The Formation of Critical Realism by Roy Bhaskar Mervyn Hartwig

Author:Roy Bhaskar, Mervyn Hartwig [Roy Bhaskar, Mervyn Hartwig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781134050642
Google: FH58AgAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 8458739
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2010-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

7

The spiritual turn

Transcendental dialectical critical realism (1994–2000)

MH: Before we come on to the spiritual turn, I want to ask you about critical realism as a movement in the period leading up to it. The 1990s saw the entrenchment of critical realism in a wide array of areas of study within the academy around the globe, the inauguration of a major critical realism book series with Routledge and the emergence of critical realist organisational forms, in the establishment of which you played a leading role: the Centre for Critical Realism (CCR) in 1996, and the International Association for Critical Realism (IACR) in 1997, together with the IACR newsletter Alethia (1998), which grew into the peer-reviewed Journal of Critical Realism early in the new century. A series of Realism and the Human Sciences conferences in the 1980s and 1990s was followed by the first of the ongoing IACR international conferences in 1997. Some commentators seem to think that there is something inappropriately evangelical or distasteful about a philosophy and social theory assuming organisational forms. How would you respond to that?

RB: I think the idea that it cannot or does not need to organise is very naive. There is no way of propagating a standpoint in the present world other than by doing things like writing books and getting these books distributed. Of course, if the academy had been spontaneously receptive to critical realism we could just have used the organisational forms of the academy, but it was not. In the late 1970s, more so in the early 1980s, I was very concerned that people who were taking up critical realism or themes from my work were finding it very difficult to get their work published. At times I felt as if critical realism was in real danger of being suffocated in the academy. I think that is true of all revolutionary new ideas; obviously they meet with resistance. This of course eased once critical realists started getting chairs in the academy; however there was still the danger that the radical thrust in critical realism would be submerged. Early in the 1980s we set up conferences on Realism and the Human Sciences where we could gather for three or four days, and these were like an oasis for the early critical realists. They were characterised by friendliness – a good, higher level of friendliness – commitment to truth and working through the arguments. They were very rewarding experiences for everyone. They were self-organised and there is no way that any philosophy, whether it is critical realism or a part of the established order, can reproduce itself except in a socially organised form. The same motivation lay behind the establishment of the Centre for Critical Realism and the other semi-independent institutions. So I think this is a socially naive objection.

MH: In our last interview you referred to an experience you had in Cyprus in 1994 that marked the inception of the spiritual turn. Can you begin our discussion of the spiritual turn by telling us something about it?

RB: What happened is that I went to Cyprus on Boxing Day for a holiday.

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