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Enlightened common sense: the philosophy of critical realism

2017; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 16; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14767430.2017.1340011

1572-5138

Harvey Shoolman,

Critical Realism in Sociology

When we learned of the death of Roy Bhaskar on 14th November 2014, the world appeared to turn a little more slowly and more darkly.Something rare and precious had been taken from us and those, like myself, who had never had the fortune to meet him, cleaved ever more tightly to the books and ideas that he left as his legacy.Bhaskar's oeuvre is of a daunting magnitude, with 15 substantial monographs expounding various aspects and three developmental phases of his philosophy of critical realism.Although his admirers and philosophical epigones are not all card-carrying devoteessome being happy to remain in one rather than all of the three broad conceptual phases of critical realismno one can question the depth, complexity and innovatory power of his work.However, Bhaskar's prose is famously difficult, due to its tendency to fissiparous conceptualization, extensive architectonic divisions and sub-divisions and a neologistic flair that approaches the status of high art.All of this is crowned by a profligate use of acronyms that can drive neophytes to distraction and have them reaching for the nearest available copy of Hartwig's blessed (2007) Dictionary of Critical Realism.What is more, many of Bhaskar's ideas assume a background familiarity with technical philosophical jargon accumulated over several millennia.His work therefore encompasses the ideas of the metaphysical Greeks, the medieval scholastics, the continental idealists, post-Hegelians, post-Heideggerians and Husserlian phenomenologists; eventually culminating in the latest post-Fregean semantics employed by Anglo-American analytical philosophers.His range of reference is as broad and deep as the genealogy of philosophy itself and this inevitably runs the risk of alienating those coming to critical realism from other disciplines where the words 'epistemic' and 'ontological' might as well be written in Sanskrit.It is therefore, at least from a hermeneutic point of view, somewhat fitting that Bhaskar's last completed work should be an abbreviated 'summa' of all that has gone before.Although it is predictably demanding, the overwhelming impression is that this is far more an 'hommage' to Bhaskar's commitment to conceptual holism and systematic reticulation than it is to any desire to provide pedagogic clarity and simplicity of formulation for the uninitiated.However, regardless of the evident challenges posed by the text, what is of no doubt is that the community of critical realists, as well the wider reading public, and above all those future students of his ideas approaching his ideas for the first time, will be forever grateful to Bhaskar for writing this book in the teeth of progressive heart-failure.They will be similarly grateful to Mervyn Hartwiga tireless and brilliant disseminator of Bhaskar's thoughtfor editing it so ably.So, what have we been given?Enlightened Common Sense (henceforth ECS in acronymic deference to the author) is nothing less than a superb synthesis and relatively concise overview of the main phases of Bhaskar's work.It is a textual revelation of both the diachronic development of his ideas and a synchronic conspectus of their inter-relationships.Indeed, if one were to read this volume with the marvellous Bhaskar/Hartwig (2010)