Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies

This article analyses and evaluates the uses of the concept of causal power in the critical realist tradition, which is based on Roy Bhaskar's philosophy of science. The concept of causal power that appears in the early works of Rom Harré and his associates is compared to Bhaskar's account of this concept and its uses in the critical realist social ontology. It is argued that the concept of emergence should be incorporated to any adequate notion of causal power. The concept of emergence used in Bhaskar and other critical realists’ works is shown to be ambiguous. It is also pointed out that the concept of causal power should be analysed in an anti-essentialist way. Ontological and methodological problems that vitiate Bhaskar's transcendental account of the concept of causal power are examined. Moreover, it is argued that the applications of the concept of causal power to mental powers, reasons, and social structures in the critical realist social ontology are problematic. The paper shows how these problems might be avoided without giving up the concept of causal power and the notion of structural social causation.

This article discusses the theories of social emergence developed by Roy Bhaskar and Mario Bunge. Bhaskar's concept of emergent causal power is shown to be ambiguous, and some of the difficulties of his depth-relational concept of social emergence are examined. It is argued that Bunge's systemic concept of emergent property is not only different, but also clearer and more consistent than Bhaskar's concept of emergent causal power. Despite its clarity and consistency, Bunge's definition of the concept of emergent property is shown to be too broad and analytically imprecise for the purposes of an emergentist social ontology. It is argued that Bunge's systemic account of social emergence can be developed further by using William Wimsatt's gradual approach to emergent phenomena and his four conditions of aggregativity of a systemic property. It is shown that these conditions provide useful conceptual tools for clarifying and investigating different kinds of mechanisms of social emergence and developing stronger varieties of the concept of emergent social property than that indicated in Bunge's definition of this concept.

This article analyzes and criticizes the transcendental arguments Roy Bhaskar uses to justify his transcendental realist ontology. They are compared to Kant's in the Critique of Pure Reason and a detailed reconstruction of those formulated in A Realist Theory of Science is presented. It is argued that these formulations contain certain ambiguities and are beset with other, more serious, problems. First, Bhaskar's descriptions of scientific practices (which form the premise of his transcendental arguments) are far more controversial than is presupposed in his arguments. Second, Bhaskar uses the Kantian concept of transcendental necessity in his transcendental arguments which inevitably connects them to certain Kantian doctrines that are inconsistent with his transcendental realist ontology. Some qualifications of his formulations Bhaskar made in his later writings are also considered and another possible interpretation of his transcendental arguments is presented from the point of view of these qualifications. On this interpretation, Bhaskar seeks to naturalize Kantian transcendental arguments by combining a posteriori premises with a priori philosophical reasoning. It is argued that this kind of naturalized version of transcendental arguments is also problematic. Therefore, it is concluded that Bhaskar's transcendental arguments fail to justify his transcendental realist ontology. Nevertheless, it might be possible to justify at least some of Bhaskar's ontological claims from the perspective of meta-philosophical naturalism. It is maintained that this requires naturalization not just of transcendental arguments but of the whole transcendental realist ontology. One possible form of naturalistic argument that might replace Bhaskar's problematic transcendental arguments is sketched. It is, however, admitted that, desirable though the naturalization of Bhaskar's early ontology may be, more work needs to be done to achieve this goal.

The article makes four interrelated claims: (1) The mechanism approach to social explanation does not presuppose a commitment to the individual-level microfoundationalism. (2) The microfoundationalist requirement that explanatory social mechanisms should always consists of interacting individuals has given rise to problematic methodological biases in social research. (3) It is possible to specify a number of plausible candidates for social macro-mechanisms where interacting collective agents (e.g. formal organizations) form the core actors. (4) The distributed cognition perspective combined with organization studies could provide us with explanatory understanding of the emergent cognitive capacities of collective agents.

The DBO (Desires, Beliefs and Opportunities) theory of action proposed by analytical sociologists aims to provide an action-theoretical basis for building explanatory theories in sociology. Peter Hedström claims that the DBO theory is realistic because it does not make assumptions that are known to be false or seriously incompatible with the current scientific understanding about the nature of human action and cognition. This article nevertheless aims to show that the DBO theory is not only incomplete but also that its background assumptions are unrealistic, in the sense that they do not fit with the distributed nature of action-related cognition, which has recently become a growing topic of interest in cognitive sciences. The author also indicates that the neglect of the distributed and embodied aspects of cognition in the DBO theory leads to various biases in the process of constructing mechanism-based explanations in social sciences. Finally, an alternative approach to action theory is sketched on the basis of this critique.

"This important book provides detailed critiques of the method of transcendental argumentation and the transcendental realist account of the concept of causal power that are among the core tenets of the bhaskarian version of critical realism. Kaidesoja also assesses the notions of human agency, social structure and emergence that have been advanced by prominent critical realists, including Roy Bhaskar, Margaret Archer and Tony Lawson. The main line of argument in this context indicates that the uses of these concepts in critical realism involve ambiguities and problematic anti-naturalist presuppositions.

As a whole, these arguments are intended to show that to avoid these ambiguities and problems, critical realist social ontology should be naturalized. This not only means that transcendental arguments for ontological doctrines are firmly rejected and the notion of causal power interpreted in a non-transcendental realist way. Naturalization of the critical realist social ontology also entails that many of the core concepts of this ontology should be modified so that attention is paid to the ontological presuppositions of various non-positivist explanatory methods and research practices in the current social sciences as well as to new approaches in recent cognitive and neurosciences.

In addition of providing a detailed critique of the original critical realism, the book develops a naturalized version of the critical realist social ontology that is relevant to current explanatory practices in the social sciences. In building this ontology, Kaidesoja selectively draws on Mario Bunge’s systemic and emergentist social ontology, William Wimsatt’s gradual notion of ontological emergence and some recent approaches in cognitive science (i.e. embodied, situated and distributed cognition). This naturalized social ontology rejects transcendental arguments in favor of naturalized arguments and restricts the uses of the notion of causal power to concrete systems, including social systems of various kinds. It is also compatible with a naturalized version of scientific realism as well as many successful explanatory practices in the current social sciences. By employing the conceptual resources of this ontology, Kaidesoja explicates many of the basic concepts of social ontology and social theory, including social system, social mechanism, social structure, social class and social status.""

This article analyzes and evaluates Bhaskar’s concept of social structure, which forms a part of his transformational model of social activity. This concept is exemplified by using Karl Marx’s theory of the capitalist mode of production. Bhaskar’s two a priori arguments for his social realism are criticized. Margaret Archer’s (1995) proposal as a refinement of this concept is considered, but it is contended that Archer’s refinement is vulnerable to a similar criticism as Bhaskar’s original account of social structures. It is argued that Bhaskar’s account of social structures is internally incoherent and includes problematic essentialist assumptions. Moreover, it is shown that Bhaskar tends to conceive social structures as non-actual internal relations between abstractly conceived social positions and, consequently, locates social structures to some kind of transcendental realm of being, which is beyond both ordinary and scientific perceptions. This view, it is argued, implies that empirical testing of such social scientific theories that refer to “transcendentally real” social structures becomes impossible insofar as social scientists always have to study open systems in which empirical regularities are not forthcoming. The paper also sketches an alternative account of social structures as relations of interaction between individual agents who function as parts of some concrete social system. This view is influenced by Bunge’s (1996, 1998) systemic social ontology, which is compatible with scientific realism. It is suggested that this interpretation avoids the problems of Bhaskar’s concept and provides a stronger foundation for empirical social research based on the assumptions of scientific realism. It also succeeds in distinguishing collective agents from social classes without collapsing the latter into mere discursive categories. It is also pointed out that without the existence of empirical regularities in social reality, empirical testing of social scientific theories would be impossible.

Sosiologi Robert K. Mertonin mukaan keskitason teoriat sijoittuvat empiirisessä tutkimuksessa välttämättömien työhypoteesien ja kaiken kattavien sosiologisten teoriajärjestelmien välisen jatkumon keskelle. Tässä artikkelissa täsmennän ja kehittelen eteenpäin keskitason teorian käsitettä Mertonin kirjoitusten analyysin ja kommentaarikirjallisuuden pohjalta. Vastoin monia aiempia tulkintoja esitän, että keskitason teorian käsite ei ole toivottoman monitulkintainen ja että se on mahdollista määritellä suhteellisen täsmällisesti. Argumentoin myös, että teorianmuodostuksen kontekstissa keskitason teoriat on hedelmällisempää ymmärtää dynaamisiksi, empiirisen tutkimuksen yhteydessä kehittyviksi entiteeteiksi kuin väitelauseiden staattisiksi järjestelmiksi. Havainnollistan keskitason teorian käsitettä ja siihen liittyvää teorianmuodostuksen dynamiikkaa tarkastelemalla Mertonin ja Alice S. Rossin kehittelemää viiteryhmäteoriaa. Artikkelin johtopäätös on, että täsmennetty keskitason teorian käsite ja dynaaminen käsitys teorianmuodostuksesta muodostavat hedelmällisen tavan kytkeä sosiologiset teoriat ja empiirinen analyysi toisiinsa.

This paper responds to Dustin McWherter's (2015) detailed critique of my assessment of Roy Bhaskar's method of transcendental argumentation in chapter four of my Naturalizing Critical Realist Social Ontology (2013). I begin by describing some naturalist ontological and epistemological views defended in my book, thereby showing that my naturalist challenge to the original version of critical realism is not only methodological (or metaphilosophical) but also substantial. I also indicate that this point is effectively downplayed in McWherter's framing of the debate in terms of competing metaphilosophies. I then consider how the doctrine of transcendental idealism is presupposed in Kant's transcendental deduction and question the consistency of McWherter's various descriptions of Bhaskar's transcendental arguments. Finally, I provide detailed responses to McWherter's objectives to my views. My conclusion is that naturalized critical realism is more coherent and scientifically viable position than the neo-Kantian version of critical realism defended by McWherther. Nevertheless, I think that there is enough overlap between original and naturalized critical realism to regard the latter as a revised and elaborated version of the former.