Abstract
Critical realism (CR) has become one of the prominent metatheoretical frameworks upon which substantive inquiry of world politics in the discipline of International Relations (IR) can build. The aim of this article is to critically reconsider CR metatheory and its attitude to ‘get things right’ about the world. This is done, primarily, by focusing on the existence of the correspondence theory of truth in the CR framework. To support this analysis, the notions of explanatory power, retroduction and emergence are also engaged. The article poses three broad research questions: first, what is the relationship between external reality and human knowledge in the CR framework? Second, what sort of logical problems does this account entail? And last, what are the implications of the acceptance of CR metatheory for IR? The article argues that both the emphasis on the external reality as the yardstick for (social) scientific research and the attempt to combine fallibilism with the realist aim of ‘getting things right’ about reality with the help of the correspondence theory of truth are highly problematic. The article concludes that CR metatheory could entail serious axiological problems for IR. Among the most serious ones is the potential scientific conservatism based on realist ‘truthtalk’.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
These frameworks, generally considered to be part of the so-called ‘Third Debate of IR’ (Lapid 1989), would include ‘post-structuralist’ (George and Campbell 1990; Ashley and Walker 1990a, 1990b), ‘feminist’ (Harding 1986; Enloe 1989; Tickner 1992; Sylvester 1994, 2002), ‘constructivist’ (Wendt 1992), ‘historical’ (Kratochwil 2006), and ‘pragmatist’ (Deibert 1997; Neumann 2002; Rytövuori-Apunen 2005) frameworks. About ‘linguistic turns’ in IR, cf. Fierke (2002).
Henceforth, the abbreviation ‘CR’ is used to refer either to ‘Critical Realism’ as a metatheoretical framework, or to the adjective ‘Critical Realist’, for example in the case of ‘Critical Realist’ metatheory. The abbreviation ‘CRs’, on the other hand, refers to scholars who subscribe to Critical Realism.
To be clear, Kratochwil has been deeply pessimistic about the possibility of CR as the ‘new orthodoxy’. A good summary of this can be found, for example, in Kratochwil (2007b: 68−75).
It is worth noticing that pragmatism(s) has also increased its influence in IR as a general metatheoretical position. A pragmatist framework has been accepted, for example, in the works of Deibert (1997); Cochran (2002); Neumann (2002); Owen (2002); Rytövuori-Apunen (2005); Kratochwil (2007a); Kangas (2009); and Jackson (2008a, 2008b). Cf. also two special forums on pragmatism in IR, the first in Millennium 31(3) in 2002, and the second in International Studies Review 11(3) in 2009.
According to Monteiro and Ruby (2009: 17), metadebates tend to escalate substantial or methodological disagreements at a lower, foundational level, and to produce ‘imperial projects’ that ‘have contributed to the fragmentation of the discipline along meta-theoretical lines’.
The importance of metadebates lies in the claim that they affect not just the ways in which research is conducted but the very ways in which thinking is possible in a given discipline; agreements on metatheories may partly define the ‘common sense’ of the discipline. For example, as Guzzini (2000: 156) has stated, the ability to question the intellectual status quo of the discipline involves debates about philosophical as well as political commitments: ‘[m]etatheories do matter both empirically and politically’. Or as Wendt (1999: 34) put it, ‘empirical questions will be tightly bound up with ontological and epistemological ones; how we answer “what causes what?” will depend in important part on how we answer “what is there?” and “how do we study it?”’
A note to the reader: for the most part, we have focused our analysis of CR on the post-Wendtian works of Patomäki and Wight, which have broadened, and made more apparent, the emergence of CR within the contemporary (metatheoretical) debates of IR. This is especially the case on the European side of the discipline. However, references to Wendt's work are present in the text, too.
This view on emergent reality is sometimes called ‘process ontology’ by CRs (cf. Niiniluoto 1999a: 31). For criteria for emergence, see Humpreys (1997: 341−2); cf. Elder-Vass (2005: 316−20).
This idea of ‘broader’ causality is linked to an Aristotelian definition of causality, where Aristotle defined the notion not just as a ‘pushing and pulling’ or efficient causality, but more broadly based on four categories: material, formal, efficient and final causality. This ‘broadening’ of causal explanation allows the consideration (and assessment) of causes as complex and interacting. Cf. Kurki (2006: 206−9); also Bhaskar (1978: 121−2, 194−5, 1987: 54−55).
By ‘direct realism’ is meant the possibility of a ‘direct access’ to external reality in order to capture its way of being unhindered, as it is.
Bhaskar calls this fallacy also in more general terms a ‘linguistic fallacy’, cf. Bhaskar (1991: 68 n6). Cf. also Patomäki and Wight (2000: 217−8).
This definition draws from Jackson (2008a: 151).
Wendt's (1999: 59) realist answer to the problem of ‘indeterminacy of reference’ in which ‘natural kinds’ are claimed to be either very difficult or even impossible to specify as objects of reference (the latter especially due to the fact that ‘natural kinds’ might not have essential properties) is to claim that ‘natural kinds’ are constituted by ‘homeostatic clusters of properties’. In other words, ‘individual elements in these clusters might not be essential’. Instead, all ‘kind-definitions’ ought to be understood ‘in terms of “fuzzy sets” or “stereotypes” rather than necessary and sufficient conditions’.
According to Wendt (1999: 58−59), ‘[w]hat makes a theory true is the extent to which it reflects the causal structure of the world, but theories are always tested against other theories, not against some pre-theoretical ‘foundation’ for correspondence’. Thus, the answer to the question of ‘how can we know that a claim of reference is true’ must be that ‘we cannot’. However, he suggests that ‘we should have confidence only in the referents of “mature” theories that have proven successful in the world’. And he continues that even then ‘we can speak only of “approximate” truth’.
The notion of T-equivalence is related to the so-called Tarskian definition of truth where ‘the definition of truth for language L should entail all T-equivalences of the form x is true iff p where x is a name of a sentence in L and p is the translation of this sentence in the metalanguage ML’ (Niiniluoto 1999a: 59). Some philosophers have interpreted the Tarskian view as stating merely a relationship between two languages (e.g. an object-language L and the meta-language ML), not between language and reality. This is often called the ‘disquotational’ or ‘deflationary’ view of truth. A more realist view is suggested by Niiniluoto (1999a: 63−64; 1987: 137−8), according to whom the Tarskian definition of T-equivalence can be seen as a version of a correspondence theory of truth in which socially constructed sentences (in language L) are made true, and satisfied, ‘by objects in the world, not by their substitution instances in the language’. In this article, the notion of T-equivalence refers to the realist view (of correspondence).
Wight (2007c: 305) also claims, elsewhere, that ‘[a]lternative social theories think of their formal objects in differing terms and we should accept the possibility that some of these might be of value … [B]ecause I insist on the existence of a complex structured world beyond its ontological specification in any given theory, then I am also committed to the view that it is probably impossible to for any one theory to capture the totality of that reality’.
By ‘property-individuals’ Niiniluoto means objectively existing and necessary features or qualities (of material) located in time and space.
The problem of correspondence is particularly problematic in terms of unobservable entities. Empirically speaking, the history of science itself, and the so-called ‘pessimistic meta-induction’ (cf. e.g. Cummiskey 1992; Laudan 1981: 42), has shown that many widely accepted scientific theories with postulated unobservable entities have indeed been incorrect from the perspective of our current knowledge. Because of this, we must have doubts concerning unobservables even in the today's most warranted or mature scientific theories. Moreover, we have plenty of examples of theoretical concepts and entities that have been practically effective in scientific use but that have not, from today's perspective, genuinely referred (cf. Laudan 1981). Therefore, even if we endorsed the notion of correspondence and other semantically referring concepts, we simply wouldn’t have any way to know whether we are corresponding with reality correctly, or maybe just conducted, for instance, a functional ‘lucky or unlucky guess’ (Jackson 2008a: 138).
To elaborate the last claim a bit further: if we used the concept of ‘truth’ — if we said that something is ‘true’ — with realist commitments, we could be in danger of losing the fallibilism of our ‘truth claims’ simply because the very idea of claiming something true realistically implies, or the very least strongly suggests, that ‘true statements’ could not, and perhaps need not, be critically engaged in any way, for they are not only vouched by the external way of being, but are also, by the very definition, undeniably true, infallible, and therefore beyond doubt. But, if we deny the possibility of infallibilism, then the strict realist view on truth goes out the window. And if we also reject the notion of correspondence, not only the epistemological realist view based on the Tarskian T-equivalence (‘p’ is true iff p) but also truth as a metaphor can be seen trivial and unverifiable.
According to Niiniluoto (1999a: 67), this conclusion amounts to an ‘All-or-Nothing Fallacy’.
The problem for a realist is that in the cases of induction and deduction the origin of a valid or truthlike scientific hypothesis cannot be explained: these modes of inference are not ‘ampliative’ — or truth-increasing — but only ‘truth-reserving’. That is, in a deductive inference we must, of course, know beforehand the general hypotheses from which we deduce, and induction can only be used for the validation of a beforehand known hypotheses simply because a sample of data can be understood as a sample of some totality only if we know beforehand the totality in issue.
This kind of justification for scientific realism has been most forcefully given by Putnam (1978), Boyd (1984), Leplin (1987).
Cf. also Jackson (2008a: 137). For a critique of van Fraassen, cf. Kvanvig (1994); Psillos (1996).
For a detailed discussion of this problem in the context of ‘downward causality’, cf. Kim (2006: 557–8).
By criticising the CR use of the notion of emergence, we do not, of course, want to endorse a positivist account of causality, but simply argue with Putnam (1992: 64) that the notion of causation is relative to human interests, in the sense that the things or reasons we say to be causes of something depend on the context and our understanding of the relevant alternative(s). In fact, the CR view on broad, emergent causality is an interesting contribution in the context of IR to the attempt to combine naturalism and holism. In particular, Kurki (2006: 209−10) concludes that the social world is a holistic combination of a multitude of irreducible causes, and thus the ascription of ‘causes’ must be seen as a question connected to our ‘pragmatic explanatory interests’.
By the (Jamesian) notion of ‘cash value’ we do not aim to promote cruder forms of utilitarianism or value-free and unemotional economic thinking in which merely the rationally (in its abstract sense, as opposed to its ‘bounded’ sense) inferred benefits would bear down on theory choice, or on human choices more generally.
From a pragmatist point of view, it is possible to be abductive non-realistically, or ‘internally’; one can postulate theoretical entities to offer plausible (natural) explanations for an amazing or troublesome phenomena or entity in the world, refer to these theoretical entities within (but not without) the scientific and/or common sense discursive formation and ontology, test the validity of such postulations in terms of concrete and empirical results, and when successful, gain warrants and reasons for their acceptability. New imaginative hypotheses can help us come up with metaphoric uses of language that create new associations and broader (and perhaps alternative) ways of explaining a phenomenon. Against Wendt's (1999: 47) claim that most IR scholars are at least ‘tacit realists’, we agree with van Fraassen (1980: 23) that ‘[m]erely following the ordinary patterns of science does not obviously and automatically make realists of us all’. However, and to be clear, we do not want to claim that scholars should blindly follow the existing, ordinary patterns of science, either.
The political nature of metatheoretical commitments applies, as Kurki correctly points out, also to other metatheoretical positions; for example, pragmatism is often accompanied by ‘liberal pluralist undertones’ (Kurki 2009: 449).
But, contrary to Monteiro and Ruby (2009), this need not be taken as a bad thing. As Kurki (2009: 452) points out, both philosophical and political views are often held strongly, and hence disagreement on both/either is not only probable but also desirable to some extent. Metatheoretical debates do not lead to ‘dead ends’ because they ‘fail to enhance understanding of our subject matter’, as claimed by Holsti (1989: 260). Instead, and as suggested by Kurki, they ‘provide, even if indirectly and in complex ways, an important grounding for political forms of argumentation in IR theory’.
The claim of conservatism is not, of course, limited and specific to CR metatheory. Social constructivist frameworks, pragmatism included, may lead to such ends, too. For the inverted critique of ‘authoritarianism’ (à la pragmatism), cf. Wight (2007b: 47−50).
To be fair, CRs have advocated the importance of methodological pluralism and epistemological opportunism. Cf. Wight (2006a: 25−26, 257−61, 2006b: 54−55).
References
Aronson, Jerrold L., Rom Harré and Eileen Cornell Way (1995) Realism Rescued: How Scientific Progress Is Possible, London: Open Court.
Ashley, Richard and R.B.J. Walker (1990a) ‘Speaking the Language of Exile: Dissident Thought in International Studies’, International Studies Quarterly 34: 259–85.
Ashley, Richard and R.B.J. Walker (1990b) ‘Reading Dissidence/Writing the Discipline: Crisis and the Question of Sovereignty in International Studies’, International Studies Quarterly 34: 367–416.
Bhaskar, Roy (1978) Realist Theory of Science, Sussex: The Harvester Press.
Bhaskar, Roy (1987) Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, London: Verso.
Bhaskar, Roy (1991) Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Bhaskar, Roy (2002) From Science to Emancipation: Alienation and the Actuality of Enlightenment, London: Sage Publications.
Bleiker, Ronald (2000) ‘Editor's Introduction’, Alternatives 25 (3): 269–85.
Boyd, Richard N. (1984) ‘The Current Status of Scientific Realism’, in Jarrett Leplin, ed. Scientific Realism, 41–82, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Brown, Chris (2007) ‘Situating Critical Realism’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35 (2): 409–16.
Chernoff, Fred (2002) ‘Scientific Realism as a Meta-theory of International Politics’, International Studies Quarterly 46 (2): 189–207.
Chernoff, Fred (2007) ‘Scientific Realism, Critical Realism, and International Relations Theory’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35 (2): 399–407.
Chernoff, Fred (2009) ‘The Ontological Fallacy: A Rejoinder on the Status of Scientific Realism in International Relations’, Review of International Studies 35: 371–95.
Cochran, Molly (2002) ‘Deweyan Pragmatism and Post-positivist Social Science in IR’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 31 (3): 525–48.
Cummiskey, D. (1992) ‘Reference Failure and Scientific Realism: A Response to the Meta-induction’, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 43 (1): 21–40.
Day, Timothy and Harold Kincaid (1994) ‘Putting Inference to the Best Explanation in Its Place’, Synthese 98: 271–95.
Deibert, Ronald J. (1997) ‘“Exorcismus Theoriae”: Pragmatism, Metaphors and the Return of the Medieval in IR Theory’, European Journal of International Relations 3 (2): 167–92.
Dessler, David (1989) ‘What's at Stake in the Agent-structure Debate?’ International Organization 43 (3): 441–73.
Doty, Roxanne Lynn (1997) ‘Aporia: A Critical Exploration of the Agent-structure Problematique in International Relations Theory’, European Journal of International Relations 3 (3): 365–92.
Elder-Vass, Dave (2005) ‘Emergence and the Realist Account of Cause’, Journal of Critical Realism 4 (2): 315–38.
El-Hani, Charbel Niño and Sami Pihlström (2002) ‘Emergence Theories and Pragmatic Realism’, Essays in Philosophy — The Biannual Journal 2 (3): Article 3.
Enloe, Cynthia (1989) Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, London: Pandora Press.
Fierke, K.M. (2002) ‘Links Across the Abyss: Language and Logic in International Relations’, International Studies Quarterly 46: 331–54.
Fischer, Hans Rudi (2001) ‘Abductive Reasoning as a Way of Worldmaking’, Foundations of Science 6 (4): 361–83.
Foucault, Michel (1989) The Archeology of Knowledge, New York: Routledge.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1985) Truth and Method, London: Sheed and Ward.
George, Jim and David Campbell (1990) ‘Patterns of Dissent and the Celebration of Difference: Critical Social Theory and International Relations’, International Studies Quarterly 34: 269–93.
Glynos, Jason and David Howarth (2007) Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory, New York: Routledge.
Goodman, Nelson (1988) Ways of Worldmaking, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Guzzini, Stefano (2000) ‘A Reconstruction of Constructivism in International Relations’, European Journal of International Relations 6 (2): 147–82.
Hall, Ian (2009) ‘What Causes What: The Ontologies of Critical Realism’, International Studies Review 11: 629–30.
Hansen, Lene (2006) Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War, New York: Routledge.
Harding, Sandra (1986) The Science Question in Feminism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Holsti, K.J. (1989) ‘Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Which Are the Fairest Theories of All?’ International Studies Quarterly 33 (3): 255–61.
Humpreys, Paul (1997) ‘Emergence, Not Supervenience’, Philosophy of Science 64: 337–45.
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus (2008a) ‘Foregrounding Ontology: Dualism, Monism and IR Theory’, Review of International Studies (34): 129–53.
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus (2008b) ‘Ontological Investigations’, Cooperation and Conflict 43 (3): 341–46.
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus (2009a) ‘How to Think about Civilizations’, in Peter Katzenstein, ed. Civilizations in World Politics: Plural and Pluralist Perspectives, 176–200, London: Routledge.
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus (2009b) ‘A Faulty Solution to a False(ly Characterized) Problem: A Comment on Monteiro and Ruby’, International Theory 1 (3): 455–65.
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus and Daniel H. Nexon (2009) ‘Paradigmatic Faults in International Relations Theory’, International Studies Quarterly 53: 907–30.
James, William (1904) ‘A World of Pure Experience’, Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 1 (20): 533–43.
Jarvis, Darryl S.L. (2002) International Relations and the ‘Third Debate’: Postmodernism and its Critics, Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Jones, Branwen Gruffydd (2008) ‘Race in the Ontology of International Order’, Political Studies 56 (4): 907–27.
Joseph, Jonathan (2007) ‘Philosophy in International Relations: A Scientific Realist Approach’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35 (2): 345–59.
Kaidesoja, Tuukka (2005) ‘The Trouble with Transcendental Arguments: Towards a Naturalization of Roy Bhaskar's Early Realist Ontology’, Journal of Critical Realism 4 (1): 28–61.
Kaidesoja, Tuukka (2007) ‘Exploring the Concept of Causal Power in a Critical Realist Tradition’, Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior 37 (1): 63–87.
Kangas, Anni (2009) ‘From Interfaces to Interpretants: A Pragmatist Exploration into Popular Culture as International Relations’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 38: 317–43.
Käpylä, Juha and Harri Mikkola (2009) ‘Kriittinen realismi kriittisin silmin — Huomioita erään metateorian ongelmakohdista’, Politiikka 51 (4): 248–67.
Kim, Jaegwon (1999) ‘Making Sense of Emergence’, Philosophical Studies 95: 3–36.
Kim, Jaegwon (2006) ‘Emergence: Core ideas and issues’, Synthese 151: 547–59.
King, Gary, O.Keohane Robert and Verba Sidney (1994) Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kornprobst, Markus (2009) ‘International Relations as Rhetorical Discipline: Towards (Re-) Newing Horizons’, International Studies Review 11: 87–108.
Kratochwil, Friedrich (2000) ‘Constructing a New Orthodoxy? Wendt's “Social Theory of International Politics” and the Constructivist Challenge’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29 (1): 73–101.
Kratochwil, Friedrich (2006) ‘History, Action and Identity: Revisiting the “Second” Great Debate and Assessing Its Importance for Social Theory’, European Journal of International Relations 12 (1): 5–29.
Kratochwil, Friedrich (2007a) ‘Of False Promises and Good Bets: A Plea for a Pragmatic Approach to Theory Building’, Journal of International Relations and Development 10: 1–15.
Kratochwil, Friedrich (2007b) ‘Of Communities, Gangs, Historicity and the Problem of Santa Claus: Replies to My Critics’, Journal of International Relations and Development 10: 57–78.
Kukla, Andrew (1996) ‘Antirealist Explanations of the Success of Science’, Philosophy of Science 63: 298–305.
Kurki, Milja (2006) ‘Causes of a Divided Discipline: Rethinking the Concept of Cause in International Relations Theory’, Review of International Studies 32 (2): 189–216.
Kurki, Milja (2007) ‘Critical Realism and Causal Analysis in International Relations’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35 (2): 361–78.
Kurki, Milja (2008) Causation in International Relations: Reclaiming Causal Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kurki, Milja (2009) ‘The Politics of the Philosophy of Science’, International Theory 1 (3): 440–54.
Kvanvig, Jonathan L. (1994) ‘A Critique of van Fraassen's Voluntaristic Epistemology’, Synthese 98: 325–48.
Lapid, Yosef (1989) ‘The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post-positivist Era’, International Studies Quarterly 33 (3): 235–54.
Laudan, Larry (1981) ‘A Confutation of Convergent Realism’, Philosophy of Science 48 (1): 19–49.
Lebow, Richard Ned (2007) ‘Social Science as an Ethical Practice’, Journal of International Relations and Development 10: 16–24.
Leon, David (2010) ‘Reductionism, Emergence, and Explanation in International Relations Theory’, in Jonathan Joseph and Colin Wight, eds, Scientific Realism and International Relations, 31–50, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Leplin, Jarrett (1987) ‘Surrealism’, Mind 96 (384): 519–24.
Lewis, Paul A. (2002) ‘Agency, Structure and Causality in Political Science: A Comment on Sibeon’, Politics 22 (1): 17–23.
McMichael, Alan (1985) ‘Van Fraassen's Instrumentalism’, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36 (3): 257–72.
Michel, Torsten (2009) ‘Pigs Can’t Fly, or Can They? Ontology, Scientific Realism and the Metaphysics of Presence in International Relations’, Review of International Studies 35: 397–419.
Minnameier, Gerhard (2004) ‘Pierce-suit of Truth — Why Inference to the Best Explanation and Abduction Ought Not To Be Confused’, Erkenntnis 60: 75–105.
Monteiro, Ruby and Keven G. Ruby (2009) ‘IR and the False Promise of Philosophical Foundations’, International Theory 1 (1): 15–48.
Moravcsik, Andrew (1997) ‘Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics’, International Organization 51 (4): 513–53.
Moravcsik, Andrew (2003) ‘Liberal International Relations Theory: A Scientific Assessment’, in Colin Elman and Miriam Fendius Elman, eds, Progress in International Relations Theory: Appraising the Field, 159–204, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Neumann, Iver B. (2002) ‘Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 31 (3): 627–51.
Niiniluoto, Ilkka (1987) Truthlikeness, Dordrecht: D Reidel Publishing Company.
Niiniluoto, Ilkka (1999a) Critical Scientific Realism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Niiniluoto, Ilkka (1999b) ‘Defending Abduction’, Philosophy of Science 66: 436–51.
Owen, David (2002) ‘Re-orienting International Relations: On Pragmatism, Pluralism and Practical Reasoning’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 31 (3): 653–73.
Patomäki, Heikki and Colin Wight (2000) ‘After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism’, International Studies Quarterly 44 (2): 213–37.
Patomäki, Heikki (2002) After International Relations: Critical Realism and the (Re)construction of World Politics, London: Routledge.
Peacock, Mark S. (2000) ‘Explaining Theory Choice: An Assessment of the Critical Realist Contribution to Explanation in Science’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 30 (3): 319–39.
Peirce, Charles Sanders (1994) The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vols I-VI, electronic edition reproducing Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss edition of 1931−1935, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Piiparinen, Touko (2009) ‘Related Powers of the United Nations: Reconsidering Conflict Management of International Organisations in Ontological Light’, Review of International Studies 35: 675–99.
Psillos, Stathis (1996) ‘On Van Fraassen's Critique of Abductive Reasoning’, The Philosophical Quarterly 46 (182): 31–47.
Putnam, Hilary (1978) Meaning and the Moral Sciences, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Putnam, Hilary (1981) Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, Hilary (1992) Renewing Philosophy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Rorty, Richard (1982) Consequences of Pragmatism — Essays: 1972–1980, Brighton: The Harvester Press.
Rorty, Richard (1991) Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers Volume 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rytövuori-Apunen, Helena (2005) ‘Forget “Post-Positivist” IR! — The Legacy of IR Theory as the Locus for a Pragmatist Turn’, Cooperation and Conflict 40 (2): 147–77.
Sayer, Andrew (2000) Realism and Social Science, London: Sage Publications.
Searle, John R. (1996) The Construction of Social Reality, London: Penguin Books.
Silberstein, Michael and John McGeever (1999) ‘The Search for Ontological Emergence’, The Philosophical Quarterly 49 (195): 182–200.
Sylvester, Christine (1994) Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sylvester, Christine (2002) Feminist International Relations: An Unfinished Journey, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tickner, J. Ann (1992) Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security, New York: Columbia University Press.
van Fraassen, Bas C. (1980) The Scientific Image, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
van Fraassen, Bas C. (1989) Laws and Symmetry, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Wæver, Ole (2007) ‘Still a Discipline After All These Debates?’, in Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith, eds, International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, 288–308, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wendt, Alexander (1987) ‘The Agent-structure Problem in International Relations Theory’, International Organization 41 (3): 335–70.
Wendt, Alexander (1992) ‘Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization 46 (2): 391–425.
Wendt, Alexander (1999) Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wight, Colin (1996) ‘Incommensurability and Cross-paradigm Communication: “What's the Frequency Kenneth?”’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 25 (2): 291–319.
Wight, Colin (1999) ‘They Shoot Dead Horses Don’t They? Locating Agency in the Agent-structure Problematique’, European Journal of International Relations 5 (1): 109–42.
Wight, Colin (2006a) Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wight, Colin (2006b) ‘Realism, Science and Emancipation’, in Kathryn Dean, Jonathan Joseph, John Michael Roberts, and Colin Wight, eds, Realism, Philosophy and Social Science, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wight, Colin (2007a) ‘A Manifesto for Scientific Realism in IR: Assuming the Can-opener Won’t Work!’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35 (2): 379–98.
Wight, Colin (2007b) ‘Inside the Epistemological Cave All Bets Are Off’, Journal of International Relations and Development 10: 40–56.
Wight, Colin (2007c) ‘A Response to Friedrich Kratochwil: Why Shooting the Messenger Does Not Make the Bad News Go Away’, Journal of International Relations and Development 10: 301–15.
Wight, Colin (2008) ‘Living with Hume's Problem: Reply to Patrick Jackson’, Cooperation and Conflict 43 (3): 358–60.
Wuisman, Jan J.J.M. (2005) ‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery in Critical Realist Social Scientific Research’, Journal of Critical Realism 4 (2): 366–94.
Acknowledgements
We thank Heikki Patomäki, Matti Jutila, David Leon, Jorge Rivas and the three external reviewers of JIRD for (both critical and constructive) comments on earlier drafts of the article. Special thanks go, without a doubt, to Patrick Jackson for his numerous suggestions and insights that helped us to finalise our argument, and to Mika Aaltola for supporting us in this line of research in the first place. We also thank the Department of Political Science at the University of Tampere, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Academy of Finland for funding that made possible the development of this article. Lastly, we’d like to thank Raymond Duvall for allowing us to present an early version of the text at the MIRC, and David Blaney for helping us to get it for a publication track after that.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Käpylä, J., Mikkola, H. ‘Getting things right?’: a reconsideration of critical realism as a metatheory for IR. J Int Relat Dev 14, 401–439 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2011.13
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2011.13