European Journal of Social Theory

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Critical Realism and the Limits of Philosophy

Stephen Kemp
European Journal of Social Theory 2005 8: 171
DOI: 10.1177/1368431005051762

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European Journal of Social Theory 8(2): 171191

Copyright 2005 Sage Publications: London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi

Critical Realism and the Limits of

Philosophy
Stephen Kemp
UNIVERSIT Y OF EDINBURGH, UK

Abstract
This article critiques the idea that, by establishing a general framework
within which research must be conducted, philosophical argument can take
the lead in relation to research. It develops Holmwoods work in this area
by examining the ontological arguments put forward by critical realists,
which attempt to establish the fundamental characteristics of the social
realm prior to the production of empirically successful research in that realm.
The article draws on a contrast with ontological argument in the natural
sciences to demonstrate the illegitimacy of this manoeuvre, showing that
ontological claims can be given some justification, but only when they are
derived from research that is widely held to be empirically successful. Realist
ontological claims in the social sciences do not have this basis, and it is
argued that Bhaskars alternative mode of justification for these claims is
unconvincing. Archers view is also criticized that critical realist arguments
should be given a strong regulatory role in relation to research, illustrating
the problems with this by critiquing Cruickshanks ontologically driven analysis
of unemployment and the underclass. The article concludes that social
scientific research should be conducted without philosophical legislation.

Key words
Bhaskar critical realism general theory Holmwood ontology

The role that philosophy can be expected to play in relation to substantive

inquiry is an important, long-standing issue within social science. Can we expect
philosophy to take the lead, establishing an appropriate framework for social
scientific thinking prior to actual research activities? Or are other, more modest
roles appropriate, such that, for example, philosophy may clarify issues arising
from research, or offer potentially productive speculations for researchers?
Although there are, of course, many tendencies and counter-tendencies in
twentieth-century philosophy, I would suggest that one important line of
thought has emphasized the limitations of philosophical argument, criticizing the
idea that philosophy can lay down the rules of reasoning by which all other forms
of thought must be judged (see, for example, Wittgenstein, [1953] 1978; Rorty,

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172 European Journal of Social Theory 8(2)

1980). The influence of this kind of critique is apparent, for example, within the
discipline of philosophy of natural science, in which the adoption of a more
sensitive, contextual position by many practitioners has involved an acknowl-
edgement both that forms of reasoning within the sciences have changed over
time, and that different scientific domains often have different forms of reason-
ing (see Feyerabend, 1975; Shapere, 1984). Accordingly, philosophers have
become more cautious about the idea that a single, unchanging set of criteria for,
say, a good scientific explanation, can be philosophically identified and then used
to judge the validity of any and all forms of scientific research. Indeed, previous
attempts to do so have been exposed as false generalizations of the limited logic
of one area of research (usually some part of physics) rather than as truly general,
unchanging criteria of adequacy. This does not mean that philosophers of science
have given up on any attempt to assess scientific reasoning, but rather that the
most persuasive of these assessments are located firmly within particular domains
of research rather than at a general philosophical level (see, for example, Sober,
1984; Shapere, 1974).
In light of this anti-foundationalist move within philosophy, and the shift
towards more located, immanent forms of philosophizing, I would suggest that
our expectations of philosophy in relation to social science should be relatively
modest. However, as John Holmwood has pointed out, many social theorists have
other ideas. In his Founding Sociology? Talcott Parsons and the Idea of General
Theory (1996) Holmwood identifies a genre of theoretical writing in which
theorists attempt to provide a unifying general framework for social science, this
framework establishing the basic characteristics of social life by philosophical
argument, independently of a consideration of substantive research. Such theories
address issues such as the nature of social structure and social systems, the
characteristics of human agency, the nature of power, and so on. Typical examples
of this kind of framework would be Talcott Parsonss structural-functionalism
(Parsons, [1937] 1949, 1951), Anthony Giddenss structuration theory
(Giddens, 1979), Jeffery Alexanders neo-functionalism (Alexander, 1985a) and
Jrgen Habermass critical theory (Habermas, 1984).1 Although there is a degree
of variety in the motivation for developing these frameworks, one common
theme is that something must be done to go beyond the disagreements, both
philosophical and substantive, that are rife within social science (see Alexander,
1982). The claim is that adopting the theorists framework will resolve such
disagreements, and provide the unified basis that social science has previously
lacked. On this view, philosophical argument will provide a guide for researchers
that leads them along a path towards successful empirical social science.
Having identified this strand of theoretical argument, Holmwood offers an
incisive critique of it. In the first place, Holmwood argues, the idea that the
characteristics of some features of society can be identified independently of
research, and will not be challenged and subject to revision by research in the
area, runs counter to the post-positivist emphasis on the historical, fallible
character of all knowledge (see Holmwood, 1996: Chapters 2 and 3). Second,
adherence to such frameworks would be bad news for research, argues

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Kemp Critical Realism and Philosophy 173

Holmwood, because, in the reach for generality, the frameworks become

somewhat indeterminate (1996: Chapters 46). Research expressed in the idiom
of general theory loses its sharpness, and it becomes unclear what the empirical
claims in question actually rule in and rule out. Finally, Holmwood points out
that the general theorists who attempt to set up a framework for research that
must be accepted by everyone cannot even agree among themselves about the
appropriate character of this framework, spending much time critiquing each
others positions (for examples of such debates, see Giddens, 1977; Alexander,
1985b). Given the recurring problems with general theoretical frameworks
identified by Holmwood, I would follow him in arguing that social scientists
should abandon them in favour of empirical explanation and problem-solving
and focus on producing compelling substantive theories about the social world.
In this article I would like to extend Holmwoods critique of general social
theory by considering the critical realist perspective developed by Roy Bhaskar
([1975] 1997, [1979] 1998), Margaret Archer (1995) and Andrew Sayer (1992),
among others.2 In important respects the critical realist framework is similar to
those critiqued by Holmwood. It is preoccupied with general questions about the
nature of social structure and the character of human agency and intentionality.
Like other general theorists, critical realists also place a great deal of faith in the
power of philosophical argument to establish the appropriate course for social
scientific research. Their account of the ontology of the social world elaborates a
conceptual framework which, many realists argue, provides appropriate prin-
ciples by which to regulate research. This framework is also presented, as in other
general theories, as a solution to the problems of an angst-ridden social science,
providing a basis for unifying research and moving beyond the present state of
disputation (see Bhaskar, 1998: 16). It is true that in some respects critical realism
appears to be different to other general theories, insofar as it rests on a serious
philosophical account of natural science and calls on a distinctive mode of
argument, the transcendental deduction. However, I will be arguing that these
differences do not exempt it from the critique of general theory developed by
Holmwood.
My critique of critical realisms reliance on philosophical argument proceeds
as follows. I suggest that critical realist ontological arguments are in many ways
convincing in the natural sciences, but that their persuasiveness is dependent on
the empirical success of the scientific arguments they are derived from. I then
turn to social science, arguing that critical realist ontology in this area is not so
soundly based, as it is not derived from an analysis of existing successful inquiry.
Instead, critical realists attempt to derive an ontological framework from certain
common-sense assumptions about the social world, a move I see as both
procedurally flawed and practically unable to produce a coherent set of concepts.
In the following section, I move on to consider Margaret Archers claim that the
ontological theories put forward by critical realists should be used to regulate
research in the social sciences. This is of doubtful value both because of the
limited evidence for critical realist arguments in the social sciences, and because
the idea of regulation suggests an unjustified foreclosure of research options. I

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174 European Journal of Social Theory 8(2)

illustrate these points by contrasting an ontologically driven analysis of the under-

class and unemployment, that put forward by Justin Cruickshank (2003), with
a substantively driven approach to the same area, that put forward by Robert
MacDonald (1994), arguing for the superiority of the latter. I then conclude by
arguing that critical realism fails to demonstrate that philosophy can lead the way
in establishing ontological claims to be used as a regulatory framework for
research. These matters cannot be resolved ahead of successful empirical research,
and, therefore, a focus on philosophical ontology is not the way to resolve the
angst of the social sciences.

Ontology in Natural Science

As is well known, critical realist analysis of natural science focuses on the issue of
ontology, analyzing the most basic characteristics of the entities studied by
natural science. In contrast to logical positivists, critical realists argue that onto-
logical claims can be rationally justified. In order to do so, Bhaskar appropriates
a Kantian mode of argument, the transcendental deduction, employing it in a
novel way (Bhaskar, 1997). Whereas Kant used transcendental argument in order
to establish the conceptual preconditions for any act of knowing, Bhaskar uses it
to identify the ontological preconditions required for the activity under analysis
to be successful (1986: 1112). His transcendental argument has two stages. In
the first stage, the critical realist chooses a practice of inquiry that is generally
accepted to be epistemically successful3 and identifies features of this inquiry that
are agreed upon in a range of different accounts. In the second stage, the realist4
performs a transcendental deduction in order to discover the ontological precon-
ditions that must be present for a form of inquiry with these features to be
successful. Such transcendental deductions are argued to be a reliable means to
establish ontological claims in a particular domain.
The most persuasive example of this procedure can be found in Bhaskars
analysis of fundamental physics and chemistry, developed initially in A Realist
Theory of Science (1997) but also discussed elsewhere (see Bhaskar, 1989, 1998).
In the first stage of the transcendental deduction Bhaskar starts from the position
that fundamental physics and chemistry are epistemically successful forms of
scientific activity which have the experimental investigation of the natural world
as a key feature. Characterizing experiments, Bhaskar argues that they consist of
an intervention in the pattern of events in the world. In such interventions,
experimenters manipulate the conditions and control the surroundings so that
they can exclude potentially interfering influences and produce a pattern of
events that would otherwise not have occurred (Bhaskar, 1989: 15).
Proceeding to the second stage of his deduction, Bhaskar argues that an
analysis of the preconditions that must be in place for experiments to be success-
ful reveals substantial conclusions about the ontology of the world that is studied
in fundamental physics and chemistry. He suggests that the very idea that control
is needed in an experiment to remove interfering factors or influences shows

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Kemp Critical Realism and Philosophy 175

that some concept of ontological depth is implicit in the activity. That is, in order
for such experimental activity to be possible, it must be the case that there is an
ontological distinction between events and influences on events. If no such
distinction existed, then there would be no need to attempt to control or
exclude influences that the scientists were not interested in investigating at that
point. These arguments are used, then, to generate one of Bhaskars ontological
claims that there are ontologically distinct levels, one of which is the actual
(the level of events) and another of which is the real (the level of influences)
(Bhaskar, 1997: 336). He goes on to develop an account of the real, arguing
that structures (or mechanisms) are the key constituents here. A structure is an
enduring feature of the natural world that has a characteristic way of acting
which influences events in the world when triggered (Bhaskar, 1997: 4950).
It exists even when inactive, and retains its power to influence events even when
this power is not being exercised. Summarizing, we might then say that insofar
as experimentation contributes to epistemically successfully science, a precondi-
tion of this success is the ontological distinction between real structures and
events.
Bhaskar certainly succeeds in extracting convincing ontological conclusions
from the analysis of scientific activity. However, in considering the relationship
between ontological argument and substantive scientific theorizing, I want to
emphasize the ways in which the validity of those conclusions is dependent
on pre-existing substantive theorizing. One aspect of this dependency can be
illustrated by showing that the validity of ontological concepts is limited to the
domain of the successful theories to which they apply. Bhaskar himself made this
domain limitation clearer in his later work, arguing that the framework devel-
oped within A Realist Theory of Science dealt only with fundamental physics and
chemistry, rather than all forms of investigation in the natural sciences (Bhaskar,
1989: 183). In the second edition of that work, Bhaskar makes the point that
transcendental deductions rely on particular scientific practices as their premises
(1997: 260). As he puts it, the result of a transcendental deduction is domain
specific (1986: 12) and transcendental deductions will have to be conducted for
every specific science (1997: 260). This being the case, we cannot assume that a
framework developed to account for fundamental physics and chemistry will
provide a convincing account of the ontology of other areas, such as biology. This
emphasizes that convincing ontological theorizing follows on from successful
research in a domain, rather than leading the way. In a domain in which there is
no research that is agreed to be successful, the transcendental deduction lacks its
first premise.
Another way to bring out the dependency of ontological argument on success-
ful substantive theorizing is to explore the fallibility of ontological claims.
Although some of Bhaskars early remarks imply that he sees himself as establish-
ing through transcendental analysis the ontological characteristics that the world
must have, his later remarks clarify that he does see critical realist analyses as
potentially fallible. This was acknowledged partly in response to critiques put
forward by Alan Chalmers (1988) and Ted Benton (1981) which argued that the

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176 European Journal of Social Theory 8(2)

validity of transcendental deductions of the kind used by Bhaskar depends on the

validity of the scientific theories on which they are based. Chalmers puts the point
nicely by imagining the conclusions that a medieval scientist might have reached
had he pursued a realist transcendental analysis of some version of Aristotelian
theory (Chalmers, 1988). Chalmers suggests that the likely ontological
conclusion would have been that the world must be a finite harmonious whole
with a centre, because this would have been seen as the necessary precondition
for the successful employment of distinctions in substantive Aristotelian science
such as those between forced and natural motions (Chalmers, 1988: 19). A
transcendental deduction from Aristotelian science would thus have produced
erroneous ontological conclusions because of its derivation from mistaken
substantive conceptions. This suggests, then, that a key contributor to the
fallibility of ontological theories is the fallibility of the substantive theories on
which they are based.5
Drawing together these arguments, I would conclude that they illustrate the
dependency of ontological argument on pre-existing scientific research, both to
supply the initial premises for transcendental deductions, and to supply valid
theories from which valid ontological claims can be derived. Ontology is not
setting the agenda and leading empirical research in the natural sciences, but is
following behind this research, and requires correction when substantive theories
are corrected.

Ontology in Social Science

Despite the many interesting aspects of critical realist analysis in the natural
sciences, there has been, to my knowledge, little uptake of this approach among
philosophers of natural science, or natural scientists themselves. However, the
situation is different in social science. In this area, critical realism has a number
of prominent advocates including Bhaskar (1979), Archer (1995) and Sayer
(1992), and there is growing interest in the doctrine among empirical researchers.
What I would like to do in this section is consider whether realists can call on
philosophical analysis to establish the ontology of the social world.
When we compare critical realist analyses of natural and social science, there
is an obvious and striking difference. In many natural sciences, critical realists
can start from scientific theories that are generally (if not necessarily universally6)
agreed to be successful, and develop their ontological arguments from this
starting point. However, as Bhaskar points out in The Possibility of Naturalism
(1998), there seems at present to be no line of social scientific inquiry which has
the high level of agreement about its epistemic success found in many areas of
the natural sciences (1998: 14).7 Therefore, it is not possible for realists to
straightforwardly apply the procedures used in the analysis of physics and
chemistry to the social sciences. If one were to ask of a particular form of social
scientific inquiry the question, given that this form of inquiry is successful,
what must the social world be like?, the contested status of the claim to social

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Kemp Critical Realism and Philosophy 177

scientific success would undermine the persuasiveness of the resulting ontological

argument. What procedure, then, is open to realists?
Bhaskar puts forward two quite different responses to this question at different
times, one of which suggests strong limits on the potential for realism in this area,
while the other is more bold in its scope. The first, more cautious, position can
be found in his postscript to A Realist Theory of Science (which first appeared in
the edition published in 1978). The guiding principle here is his remark that
philosophy cannot anticipate the form of a successful scientific practice
(Bhaskar, 1997: 260). In other words, transcendental deductions are only valid
once they have a successful form of scientific inquiry to start from. On this view,
it would seem that a realist transcendental deduction from social scientific
practice is not possible. At best, realism can offer a negative contribution to
understanding the ontology of the social world, counselling social scientists with
an enthusiasm for natural science not to adopt a positivist ontology, because such
an ontology is not consistent with actual research practice in the natural sciences
(Bhaskar, 1997: 2601).
In The Possibility of Naturalism (first published in 1979), on the other hand,
Bhaskar sets aside this caution, and offers a much bolder programme for critical
realism in social science. In this book, he suggests that philosophical argument
can actually establish the ontological properties of societies prior to the achieve-
ment of successful empirical social scientific theorizing. This confidence in the
role of philosophy is adopted by many other critical realists, often without
extensive reflection on its validity (see, for example, Archer, 1995).8 The basis of
Bhaskars revised, bold approach is the idea that a transcendental deduction need
not start from a successful investigation into the social world. Rather, it can begin
from more or less universally recognized features of substantive social life
(Bhaskar, 1998: 14) and work from these to establish the ontological features of
the social world. It is this procedure that Bhaskar hopes will allow him to answer
the question: What properties do societies possess that might make them
possible objects of knowledge for us? (1998: 25).9
For Bhaskar, the feature of social life that is universally recognized is the exist-
ence of intentional agency, and his analysis begins with this and moves to show
its preconditions (1998: 173). According to Bhaskar, intentional agency cannot
operate on its own. After all, it produces acts, speech and objects, and these do
not appear out of nothing. Rather, agency must draw on social structures in order
to produce its outcomes. He states:
Thus consider saying, making and doing as characteristic modalities of human agency.
People cannot communicate except by utilising existing media, produce except by
applying themselves to materials which are already formed, or act save in some or other
context. Speech requires language; making materials; action conditions; agency
resources; activity rules. (1998: 34, original emphasis)

According to Bhaskar, then, transcendental analysis reveals that social structures

are an ontological precondition for intentional agency. Notice here that he is not
attempting to reduce intentional agency to social structure, but to show that both

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178 European Journal of Social Theory 8(2)

social structure and agency must exist, and, correlatively, both society and indi-
viduals.
His insistence on the need to acknowledge social structures raises the issue of
how they are to be characterized. According to Bhaskar, social structures are
fundamentally relational in character. Social science should thus be concerned
with the persistent relations between individuals (and groups), and with the
relations between these relations (and between such relations and nature and the
products of such relations) (1998: 289, original emphasis).
Although he is not entirely clear on this (see Bhaskar, 1998: 424), most
critical realists take it that the relations which constitute the most fundamental
building blocks of society, and are thus persistent, are internal and necessary ones.
An internal and necessary relation is one in which the individuals (or groups)
involved are intrinsically linked to one another, such that the existence of one
necessarily presupposes the other (Sayer, 1992: 89). For example, within Marxs
theorizing, the relation between workers and bourgeois factory owners is an
internal and necessary one. Such relations, particularly internal and necessary
relations, are the essence of sociality and the prime focus of social explanations
(Bhaskar, 1998: 41).
Lack of space precludes me from elaborating Bhaskars ontology of the social
world any further. Instead, I would like to consider whether Bhaskar is success-
ful in his attempt to establish the ontology of the social world through philo-
sophical argument. I would argue that realist claims about the ontology of the
social world do not have as strong an epistemic warrant as the ontological claims
realists derive from analyzing fundamental physics and chemistry. The latter are
based on a successful form of scientific practice, and gain support from their
ability to account for the preconditions that make this success possible. Realist
analysis is particularly powerful in these areas because of its focus on a quite
specific aspect of inquiry, that is, experiment, so that it can move to show what
must be the case for experiment to be a successful and necessary part of inquiry.
Bhaskars choice of intentional agency as a starting point for a realist analysis of
the ontology of the social world does not give rise to a similarly persuasive analysis
for two reasons.
First, as Benton points out in his critique of The Possibility of Naturalism, it is
not clear that intentional agency is a neutral and uncontested starting point for
analysis (1981: 16). That is to say, as some approaches to social science do not
accept that intentional agency is a central feature of the social world, it cannot
be taken as a generally agreed upon premise for a transcendental deduction.
Oddly, however, Benton also argues that this starting point is particularly con-
genial to Durkheimian and Marxist approaches, and will skew any ontological
conclusions in the direction of these approaches. This rather lets Bhaskar off the
hook, allowing him to respond that his starting point is actually more favourable
to anti-naturalist approaches that focus on agency and meaning rather than
Durkheimian and Marxist approaches which have tended to have a more struc-
tural focus (Bhaskar, 1998: 173). While Bhaskar identifies the bias of his starting
point more accurately than Benton, the acknowledgement of this bias reinforces

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Kemp Critical Realism and Philosophy 179

the initial difficulty: that intentional agency is not a neutral, generally agreed
upon feature of social life. Indeed, I would suggest that its existence is denied in
a variety of research programmes including certain Marxist, Durkheimian, struc-
turalist and post-structuralist approaches.10 Because intentional agency is not
accepted by a range of social scientific approaches, a transcendental deduction
that begins from it cannot have the same force as a transcendental deduction from
the widely accepted premise that fundamental physics and chemistry are success-
ful sciences that rely on practices of experimentation.
Second, even if we were to grant Bhaskar the legitimacy of his starting point,
it is by no means clear that all, or indeed most, of the realist ontology is in some
sense derived from or entailed by it. For example, the claim that social structures
are relational appears, in Bhaskars account, to be argued for quite independently
of his starting point in intentional agency, emerging, rather, from a critique of
other ontologies (Bhaskar, 1998: 2830). This disconnection becomes even more
apparent as realists such as Archer expand further the number of concepts called
upon to describe the ontology of the social world (see Archer, 1995). For many
realist ontological concepts, then, there can be no genuine claim that transcen-
dental argument from a generally agreed upon starting point is underpinning
them. As such, these claims should not be taken to be underwritten by a
transcendental deduction.
Now, it could be argued that while these criticisms highlight procedural
problems with the justification of the realist ontology, they do not demonstrate
that the ontology is, in itself, problematic or misguided. Those who have greater
faith in the powers of philosophical argument than I do may claim that such
argument has, in fact, produced a coherent account of the basic features of the
social world. While I do not have the space to offer a detailed critique of realist
ontological arguments here, I would like to counter this claim by highlighting a
representative problem with the coherence of realist ontological categories.
Although Bhaskars arguments about the relation of ontological argument to
research have not been improved upon by those of later realists, his ontology of
the social world has been superseded by that put forward by Margaret Archer in
Realist Social Theory: A Morphogenetic Approach (1995). Archer revises and
elaborates upon Bhaskars framework in two ways. First, she argues that he does
not make a clear enough separation between the emergent powers of structures
and those of agents. Second, Archer proposes that an additional ontological
element, cultural emergent properties, should be incorporated into analysis.
These are differentiated from structure because the powers of structures emanate
from their primary dependence upon material resources, whereas the powers of
culture emanate from the constraining force of the logical relations between
beliefs (Archer, 1995: 175, original emphasis).
Despite its attempts to improve upon Bhaskars ontology, Archers account
runs into at least one important difficulty on its own terms. Archers ontology
relies upon there being a strict division between culture and structure, but her
definitions of these concepts do not allow us to clearly identify which entities fall
into each category. This becomes apparent, for example, when Archer discusses

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180 European Journal of Social Theory 8(2)

one important type of social structure, the role (1995: 1869). Within Archers
framework, it seems correct to state that social roles involve structural elements;
for example, fulfilling the role of office clerk requires access to resources such as
files, computers, and so on. But this does not demonstrate that a role should be
understood as primarily structural in character. After all, Archer elsewhere
acknowledges that a role has necessary and internal connections with rules as to
how that role is to be undertaken, which in her terms must be cultural (1995:
2756). Because of this cultural aspect, roles with similar structural elements may
have quite different characteristics. For example, managers will call on the same
kinds of structural elements in their roles as office clerks, e.g. computers, filing
systems, and so on, but this does not mean the roles are fundamentally the same
as one another; indeed, they are quite different.
One possible response to this would be to reclassify roles as cultural in Archers
sense, preserving her basic ontological distinctions, but reassigning some of the
less fundamental features. However, her account of roles makes it clear that
structural elements are of some relevance in grasping the character of a role, so
to define a role as purely cultural would be just as unsatisfactory as defining it as
purely structural. Although Archer claims to have established a clear-cut distinc-
tion between structure and culture, the fact that entities like roles cannot be
straightforwardly placed into either category throws her division into question.11
I would like to suggest that ontological arguments such as those put forward
by Archer and Bhaskar tend to be troubled by numerous problems of this kind.12
For my purposes here, however, such problems are intended to serve as a second-
ary illustration of the difficulties arising from a focus on ontology. My more
fundamental concern is whether a convincing rationale is provided for the claim
that philosophical argument can establish the ontology of the social world.
Within the realist approach, it seems to me that Bhaskars argument is still the
classic defence of this position. To my mind, this defence is inadequate, as
Bhaskar fails to provide an effective surrogate for the successful scientific theor-
izing that provides the basis of a critical realist analysis in natural science. I would
argue, then, that Bhaskars initial, cautious assessment of the possibility of estab-
lishing an ontology of the social world was actually correct. In the absence of
successful empirical theorizing from which to derive ontological conclusions,
there is little justification for claims about the ontology of the social world.
Convincing ontological arguments will only emerge (provisionally) after the
establishment of (provisionally) successful theories.

Ontology and Research in the Social Sciences

Perhaps the main reason that realists feel that ontological issues are pressing, and
worth debating, is because they feel that ontology can make a genuine contri-
bution to research in the social sciences. It is to this issue that I would like now
to turn. In particular, I would like to consider the contention that ontological
argument should regulate research, ruling in and out explanatory concepts on the

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basis of their ontological presuppositions. Critical realists often see this as an

important feature of their approach, and I shall consider the version of this
argument put forward by Archer.13 Discussing the role of ontology in both
critical realism and other approaches, Archer claims that social ontologies govern
those concepts which are deemed admissible in explanation as in description (1995:
20, original emphasis). She goes on to state: Because the ontology contains
judgements about the ultimate constituents (and non-constituents) of social
reality, it thus governs what sorts of concepts may properly be countenanced for
any purpose whatsoever (1995: 21).
It is true that Archer also sees ontology as being reciprocally regulated by that
which is empirically discovered (although I am unaware of any work of hers
which revises any element of her expansive ontology based on the outcome of
research). However, I would argue that the general thrust of Archers approach is
to suggest that ontological arguments set the terms for (govern) empirical
research rather than vice versa. This reading is backed up by the priority she gives
to the elaboration of ontological arguments, undertaken as a separate activity to
empirical research. It is also reinforced by Archers suggestion that in order to
conduct social research, one must first settle ontological questions. In a discussion
about the legitimacy of permitting different ontological orientations Archer
argues the following:
. . . whilst agreeing that both Harr and Bhaskar are both [sic] attempting to get at
the fundamental generative structures and generative mechanisms of social life, since
the former entertains only mentalistic contenders and the latter does not, then one of
them has to be (fundamentally) wrong. As a realist sociologist, I have to judge which
in order to advance any concrete explanatory proposition. (1998: 199)

I would suggest that the regulatory role given to ontology here can be critiqued
from three angles. In the first place, it seems to me that much successful natural
scientific research has been conducted without the explicit regulation of explana-
tory concepts. I acknowledge that this is a broad claim that can only be strongly
justified through empirical evidence. We can have, however, greater confidence
in the more restricted claim that natural science achieved great success without
ontological regulation derived from critical realist concepts. It is not clear, then,
why we should see this kind of regulation as necessary in the social sciences.
Perhaps the idea that there is something very special about the subject matter of
the social sciences leads realists to believe that ontological clarification must lay
the groundwork for empirical research.14 Even if there is something ontologically
distinctive about the social world, however, this does not entail that abstract
philosophical argument can establish what it is prior to empirical research.
Second, Archers demand that ontological argument settles certain matters
prior to research seems to unnecessarily foreclose upon the options for
researchers. Surely a researcher with a genuinely investigative spirit, with genuine
curiosity, might actually entertain both of the ontological possibilities she
mentions (as well as others) and see which allowed the best empirical account of
the subject matter in question to be produced? If we are to conceive of social

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182 European Journal of Social Theory 8(2)

scientific investigation as involving exploration and discovery, rather than filling

in the details of preset frameworks, we must allow researchers some creativity
rather than restricting their options using philosophical argument (for further
discussion, see Holmwood, 1996). Of course, investigation is not entirely fluid,
and past successes provide precedents for how to achieve success in the future
which it would be foolish for researchers to ignore. Nevertheless, it is intrinsic to
the possibility of progress in investigation that past successes may need to be over-
turned. Even where ontological claims have a strong basis in empirically success-
ful theories, they may be challenged by the development of newer, more powerful
theories, with different ontological presuppositions. Where they do not have this
basis, there are fewer still grounds to allow ontology a regulative role.
The third point that I would like to make is that the idea of regulation by
ontology implies that researchers should begin by making decisions about their
ontological beliefs before moving on to substantive theorizing. This is related to
the assumption, present in much realist work, that, as all theories have ontological
presuppositions, the only reasonable course is to make these presuppositions
explicit and engage in philosophical debate about them. Any other course would
involve head in the sand-style avoidance of the issue. I see this assumption as
mistaken. Even if we agree that all theories contain some ontological presuppo-
sitions, this does not entail that it is therefore productive to extract these and
debate their validity at a philosophical level. Indeed, as the key supporting
evidence in favour of an ontology is its derivation from an empirical theory that
is widely held to be successful, until such theories are generated in social science
there is little to be gained from engaging in ontological debate. Further, as I have
suggested above, it is not the case that the ontological arguments made by Archer
have resulted in a consistent set of ontological categories. As I argued in relation
to the notion of roles, it may, in fact, be hard to place the entities being analysed
in the research consistently into one ontological category or another. This under-
mines the idea that the use of such categories is adding to our understanding of
the domain being researched.
As such, I would argue that researchers need not begin from ontological reflec-
tion before engaging in research. Even if the theories that they are developing
have ontological assumptions, the point of these theories is to achieve substan-
tive success, and this should be the focus of theorizing. Given the lack of justifi-
cation for ontological arguments in the social sciences, and the internal problems
present in ontological claims, the insistence that researchers engage in extensive
ontological reflection before undertaking their research is unwarranted.
In order to illustrate these points about the problems with focusing on onto-
logical argument instead of substantive research questions, I would like to
contrast two discussions of unemployment and the underclass, one of which is
substantively oriented and the other of which is ontologically oriented.
The substantively oriented discussion is Robert MacDonalds article Fiddly
Jobs, Undeclared Working and the Something for Nothing Society (1994).
MacDonalds study of the activities and views of individuals who do fiddly jobs,
i.e. engage in undeclared working while claiming benefits, is motivated by the

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Kemp Critical Realism and Philosophy 183

desire to offer evidence for or against various claims about such individuals,
including the idea that they are part of a dependency culture and that their
participation in welfare fraud shows that they are lacking moral principles.
Bringing together data from a large number of interviews, MacDonald reaches
some interesting and surprising conclusions, of which I shall mention just two
here. First, those involved in fiddly work shared a fairly clear sense of the kinds
of benefit fraud that were legitimate and those that were illegitimate. Combin-
ing undeclared work with benefit claims was understood to be morally justifiable
where the work was short-term, motivated by family need and done for a small
amount of cash to top up benefit payments. By contrast, combining a full-time,
properly waged job with claiming the benefit was understood to be immoral, and
an abuse of the system. Thus, participation in minor benefit fraud was not an
indication of an amoral orientation on the part of individuals, but rather of a
moral orientation towards meeting the needs of the family (MacDonald, 1994:
51920). Second, MacDonald argues that those formally unemployed indi-
viduals who engaged in fiddly work were not consigning themselves to partici-
pation in a dependency culture. Instead, he suggests that such individuals were
well placed when full-time, legitimate employment did become available, because
by engaging in fiddly work they avoided social isolation and did not become
resigned to their status as unemployed (1994: 526).
As a counterpoint to MacDonalds approach we can consider Justin Cruick-
shanks discussion of the underclass, entitled Underlabouring and Unemploy-
ment: Notes For Developing a Critical Realist Approach to the Agency of the
Chronically Unemployed (2003). In this piece, Cruickshank does not engage in
research into unemployment and the underclass, but instead argues that research
in this area should be conducted by starting from realist ontological concepts,
and then working towards the development of a domain-specific meta-theory
which calls on these concepts but fills them out by engaging with the empirical
particularities of the area of research. In order to do so, Cruickshank calls on
Archers elaborated realist social ontology of cultural and structural emergent
properties and he attempts to show which of these categories each empirical item
fits into. For example, he identifies the moral views of the fiddly job seekers as a
culturally emergent property, one that operates in the wider context of the struc-
turally emergent property of neo-liberalism and de-industrialization (Cruick-
shank, 2003: 1224). Cruickshank also uses realist ontological principles to
critique other approaches to unemployment and the underclass, including that
of MacDonald. According to Cruickshank, MacDonalds work adheres to an
implicit methodological individualism, in that MacDonald focuses on the beliefs
and actions of individuals, implying that social reality is simply the sum of these
(Cruickshank, 1994: 121). Cruickshank suggests that MacDonald, therefore,
fails to include or analyze contextual factors that shape the situation of indi-
viduals.
What might then be said about the comparative merits of these two
approaches to unemployment and the underclass? To my mind, MacDonalds
substantively oriented approach is the more insightful and valuable. His work fills

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184 European Journal of Social Theory 8(2)

in gaps in our knowledge about those who work undeclared on benefits. It also
provides evidence which challenges one politically dominant understanding of
such individuals, suggesting that these individuals are not lacking in moral
beliefs, but have particular, intelligible ideas about which kinds of behaviour are
legitimate and illegitimate. Thus, MacDonalds work pushes forward social
scientific understandings of unemployment and contributes to wider political
debates. In comparison, the contribution made by Cruickshanks approach is, I
would argue, rather limited.
In the first place, Cruickshanks critique of MacDonalds approach as
implicitly invoking methodological individualism is quite misguided, as
MacDonald makes a number of references to the wider social context which
shapes fiddly job-seeking.15 Even if MacDonalds ontological presuppositions had
been correctly identified, however, I would argue that focusing on these distracts
attention away from the more fundamental issues of whether the substantive
claims are justified, and whether they are illuminating about their subject matter.
Unless ontological arguments can be demonstrated to have a pay off in relation
to substantive understanding, they are largely irrelevant to research.
Perhaps more importantly, I would argue that Cruickshanks reframing of
empirical contributions such as MacDonalds into realist terminology adds
little or nothing to our understanding of unemployment and the underclass.
He simply takes these contributions out of their context and places them into
an ontological framework that has not been justified empirically and has its
own difficulties. As I mentioned above, Cruickshank calls on Archers distinc-
tion between cultural and structural emergent properties in order to classify
various elements of the unemployment debate, suggesting that neo-liberalism
and de-industrialism can be understood as structural emergent properties and
patriarchy can be understood as a cultural emergent property (Cruickshank,
2003: 1224). One initial puzzle here is why neo-liberalism is characterized as a
structural emergent property and patriarchy as a cultural one. Does patriarchy
have nothing to do with the issues of resource distribution and utilization that
Archer, and, following her, Cruickshank classify as structural?16 Similar problems
emerge in the placement of de-industrializing capitalism as structural rather than
cultural. Capitalism might appear to be primarily linked to material resources,
but it is surely the case that an important role in the transformation of capitalism
has been played by complexes of belief that Cruickshank would identify as
cultural. One example of these beliefs would be ideas about why old-style indus-
tries are no longer productive and profitable within a British context. We can also
note that items which Cruickshank would classify as cultural are also a funda-
mental aspect of production processes themselves, both in old-fashioned capi-
talism and knowledge-driven capitalism; neither Model-Ts nor microchips can
be produced without conceptualized procedures and skills. Thus, we can see that
the problems with Archers definitions of culture and structure feed through into
Cruickshanks use of these distinctions, giving rise to incoherencies in his classifi-
cation of items in his research domain.17 Summarizing the issue, I would argue
that MacDonalds focus on the substantive is more productive than Cruickshanks

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Kemp Critical Realism and Philosophy 185

focus on the ontological. Whereas MacDonalds approach reveals to us features

of the social world that were previously unknown to social scientists, Cruick-
shanks approach translates existing claims into an empirically unjustified philo-
sophical framework that contains contradictions of its own.18
Having critiqued the idea that realist ontological arguments should be used to
regulate research, I should emphasize that this does not mean that realist onto-
logical ideas are completely irrelevant to research. Rather, it means that they
should be taken not as legislating the framework within which research must be
conducted, but instead taken as possible inspiration for ways of thinking about
research questions, which may turn out to be more or less productive. It could
be argued, for example, that the realist invocation of the notion of social struc-
ture makes a potentially useful parallel with successful explanations in physics
and chemistry.19 On the other hand, it may be that, for example, it will be more
productive for social scientists to take inspiration from the ontological and
explanatory theories of evolutionary biology rather than physics and chemistry.
Whatever the case, the most productive uses of realist ideas will, in my view, be
those that are most closely linked to actual research, and focus strongly on the
production of valid explanations. For example, Ray Pawsons work on middle-
range realism is inspired by critical realism, but Pawson does not insist that
investigators must adopt an elaborate ontological framework in order to conduct
their research (Pawson, 2000). Rather, Pawson takes a few simple realist concepts
and argues in detail that two particular pieces of research would have produced
stronger explanations if they had been thought through using those concepts.
Such an approach is valuable in that (i) it does not argue for realist concepts philo-
sophically but attempts to show their value by showing how their deployment
results in more successful empirical explanations; and (ii) it does not attempt to
impose on researchers a wide-ranging conceptual structure, but picks out a few
useful guiding principles. These modest uses of realism are preferable to attempts
to restrict and regulate research that are not justified by a demonstration of their
empirical success. Crucially, it is the empirical success of the theory which will
give support or otherwise to the ontological claims that stimulated it, rather than
philosophical argument disconnected from this success.

Conclusion

To conclude this article, I would like to emphasize the links between the more
detailed arguments I have made about critical realism and the broader issues that
I mentioned at the beginning of the article. In the first place, there is the question
of the powers and limitations of philosophical argument. My analysis of realist
arguments about the ontology of the natural and social worlds supports the claim
that there are strong limits on the ability of philosophical argument to run ahead
of substantive investigation in these areas. Certainly, critical realism provided a
very useful clarification of the ontological assumptions present in successful
inquiries within fundamental physics and chemistry. But this analysis is

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186 European Journal of Social Theory 8(2)

dependent on the successful substantive inquiries in question, and its claims

could be revised or overthrown as substantive inquiry in this area, or other areas,
develops. In relation to the ontology of the social world, critical realists such as
Bhaskar attempt to derive strong ontological claims from beliefs about features
of the social world that are purported to be generally held. This, I have suggested,
makes the conclusions of these arguments rather less persuasive than those
derived from successful natural scientific theorizing. In neither the natural or
social scientific case do the philosophical arguments of critical realism take the
lead, in the sense of convincingly establishing claims about some domain prior
to research in that domain.
In the second place, there is the issue of what general social theory can do for
the social sciences. Proponents of general social theory often wish to move
beyond the disunity and disagreement prevalent in the social sciences by estab-
lishing a single shared framework in which all research should be carried out
(Holmwood, 1996). I suggested above that this is true of critical realism, with
Bhaskar claiming that ontological argument will help us to move beyond the
angst-ridden state of the social sciences, and establish a single appropriate frame-
work for studying the social world. The idea that critical realism establishes an
ontological theory which can then be called on to regulate the explanatory
concepts used in research, promoted by Archer, seems consonant with this goal
of unification. However, I argued that such regulation is problematic insofar as
it calls on weakly justified philosophical arguments in order to restrict the
investigative scope of empirical researchers. Even where ontological arguments
have a stronger basis, as in fundamental physics and chemistry, they should not
be used to rule out explanatory concepts inconsistent with them. Rather, the
priority is with successful explanations, which show us which ontological theories
are viable, rather than vice versa. Given the weak justification for ontological
arguments in the social sciences, any regulation in this area is of extremely
doubtful value. The paradox of critical realism can then be formulated as follows.
Critical realists see ontological arguments as the route to success and unification
in as yet unsuccessful areas of research. Yet a convincing ontology can only be
(fallibly) established once research in an area is successful, and there is a degree
of unity in acknowledging this success.20 Thus, although they may make a more
modest contribution, critical realist arguments are no more successful at estab-
lishing the centrality of their framework to the social sciences than are the
arguments put forward by other general social theorists.
Following Holmwood, then, I would suggest that general social theory cannot
provide social science with a route to success that will bring about a degree of
unity similar to that of the successful natural sciences.21 If success is going to be
achieved, it will be through detailed attention to the explanatory problems that
arise from engaging with the subject matter of research. It will have to be
compelling explanations that generate agreement among practitioners, rather
than philosophical argument. Obviously, explanatory work conducted up until
the present does not seem to have generated extensive agreement among prac-
titioners, and there may be ways in which the development of more successful

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Kemp Critical Realism and Philosophy 187

explanations could be promoted (such as institutional reform). But it will not be

philosophy disconnected from empirical research that leads the social sciences
towards success.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the British Academy for their support during the completion of this
article through their Post-Doctoral Fellowship scheme. Thanks also to Ipek Demir, John
Holmwood, and Gregor McLennan for their comments on this article, and to Sharani
Osborn for her editorial work.

Notes

1 We might usefully distinguish Parsons, Alexander and Giddens from Habermas in

that the former are primarily sociologists drawing on general philosophical arguments,
whereas the latter is primarily a philosopher who, though often concerned with the
social sciences, also has a wider range of interests. Despite the sociological grounding
of Parsons, Alexander, and Giddens, however, none of them attempts to adduce
empirical support for their general theoretical programmes. Parsons and Alexander
explicitly characterize their arguments as independent of issues of empirical support
(see Parsons, [1937] 1949: 733; Alexander, 1982: 11415), and Giddens implicitly
does so by failing to consider empirical evidence that might have a bearing on his
structuration approach.
2 John Holmwood has engaged with Andrew Sayers work (see Holmwood, 2001) but
I will be focusing largely on the arguments of Roy Bhaskar, as the pioneer of the realist
approach, and Margaret Archer, as an important recent exponent.
3 At various points in this article I refer to judgements of the epistemic and/or explana-
tory success of theories, and readers might legitimately ask what this amounts to.
Obviously, this is a large topic that I cannot seriously address here. Further, in line
with my general views on philosophy, I do not believe that there is a single criterion
for successful explanation that can be established by philosophy. However, existing
theories that are judged to be successful can stand as exemplars of the forms of
explanatory success achieved so far within science, and their qualities can be identified.
Arguably, these qualities include: the ability to coherently account for the relevant
factual claims in a domain; the ability to reduce one level of phenomena to another;
and the ability to explain how entities interact with one another.
4 I use the term realist here as shorthand for critical realist. Although there are other
species of realist, this article focuses entirely on critical realism.
5 Another dimension of the fallibility of ontological theories relates to problems in the
reasoning by which ontological conclusions are reached.
6 The extent to which this epistemic agreement is found in relation to any particular
natural science may vary. As such, the limitations of the realist analyses of social
science that I will indicate here may apply equally to the analysis of natural sciences
in which there is little agreement regarding their epistemic warrant.
7 This is clearly a very broad claim which Bhaskar does not back up with evidence,
and I cannot offer any extended discussion of this here. Nevertheless, studies of

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188 European Journal of Social Theory 8(2)

particular areas in social science, such as James Rules analysis of theories of civil
violence, suggest that research in these areas is often non-progressive, with later
approaches being disconnected from earlier approaches rather than being demonstra-
ble improvements upon them (Rule, 1988). Because of the absence of a positive,
progressive dynamic, there is extensive disagreement about the epistemic success of
particular approaches, rather than the wide-ranging (if not total) agreement about the
epistemic virtues of particular theories found in many areas of the natural sciences.
8 What I mean by this is that critical realists such as Archer do not dwell on the legit-
imacy or otherwise of establishing an ontological framework for the social sciences
largely through philosophical argument disconnected from empirical research.
9 It is worth noting that in The Possibility of Naturalism Bhaskar offers another, slightly
less bold description of his intentions, which is to establish the properties that
societies and people must possess if they are to be (or demarcate the sites of ) possible
objects of knowledge for us (1998: 167, emphasis added). This is less bold insofar as
it suggests that Bhaskar is not establishing what the social world is actually like, merely
what it must be like if it is to be known scientifically. Nevertheless, as I will be arguing
in relation to Bhaskars boldest approach, this modified version expects too much from
philosophical argument. It seems to me that empirical investigation of some area may
reveal new kinds of objects which can be known in new kinds of ways. Philosophy
cannot establish in advance of investigation what properties an entity must have in
order to be knowable.
10 This is not to say that all Marxist and Durkheimian approaches deny a role to inten-
tional agency, just that this is characteristic of some versions of these lines of thought.
11 This discussion is intended to show that within her own terms Archers concepts are
unsatisfactory. As such, when I suggest that certain elements of roles should be under-
stood as structural or cultural on Archers terms, I am not committing myself to
this description of them.
12 For further discussions of the kinds of incoherence found in general social ontologies,
see Holmwood and Stewart (1991) and Pleasants (1999).
13 Not all critical realists would necessarily approve of this regulative stance, however,
one prominent objector being William Outhwaite (1987).
14 Archer, for example, opens Realist Social Theory with the remark Social reality is
unlike any other because of its human constitution (1995: 1). This idea of the novelty
of social reality is not confined to critical realism, animating nearly all forms of general
social theory from Parsons through Giddens to Habermas (for further discussion, see
Holmwood and Stewart, 1991).
15 MacDonald refers to various features of the social context including: the change in
employment practices towards emphasizing flexible employment which encourages
cost-cutting contractors to pay for cheap, undeclared labour (1994: 527), the ways in
which higher unemployment may actually decrease levels of undeclared work because
of its effect on opportunities to arrange trades or pass on information about possible
work (1994: 518), and the forms of morality and ideology related to work and the
family held by those on benefits (1994: 509).
16 This placement of patriarchy as cultural compared to the structural matter of capi-
talist economics is paralleled in other realist arguments (see, for example, Sayer, 2000;
for a critique, see Holmwood, 2001).
17 To criticize Cruickshanks realist ontological arguments in this way is not to imply
that the concepts used in MacDonalds substantive research are entirely coherent and
adequate. However, I would argue that the most productive way to deal with any

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Kemp Critical Realism and Philosophy 189

inadequacies that might be identified in MacDonalds concepts is to attempt to

reformulate them to produce a better account of the subject matter in question, i.e.
the underclass and unemployment. Resolving the incoherencies will then improve
social scientific understanding of the research domain, rather than being oriented
towards general philosophical problems.
18 Despite these difficulties with Cruickshanks approach, I should note that he does
usefully argue that realist ontological claims may be challenged and thus transformed
in the course of research (Cruickshank, 2003: 11415). My dispute with his
arguments derives from his prioritization of ontology as the starting point for thinking
about research despite the current absence of empirical evidence to justify realist onto-
logical claims.
19 Unfortunately, the utility of the notion of social structure idea for empirical expla-
nation is weakened by the insistence that the social world contains agency as well as
structure. This analytical combination tends, in general social theories, to promote
indeterminacy in explanations, rather than clear, testable empirical claims (see
Holmwood, 1996).
20 Bhaskar discusses this paradox in the first chapter of The Possibility of Naturalism, and
sees himself as avoiding it by starting transcendental analysis in this area from
commonly accepted features of social life. I have suggested that this does not offer a
way out of the difficulty.
21 We should certainly not over-estimate the unity of the successful natural sciences,
implying that there is agreement on all matters. Indeed, as Lakatos (1978) has
suggested, a certain amount of disunity is probably explanatorily beneficial, not to
mention unavoidable. Nevertheless, in successful sciences there seems to be a greater
degree of agreement than there is in most areas of social science.

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Stephen Kemp is currently a Lecturer in Sociology, University of Edinburgh.

This article was written during his time as a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow
at the University of Sussex (20014). He is interested in epistemological questions

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Kemp Critical Realism and Philosophy 191

about the status of natural and social scientific knowledge, and is working on a
book analysing the role of conceptual transformation in the development of
knowledge. Address: Sociology, School of Social and Political Studies, Adam
Ferguson Building, George Square, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9LL,
UK. [email: s.kemp@ed.ac.uk]

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