Critical Realism and Truth-Based Critique

Fluck, Matthew

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-55033-0_5

Critical Realism and Truth-Based Critique

Matthew Fluck²

Chapter
First Online: 28 February 2017

823 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter considers the implications of Critical Realist theories of truth for International Relations (IR). Realists confirm that there is a problematic elevation of subjectivity and intersubjectivity, or ‘anthropocentrism’, underlying Post-Positivist accounts of truth. At the same time, they wrongly assert that recognition of the objective aspect of truth removes the need to consider the constitutive relationship between truth and politics. Thus, whilst the intersubjective conception of truth should be rejected, the questions of the critical epistemological problematic must still be addressed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 99.00; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 129.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
Hilary Putnam, ‘Introduction’ in Realism and Reason: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. vii–xviii, reference pp. viii–ix. Putnam points out that Berkeley, Hume, and Kant each realised that the mind can never compare a word or image with an external object; it is never in a position to ‘fix’ any such correspondence.
2.
Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 381.
3.
William Outhwaite, New Philosophies of Social Science: Realism, Hermeneutics and Critical Theory, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987), p. 19.
4.
Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 52; Jonathan Joseph, ‘Philosophy in International Relations: A Scientific Realist Approach’, Millennium 35, 2 (2007), pp. 345–359, reference p. 346.
5.
Roy Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism, (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 8.
6.
Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 9.
7.
Campbell, National Deconstruction, p. 26.
8.
Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science, 2nd Edition, (London: Verso, 1978), p. 44.
9.
Patomäki and Wight, ‘After Post-Positivism?’, pp. 213–237.
10.
Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, p. 25.
11.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, pp. 5–8.
12.
Ibid.
13.
Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 382.
14.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, pp. 9–10.
15.
Milja Kurki.
16.
Roy Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science; Hilary Putnam, ‘What is Mathematical Truth?’, in Mathematics, Matter and Method: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 60–78, reference p. 73. Wendt, Social Theory, pp. 64–65; Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 383. It should be noted that not all realists agree with this ‘miracle argument’ for Scientific Realism. See for example James Robert Brown, ‘The Miracle of Science’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 32 (1982), pp. 232–244.
17.
Wendt, Social Theory; Colin Wight, Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
18.
Patomäki and Wight, ‘After Post-Positivism?’, p. 222.
19.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, pp. 1–12. Outhwaite, New Philosophies of Social Science, p. 15.
20.
Patomäki and Wight, ‘After Post-Positivism?’, p. 223.
21.
Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 9.
22.
Waltz; For a Realist critique of instrumentalism in Positivist and Post-Positivist IR see Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 380.
23.
Of course, as pointed out at the end of Chapter 2, what Post-Positivists object to most is the Positivist view of subjectivity and epistemic practice. To this extent they seem to recognise, like Realists, that the Positivist subject and object distinction is in fact a very limited one.
24.
Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, p. 13.
25.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 15.
26.
Ibid., pp. 10–11.
27.
Ibid., p. 25.
28.
Ibid., p. 36.
29.
Ibid., p. 39.
30.
Wendt, Social Theory.
31.
Bhaskar, Naturalism, p. 11.
32.
Patomäki and Wight, ‘After Post-Positivism?’, p. 24.
33.
Heikki Patomäki, After international relations: Critical Realism and the (Re)Construction of World Politics, (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 99.
34.
Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 385.
35.
Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, p. 21.
36.
Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, p. 36. See also Wight and Patomäki, ‘After Post-Positivism?’, p. 217; Wight, Agents and Structures, p. 28; Joseph, ‘Philosophy in IR’, p. 350.
37.
Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, pp. 44–45.
38.
Wight and Patomäki, ‘After Post-Positivism?’, p. 217; Andrew Collier, Critical Realism, (London: Verso, 1994), p. 76.
39.
Patomäki and Wight, ‘After Post-Positivism?’, p. 217; Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, p. 34.
40.
Patomäki and Wight, ‘After Post-Positivism?’, p. 222.
41.
Ibid.
42.
Ibid.
43.
Patomäki, After International Relations, p. 99.
44.
Joseph, ‘Philosophy in IR’, p. 346.
45.
Wendt, Social Theory, p. 51.
46.
Wendt, Social Theory.
47.
Jonathan Joseph, ‘Philosophy in IR’.
48.
Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, p. 21.
49.
This example is taken from Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 391.
50.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 65.
51.
Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 381.
52.
Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 385.
53.
Ibid., p. 381.
54.
Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, p. 21.
55.
Michael Devitt, Realism and Truth, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), p. 35.
56.
Wendt, Social Theory, p. 58.
57.
Ibid., p. 40.
58.
Ibid., p. 20.
59.
Ibid., p. 40.
60.
Ibid., p. 47.
61.
Ibid., p. 58.
62.
Ibid., p. 57.
63.
Ibid., pp. 54–57.
64.
Ibid., p. 57.
65.
Ibid., p. 58
66.
Ibid.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Ibid., p. 59.
69.
Friedrich Kratochwil, ‘New Orthodoxy’.
70.
This seems to be Kratochwil’s view. Ibid., pp. 91–93. For a response, see Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 386.
71.
Ibid.
72.
Wendt, Social Theory, p. 58.
73.
Ibid., p. 39.
74.
Ibid., p. 40.
75.
Ibid., p. 75.
76.
Ibid.
77.
Kratochwil, ‘New Orthodoxy’, p. 88.
78.
Wendt, Social Theory, p. 73, p. 75
79.
Ibid., p. 77. It is important to remember that Wendt does believe that reflexivity is important, arguing that it means that there is the possibility for ‘self-intervention’ by states in international society to bring the states-system under ‘a measure of rational control’. However, this recognition is deployed in his Constructivist critique of Neorealist ‘materialism’ and ‘individualism’, rather than in his account of social science. Ibid., p. 376.
80.
Kratochwil, ‘New Orthodoxy’, p. 88.
81.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism.
82.
Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, p. 249.
83.
Patomäki, After International Relations, pp. 145–147.
84.
Roy Bhaskar, Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, (London: Verso, 1986), pp. 99–100.
85.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 182.
86.
Bhaskar, Scientific Realism, pp. 99–100.
87.
Bhaskar, Realist Theory of Science, p. 249.
88.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 133.
89.
Patomäki, After International Relations, p. 151.
90.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 63. Bhaskar owes this argument to Roy Edgely, ‘Reason as Dialectic: Science, Social Science, and Socialist Science’ in Critical Realism: Essential Readings, ed. Margaret Archer (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 395–408.
91.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 63.
92.
Collier, Critical Realism, p. 171.
93.
Ibid., p. 172.
94.
Ibid., p. 171.
95.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 63; Collier, Critical Realism, pp. 194–195.
96.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 133.
97.
Patomäki, After International Relations, p. 151.
98.
Ibid., p. 151; Linklater, Men and Citizens, p. 165.
99.
Patomäki, After International Relations, p. 151.
100.
Wight, ‘Manifesto’, p. 386.
101.
Joseph, ‘Philosophy in International Relations’, pp. 345–359.
102.
Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 65.
103.
Bhaskar, Scientific Realism, pp. 99–100.
104.
Patomäki, After International Relations, pp. 155–157.
105.
Ibid., 154–155.
106.
Ibid., p. 148.
107.
Ibid., p. 154.
108.
Ibid.
109.
Ibid., p. 155.
110.
Ibid., pp. 156–157.
111.
Ibid., p. 156.
112.
Ibid., p. 160.
113.
Ibid., p. 156.
114.
Ibid., p. 144.
115.
Ibid., pp. 148–149, pp. 157–158.
116.
Horkheimer ‘On the Problem of Truth’, pp. 428–429; See also Theodor Adorno, ‘Opinion Delusion Society’, trans. Henry W. Pickford, The Yale Journal of Criticism 10, 2, (1997), pp. 227–245.
117.
Kratochwil, ‘New Orthodoxy’, p. 93. In keeping with the disjuncture identified above between realism and any particular theory of truth, Harré advocates such a view of truth over the correspondence theory despite being a realist. Harré’s work has influenced Patomäki’s IR theory. Patomäki, After International Relations, p. 148.
118.
Kratochwil, ‘New Orthodoxy’, p. 90.
119.
Patomäki, After International Relations, p. 203.
120.
Ibid., pp. 157–158.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom
Matthew Fluck

Authors

Matthew Fluck
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Fluck, M. (2017). Critical Realism and Truth-Based Critique. In: The Concept of Truth in International Relations Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55033-0_5

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55033-0_5
Published: 28 February 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55032-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-55033-0
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Abstract

Buying options