целом это дает возможность исследования сложной диалектики ее отношения к действительности. Критический реализм ставит и решает в осетинской литературе сложные философские проблемы, исследуя структуру буржуазного общества на стыке XIX и ХХ вв., т.е. на стыке эпох: своеобразие и сущность труда, собственности, морали, семьи, человека, народа, классов, специфики системы общественного управления, эволюции общественного и индивидуального сознания, духовности осетинского общества и т.д. Таким образом, критический реализм дает возможность глубоко и многоаспектно проанализировать анатомию осетинского общества и в целом общественного бытия осетин. Благодаря критическому реализму осетинская литература сформировала универсально-целостный философский взгляд на общественную жизнь, на взаимосвязи общества и человека накопила большой художественно-эстетический опыт осмысления проблем общества и человека. Critical realism is an artistic method by which Ossetian literature reflects life in the forms of life itself in images created through specific techniques of typifying various phenomena and facts of reality. It is this very method which makes it possible for literature to become the most important means of understanding the world and a man, to reveal the sometimes contradictory essence of life, to procedurally show the interaction of the hero and reality, the influence of socio-historical circumstances on the formation of ones personality. One of the most important functions of the Ossetian art of critical realism is an artistic study of social reality in the progressive course of its development, i.e. the study and analysis of not only forms of relationships between people among themselves existing in the society, but also of the process of maturing of completely new types of people, characters and circumstances. In general, this significantly changes the nature and essence of the Ossetian literature. Critical realism in the Ossetian literature embodies the principles of a life-truthful depiction of the reality, the purpose of which is deep, consistent and meaningful knowledge of a person and the world around him in all their contradictory essence. As a form of public consciousness, the Ossetian literature of critical realism reflects the essence of the objective world of the Ossetians, but not passively and speculatively. Understanding the epistemological foundations of the Leninist theory of reflection leads to an understanding of the importance and necessity of raising the question of the philosophical foundations of critical realism in the Ossetian literature. In general, this makes it possible to study the complex dialectics of its relationship to reality. Critical realism poses and solves complex philosophical problems in the Ossetian literature, exploring the structure of bourgeois society at the turn of the XIXth and XXth centuries, i.e. at the intersection of eras, the uniqueness and essence of labor, property, morality, family, man, people, classes, the specifics of the system of public administration, the evolution of social and individual consciousness, the spirituality of Ossetian society, etc. Critical realism makes it possible to deeply and multifacetedly analyze the anatomy of Ossetian society and the general social life of Ossetians. So, thanks to critical realism, Ossetian literature has formed a universally-integrated philosophical view of the social life, of the relationship between society and man accumulated a great artistic and aesthetic experience in understanding the problems of the society and a man.


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