Hibberd - Situational Realism, Critical Realism, Causation and the Charge of Positivism

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DOI: 10.1177/0952695110373423

published online 19 August 2010History of the Human SciencesFiona J. Hibberd

Situational realism, critical realism, causation and the charge of positivism

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Andersons system of philosophy provides the metaphysical foundations for an integrated

natural and social science and a curative for the fragmentation that currently exists across

the human sciences and within psychology. Examples of Andersons relevance to psychol-

ogy were supplied and differences between his realism and the then contemporary philo-sophies 20th-century logical positivism and Deweys pragmatism were noted.

The most important features of Andersonian realism can be stated briefly.1

Andersons central thesis is that there is only one way of being that whatever exists

or occurs is on the same level of reality as any other occurrence; reality is seamless. What

exists are spatio-temporally located situations that have propositional structure. From

this propositionality, the conditions of existence, or categories, can be derived. These

categories (e.g. relation, particularity, universality, causality) are the invariant features

of all occurrences irrespective of whether the situation is historical, biological, psycho-

logical, social, etc. Ergo, there is no categorialdistinction between man and nature;

distinctions between them are with respect to qualities. Situations are not constituted,

wholly or partly, by the relations they enter into or stand in. They are in continuous pro-

cess processes continuing into one anotheris causation, i.e. there is interaction at all

points. Logic is concerned with how things are and, as such, provides the most highly

generalized description of reality. Knowledge is a matter of finding out what is the case,

but as observers and reasoners, we are fallible. Mental stuff, such as ideas, beliefs, con-

cepts, percepts, images, sense data, schemas, appearances, propositional attitudes, etc.,

are all misguided reifications; mind is not a thing with content. Neither is it reducible

to brain states; cognition is relational. Similarly, social institutions and movements are

not reducible to their individual members; society is holistic in that social complexeshave characteristic ways of working not possessed by their component parts. And social

and other forces work through individuals in a thoroughly deterministic manner.

In contrast to the negligible international influence of Andersons realism, Roy Bhas-

kars critical realism has adherents in many countries from a wide range of disciplines. It

is a much more complex and worked-out philosophy than Andersons. (In fact, it is teem-

ing with distinctions, concepts, neologisms and nonce-words.) Recently, critical realism

judged situational realism to be a positivist philosophy. The basis for this charge appears

not to be the usual assumptions deemed positivist by various commentators in the

psycho-social sciences, but a cluster of ideas concerning the concept of causation. In thisarticle, I compare these two philosophies with respect to this concept. This, I hope, will

be instructive because an increasing number of researchers believe that, in critical rea-

lism, they have found a comfortable middle ground between social constructionism and

itsbe te noire, positivist philosophy.

The Critical Realists Charge of Positivism

Notwithstanding the fact that Anderson would regard critical realism as distinctlynon-

realist on a number of topics, these two philosophies obviously have common features.2

In particular:

1. Both deem ontology to be logically prior to epistemology, and neither thinks

scientific objectivity unachievable.

2 History of the Human Sciences 000(00)

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2. Both agree that the central philosophical task is to develop a general theory of being,

a realist theory of the conditions of existence.

3. Both reject an ontology of atomistic things, ofnothing butparticulars, universals,

stuff, substance and properties, Platos realism about the Forms, much of linguisticphilosophy and positivism.

4. Both employ an immanentcritique, one which aims to show that their opponent

admits implicitly what she or he denies explicitly that what is admitted implicitly

is unavoidable.

Yet Bhaskar (1999) considers critical realism to be unique as a realist philosophy

unique in its use of a transcendental method of argument, its immanent critique, its focus

on ontology, its critique of social reality, its connection with socialism, and its attention

to science. Perhaps, then, he is not (or was not) conversant with situational realism

which, I suggest, matches critical realism on every one of those features.The editor of the Dictionary of Critical Realism, however, is somewhat conversant,

though he nevertheless maintains that situational realism is just another version of

empiricism or positivism:

In Australia, the realist tradition inaugurated by the Scottish-Australian philosopher

John Anderson (18931962) explicitly saw itself as entailing empiricism and positivism

(Anderson, 1962; Baker, 1986); and, while an emergentist strand, best exemplified in the

scientific essentialism of Brian Ellis (2001), has in part grown out of that tradition, it is

an emergentism that is reductionist in relation to the sociosphere. (Hartwig, 2007: 98)

Hartwig (2007) does not elaborate on these claims and I can find no published material

where this view of Andersons realism has been proposed and defended. Presumably a

defence is deemed unnecessary given Hartwigs conviction that situational realists hap-

pily align themselves with empiricism and positivism. Perhaps because of his keenness

to uphold Bhaskars view that critical realism is unrivalled, Hartwig quickly dismisses an

alternative version of realist philosophy with the positivist epitaph.

The term positivist has been a pejorative for some time in the human sciences.3 The

mantra is that the positivist subscribes to a number of ideas that have no place in present-

day science and philosophy. Here are six of those (not necessarily independent) ideasdeemed to be positivist, or to imply positivism, and thereforepasse :

1. Objectivity scientific objectivity is achievable;

2. Value-immunity research is done from within a value-free framework;

3. Discoverability scientific knowledge is something discovered (rather than pro-

duced or constructed);

4. Scientism science is defined narrowly and any definition must include a commit-

ment to quantitative methods;

5. Logicality logic is necessary to scientific inquiry;6. Non-reflexivity a notion of reflexivity is absent.

Notably in the psycho-social sciences, a conflation of positivism and realism is not

uncommon, especially among those of a social constructionist persuasion (e.g. Brand,

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1996: 39; Denzin and Lincoln, 2005; Guba and Lincoln, 1994; Lovie, 1992; Ussher,

2002).4 One consequence is that the philosophy or metatheory that upholds just some

of the ideas above is dismissed summarily and, thereafter, nothing the positivist

says is seriously considered. At the very least, this conflation suggests a neglect of theliterature that distinguishes between realist and positivist philosophies. The anti-realist

aspects of logical positivism were long ago reported (e.g. Passmore, 1943, 1944,

1948; Stebbing, 1933, 19334) and recent work has added to this body of research

(e.g. G. P. Baker, 1988; Coffa, 1991; Earman, 1993; Friedman, 1999; Richardson,

1998). Within the social sciences, Manicas (1987) refers to logical positivism and logical

empiricism as twentieth century logical empiricism and, in a luminous and penetrating

analysis, distances it from realism; Greenwood (1992) too reminds us of the anti-realist

elements in later versions of logical empiricist philosophy. Yet, in spite of this substan-

tial literature, misconceptions persist.

To demonstrate situational realisms relationship to the ideas above would involve a sig-

nificant digression from the aim of this article. Suffice it to say that objectivity, discoverabil-

ity andlogicality are features of Andersons philosophy while value-immunity, scientism and

non-reflexivityare not (see Hibberd, 2009). Note, however, that the content oflogicalposi-

tivist philosophy was such that their conception of objectivity was compromised, value-

immunity could not be maintained, and discoverability was precluded (Friedman, 1999;

Richardson and Uebel, 2005; Weissman, 1991). In short, the only feature that situational rea-

lism has in common withlogicalpositivism is logicality, though Andersons view of logic is

very different from that of the logical positivists (Hibberd, 2005, 2009).

Still, I suspect that Hartwigs conviction of Andersonian realism as positivist involvesnone of the ideas above. It is more likely that (1) although two of the terms Anderson

used to describe his philosophy were positivist and empiricist, Hartwig has assumed

that Anderson meant by those terms something akin to current usage, and (2) Hartwig

has misjudged situational realism as a defender of Humes theory of causal laws and

thereby positivist. Critical realism, on the other hand, is highly critical of an Humean

account of causation, deductive-nomological accounts of explanation, and it defends a

levels-of-reality thesis.

Let me examine these two possibilities. First, we should not be misled by Andersons

use of the term positivism to describe his system of philosophy. By positivist, he simplymeans that his system is not just an exercise in criticism that it proposes positive theses,

especially with regard to the subject matter of logic. Andersons meaning has nothing to do

with current usage. He is referring to ideas that, if true, refer to the way the world is.5

Although the development of Andersons realism was concurrent with the halcyon days

of logical positivist philosophy, his only reference to the latter was to note its subjectivism.

However, Andersons use of the term empiricist is less straightforward. It is cer-

tainly consistent with the general definition of empiricism, that knowledge is based on

experience, but there the connection with British empiricism ends (Hibberd, 2009).

When Anderson uses the term empiricist as a thesis about knowledge, he adopts itsclassical (Greek) meaning, namely, finding out by trial and error: whatever we know

we learn in other words, that to know something is to come into active relations, to

enter into transactions, with it . . . (Anderson, 1962[1962a]: 162).6 Yet, he also

regarded empiricism as an ontological thesis:


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The distinguishing-mark [sic] of empiricism as a philosophy is that it denies this [different

kinds or degrees of truth or reality], that it maintains that there is only one way of being.

(Anderson, 1962[1927a]: 3)

Realism is . . .

an empiricist doctrine, or theory of existence as the single way of being. . . . (Anderson, 1962[1930]: 48)

This less conventional understanding of empiricism as ontological occurs for the follow-

ing reason. Anderson argues that the long-standing dispute between extreme rationalism

and empiricism always comes down to an ontological matter whetherwhatwe can

know can be oftwo (at least)quite different kinds or types: (a) truths other than matters

of fact or objects that transcend existence, and (b) contingent situations. His response is

that both types take the situational form and so we are always concerned with a single

way of being (see Hibberd, 2009). Say anything about the first type and you will findyourself affirming or denying some attribute or condition of a quantified subject, just

as you would when saying something about the second type.

Although Anderson regards empiricism as an ontological thesis, he does not treat

experience as a fundamental category. Experience, on his account, is simply one type

of relation and relation is one of a number of categories (Hibberd, 2009). Experiencing

or knowing is an occurrence or situation and what enables the knowing and what is

known are also occurrences or situations. So, these goings on are, like everything else,

subject to the general categories, the general conditions of existence. Situational realism

is, in part, an empiricist philosophy, but it is so only in the two senses (ontological and

epistemological) just outlined. Andersons descriptions of his philosophy as positivist

and empiricist are not an alignment of it with either positivist philosophy of science or

British empiricism.

Second, if we take up the critical realist ideas identified above, we can add to the list

of ideas deemed positivist and, therefore, implausible:

7. Constant conjunction a commitment to an Humean notion of causation;

8. Nomologicality science and social science are both involved in a search for

universal laws;

9. D-N model a commitment to the Hempel theory of explanation whereby expla-nation proceeds by deductive subsumption under universal laws (interpreted as

empirical regularities);

10. Existence monism a levels-of-reality thesis is absent, reality is not stratified but

seamless.

Whether Anderson is guilty as charged with respect to these four ideas is best examined

through two of critical realisms central tenets the levels-of-reality thesis and a notion

of causal powers.

Levels of Reality

Andersons treatment of reality as only one way of being returns us to a central tenet of

his philosophy: anything that exists or occurs is a spatial and temporal situation or

Hibberd 5

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occurrence that is onthe same level of reality as anything else that exists (A. J. Baker,

1986: 1). This is at odds with the ontology of critical realism.7 When Bhaskars philo-

sophy was first introduced as transcendental realism in 1975, its raison de trewas to

show that the then dominant philosophy of science, empirical realism, was mistakenin its assumption that the objects of scientific knowledge appear as conjunctions

or sequences of events (Bhaskar, 1975: 100).8 Contrary to Hartwigs (2007) belief,

Anderson would have raised no objection to this aim, having shown the defects of

Humes and Mills account some decades earlier (see Anderson, 1962[1938]). But as

Bhaskar sees it, the problem with empirical realism as a system of philosophy (and this

does mean a philosophy such as Andersons) is this:

By constituting an ontology based on the category of experience, as expressed in the con-

cept of the empirical world and mediated by the ideas of the actuality of the causal laws and

the ubiquity of constant conjunctions, three domains of reality are collapsed into one. This

prevents the question of the conditions under which experience is in fact significant in sci-

ence from being posed; and the ways in which these three levels are brought into harmony or

phase with one another from being described. (Bhaskar, 1978: 567)

Bhaskars metaphysical position is complex and the detail need not be provided here.

Suffice it to say that there are two related ways in which he attempts to establish onto-

logical depth with respect to natural and social phenomena. The first concerns the three

domains or levels referred to in the excerpt above. These are (1) the real (causal mechan-

isms, series of events or occurrences and experiences), (2) the actual (series of events oroccurrences and experiences only), and (3) the empirical (experienced events only).

According to Bhaskar (1998a: 41), these overlapping domains are stratified and each

stratum is categorically distinct. Mechanisms, events and experiences obtain at the dif-

ferent strata or levels of reality, though all have an equal ontological status; one is no less

real than any other. Any philosophy that fails to recognize these three domains (such as

Andersons) is judged by critical realists to be actualist. Actualism is the view that cau-

sal laws are constant conjunctions of events (Humes theory of causality); possibility and

natural necessity are reduced to an actuality of events and/or states of affairs. This

denies the existence of underlying structures which determine how the things cometo have their events, and instead locates the succession of cause and effect at the level

ofevents: every time A happens, B happens (Collier, 1994: 7).

Bhaskars second approach to establishing ontological depth involves the claim that

the divisions of the sciences are based in part on real stratification of the aspects of

nature of which these sciences speak (Collier, 1994: 107). Specifically, an ordered

series of causal (generative) mechanisms exists across strata. The laws of physics and

chemistry, for example, refer to the generative mechanisms at those levels and they may

explain something about biological mechanisms, though they will not explain them

away. The relations between the more basic and less basic domains are one-way rela-tions of inclusion: all animals are composed of chemical substances but not all chemical

substances are parts of animals, and so on (ibid.). So Bhaskars stratification of reality is

also a stratification of mechanisms. Concepts of rootedness, emergence and downward

causation are also invoked. Higher-level mechanisms, those of a social kind, for


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example, are rooted in, and emergent from, mechanisms at a lower level. They can

project their causal powers downward and affect changes at lower levels, such as when

psycho-social mechanisms bring about changes in a human body.

It should be immediately obvious that situational realism does not readily accommo-date the actualist label. To repeat the point made previously, Anderson rejected

Humes account of causality as constant conjunction. Andersons alternative is a philo-

sophy of process which takes causation to be pluralistic and dynamic, one that accom-

modates interaction at all points. It involves an efficient cause acting upon a causal

field to produce an effect (Hibberd, 2009). Granted that situational realism rejects all

notions of causal powers (more about that in the following section) but this does not

necessitate commitment to a constant conjunction account. And, as we have seen,

Andersons ontology is based on categories of existence, not experience. Situational rea-

lism is not an example of the empirical realism described by Bhaskar.

However, Anderson certainly thought that there are laws to be discovered in all

sciences, notwithstanding the great difficulty in doing so.9 Yet he is clearly at odds with

positivism over the nature of a law. He did not address criteria of nomologicality, but he

would reject the positivists conception of laws as simply exceptionless regularities.

And, given Andersons view of the concept of probability, he would also repudiate

Hempels inclusion of inductive-statistical explanation into the covering law model.

However, Anderson thought that laws play a role in causal explanation. Some commit-

ment to a version of the covering law model, one that takes laws to be causal connections

between situation types instantiated in particular sequences of events, is not at odds with

his system. In short, situational realism supports nomologicality but rejects the D-Nmodelof explanation.

Finally, toexistence monism. This is the thesis that there are not kinds or sorts or lev-

els of existence. Anderson frequently argued that to claim otherwise leads to the prob-

lems associated with dualism. He agrees with Bhaskar (and with Hume) that cause

and effect are spatio-temporally distinct and he recognizes the existence of causal

mechanisms interacting with other causal mechanisms, not all of which can be observed

directly. However, situational realism explicitly rejects any notion of levels of reality

(Anderson, 1962[1930]).10 This is the core of the metaphysical dispute between these two

versions of realism. Anderson shuns any levels-of-reality thesis. Bhaskar thinks thenotion absolutely necessary.

Present-day metaphysics is replete with discussion about how a hierarchical account

of nature stratified into levels is best conceptualized, and talk of levels is particularly

prominent in philosophy of mind and psychology (e.g. Martin and Sugarman, 1999). For

most discussants, a non-layered world is inconceivable and seldom do they defend their

position. The rationale appears to be that the structure of reality is indicated by the struc-

ture of science (Schaffer, 2003). This same rationale was offered some 90 years ago by

the philosopher Samuel Alexander, a major influence on Anderson. But Andersons

(2005[1944]) rather brusque response was to say that disciplinary distinctions amongsciences have a social, not ontological, basis. Current philosophy is far more terminolo-

gically complex than in Andersons day. Debates about levels of reality now involve

notions such as mereological structures, ordered supervenience structures, ordered

realization structures and ordered nomological structures. Yet, in spite of, or perhaps

Hibberd 7

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because of, these conceptual tools, the difficulty in providing a model of levels remains

(Heil, 1998, 2003b; Kim, 2002). There is some consensus that the concept superveni-

ence, which is central to the concept of emergence and a layered model of the world,

is typically characterized as a purely modal notion providing no ontological illumina-tion or explanatory depth (Heil, 1998: 154). And it is possible that the assumption that

reality is layered stems from reading off features of the world from features of our lan-

guage (Heil, 2003b: 218).

Perhaps, as Kim (2002) claims, the Cartesian model of a bifurcated world has been

transposed into a layered world. Certainly, Andersons argument against levels of reality

is just that advanced against a Cartesian account of mind and against all forms of dualism

(Hibberd, 2009). Adapting it to Bhaskars levels-of-reality thesis, the argument runs as

follows: there has to be some kind of relation between Bhaskars causal mechanisms

(supposedly located at one level, say l1) and any effects (supposedly located at another

level, sayl2). Regardless of what that relation is, it has to be described as belonging to l1,

the realm of generative mechanisms, but then so has the other term of the relation,

effects, because relations just are the connections between the items standing in those

relations. Consequently, one cannot help but treat mechanisms and their effects as joint

items in a single situation. Ergo, any ontological notion of different levels collapses.

Obviously, parts of a system can be configured to form a particular relational structure

and this system will have certain qualities, but this does not license the inference that its

qualities exist at a higher level than its parts, nor that these qualities are emergents, nor

that the psycho-social, for example, is reducible to the biological. The key point is that

levels are not part of the worlds furniture.11 Arguably, Andersons notion of non-linear, causal fields is less misleading than levels of reality. In referring to that which

is acted upon and which becomes X, there is no suggestion of higher emergents. Neither,

then, is there any suggestion of higher emergents being more evolved than lower emer-

gents, or of a lower basis being more substantial than that at a higher level. The notion of

emergents is a reification.

An objection similar to Andersons rebuttal of levels has recently been made by

Kaidesoja (2007). According to critical realism, causal mechanisms are causal powers

and Kaidesoja, though not dismissing a concept of causal power, laments the lack of

detail pertaining to Bhaskars account of powers:

From this perspective, it becomes problematic to answer to [sic] the question: how are

causal powers of things related to actual entities (e.g. observable events, processes, things

and states of affairs)? It is not enough to assert that the exercised causal powers somehow

produce the actual objects of observations, becausethe precise nature of this relation of pro-

duction remains inevitably obscure since it is hard to see how something that is categori-

cally distinct from actual entities could produce any actual spatio-temporal effects.

(Kaidesoja, 2007: 75; emphases added)

This is precisely Andersons point how can interaction across levels be explained with-

out collapsing those levels? Although Anderson and Bhaskar agree that mechanisms,

events and experiences are logically independent, this does not imply a distinction

between ontological levels.


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The Concept of Causal Powers

As we have seen, one reason for Bhaskars insistence on levels of reality is his adherence

to a concept of emergent causal powers. Generative mechanisms just are the causal pow-

ers of things (Bhaskar, 1998a: 367). The rudimentary features of critical realismsaccount of causal powers are:

1. All structures, including social structures, possess causal powers. These are their

powers to effect change. Causal powers are complex, irreducible, fundamental fea-

tures of this world (Bhaskar, 1998b: 80).

2. Causal powers are potentialities which may or may not be exercised. Can does not

equal does (Collier, 1994: 10).

3. Tendencies are causal powers (potentialities) which are exercised (set in motion).

They may not be actualized at the level of events or manifest to people. They canbe set in motion and this is independent of any outcome at the level of the actual

(Pinkstone and Hartwig, 2007: 458). The category mistake in philosophy is the con-

fusion of powers and tendencies with their realization.

To quote Bhaskar:

Things possess powers . . . to do and suffer things that they are not actually doing and suffer-

ing and that they may never actually do or suffer. It remains true to say of a Boeing 727 that it

can (has the power to) fly 600 m.p.h. even if it is safely locked up in its hangar. (1978: 87)All men (living in certain kinds of societies) possess the power to steal; kleptomaniacs

possess the tendency to do so. (1978: 230)

We know what it is like to be in a situation where we tend to lose our patience or temper

and we know what it is like keeping it. Tendencies exercised unfulfilled; shown, perhaps,

but unrealized in virtue of our self-control. (1978: 99)

This is to say we have the power to become angry and when we feel angry some of the

intrinsic enabling conditions, of a relatively enduring kind for the powers exercise, are

satisfied; we are in some state or condition to lose our temper. Bhaskar is not concernedwith the effects of a tendency there may not be any, he thinks. On any particular occa-

sion, the kleptomaniac may not steal and we may not lose our temper. Causal powers, then,

are said to be located in an ontological realm which lies beyond or behind the realms of

events and experience. Hence, the critical realists charges of empiricism-positivism and

actualism. Anderson is without a concept of powers and in maintaining that there are

no levels of reality, he fails to recognize the categorial distinctions between causal powers,

the events they may generate, and the experiences we may have of them.12

Within current mainstream philosophy, this area of metaphysics powers is topical

and is said to cleanly divide empiricists from realists, unlike the levels-of-reality thesis.Following Hume, the empiricist line is that powers are nothing at all (e.g. Carnap, 1936;

D. Lewis, 1997; Mackie, 1973; Ryle, 1949). Following Reid, Locke and Berkeley, the

realist line is that dispositions have as their basis real, causal powers. Among present-

day realist philosophers of science, a concept of powers is deemed an essential alternative

Hibberd 9

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to Humes metaphysics. Bhaskar is joined by Greenwood (1991) on this matter as they

develop the ideas of their supervisor Harre (1970). Bennett and Hacker (2003), Ellis

(2001), Heil (2003a) and Pols (1982, 1998) also retain a notion of causal powers13 as

do Andersons students, Armstrong (1997) and Molnar (2003).13

Andersons (1932) dismissal of the concept of powers draws on an infinite regress argu-

ment that, according to Anderson, Hume had directed at Locke. Here is the argument: if

something is actually done, it is claimed that it could only be done if a relevant power was

exercised. You can only doXif the power to doXis exercised, but exercising theXpower

is also to do something. Thus in order to exercise the X power, we must exercise the power

to exercise theXpower. Now we are on the path of an infinite regress, and it is a vicious

one - we can never actually do Xbecause we are always chasing the eternally elusive,

spontaneously occurring first power (McMullen, 2008, personal communication).

In addressing the question of what powers do when they are not manifested, Psillos

(2006) employs a similar regress argument. Many will find this argument unsatisfactory

(e.g. Molnar, 2003). More telling for Bhaskars account is his view that: to say thatXhas

a power to do something is to say that it possesses a structure or is of such a kind that it

will do it, if the appropriate conditions obtain (Bhaskar, 1978: 88, 231). But these two

statements are not equivalent. Here, as in other places throughout the critical realist

literature, there is an illicit movement from a relational conception of powers, as in

Xhaving the power, or ability, or capacity to do Y, to a property-type conception, as

in powers being items instantiated in structures. Xhaving the power to do Ycannot be

some kind of internal state because this takes powers to be both relationalandan intrinsic

property of whatever stands in that relation, thereby engaging the fallacy of constitutiverelations discussed in Hibberd (2009). The relation toYcannot be built into the structure

ofX. Similarly, if a power is supposed to be a component of some structure, it cannot be

characterized relationally, and its intrinsic properties must be, at least in principle, dis-

coverable. Given this erroneous conceptualization, it is unsurprising that Kaidesoja

(2007) notes the absence of detail in critical realisms conception of powers.

In hisThe Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation, Mackie (1974), a student of

Andersons, argues that the concept of powers needs to be explained in terms of causa-

tion rather than causation in terms of powers. Interestingly, critical realism sometimes

arrives at just this position, despite claims to the contrary. Take the following example:people strike matches and light cigarettes in their apartments. This is normal. But a gas

leak is not normal and should not occur. So, we ascribe the cause of the explosion which

wrecked the apartments to a quantity of gas rather than to someones lighting a cigarette.

To ask what caused the explosion, is to ask What made the difference between those

times, or those cases, within a certain range, in which no such explosion occurred, and

in this case in which an explosion did occur? (Mackie, 1974: 35). Mackies example is

not a case of similar antecedents repeatedly followed contiguously by similar successors.

In fact, it is consistent with Bhaskars observation that:

When something is cited as a cause it is, I think, most typically being viewed as that factor

which, in the circumstances that actually prevailed, so tipped the balance of events as to

produce the known outcome. Clearly such a concept is non-Humean and generative.

(1998b: 83)


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Both Mackie and Bhaskar refer to the factor that made the difference, that tipped the

balance. (Thisisnon-Humean.) Yet Mackie does so without the concepts of powers and

tendencies. More recently, P. Lewis (2000) has drawn on Mackies account because he

thinks that the critical realist theory of causal powers is at odds with their position thatsocial structure is causally efficacious.

Lastly, the empirical reason given for employing a concept of causal powers is that fun-

damental particles are said to have no internal structure: What these properties are is

exhausted by what they have a potential for doing (Molnar, 2003: 136). This, then, is

thought to license the inference that such properties are ungrounded or bare powers. Psillos

(2006), however, notes that the evidence from physics is currently incomplete. One possi-

bility is that the properties of elementary particles are grounded in symmetries (rather than

being pure powers) which act as meta-laws and thereby determine ordinary laws of nature.

So, like levels of reality, it is not obvious that powers and tendencies are part of the

worlds furniture. It is possible that their only basis is in the language of ordinary discourse.

Conclusion

My primary aim has been to consider the basis of critical realisms charge of positivism

recently directed at Andersons philosophy. In certain respects the charge differs from

the commonplace misidentification of realism with positivism. The latter tends to mis-

represent both philosophies in that various ideas are either incorrectly identified as posi-

tivist or mistakenly predicated of realism.

Critical realisms charge, on the other hand, appears to attribute Humean positivism toAndersons philosophy. But it errs in not recognizing that Anderson dismissed Humes

theory of causality asconstant conjunction, developing instead the concept of non-linear

causal fields. This points to major differences between the two versions of realism

regarding the concept of causation. Critical realism argues for a levels-of-reality thesis

and develops the notion of causal powers. Situational realism upholds existence monism

and rejects the notion of powers. Anderson repeatedly argued that to propose levels or

types of reality inevitably leads to a form of dualism. And, importantly, the basis of

situational realisms rejection of causal powers is not an empiricism which maintains

that causal powers are not real because they cannot be observed. It is rather that the crit-ical realists concept of powers involves at least two fallacies it confuses relations and

properties and it entails a vicious infinite regress.

Superficially, then, there is some substance to the critical realists charge of positi-

vism. Yes, Anderson did think that there are laws to be discovered across all the sciences.

Yes, he did defend a non-stratified reality without causal powers. But his understanding

of the nature of a law is contrary to positivist philosophy, and a non-stratified reality is

defended because Anderson did not think that contrary positions have or can overcome

the various logical obstacles entailed in their arguments. Couple this with the fact that

although Anderson shares one feature from the six ideas commonly deemed positivistlogicality his understanding of logic is quite different. Scratch away the surface and

the charge of positivism is not much of a stick to beat the realist with.

Why, then, is the positivist epitaph frequently shallow and misplaced? Psychologists

and social scientists have sometimes been chided for their complacency, ignorance and

Hibberd 11

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distortion of fundamental problems in their field (e.g. Bickhard, 1992; Koch, 1992;

Suppe, 1984). Certainly many have not kept abreast of research in the philosophy of sci-

ence. Given the vast amount of literature involved, this is excusable. What is less fathom-

able is the critics readiness to proclaim on such matters despite their unfamiliarity withthat literature. Theirs, it would seem, is a quick and easy approach to conceptual and his-

torical matters: read only secondary source material, ignore the Chinese whispers effect

and follow theZeitgeist. One consequence is that 20th century positivism and realism are

not well understood. This is why social constructionism has been hailed as a viablealter-

native to positivism when it is not (Hibberd, 2005), why positivism and realism are

sometimes said to be equivalent when they are not, and perhaps why the critical realists

dismissal of Andersons philosophy is hollow. A breakdown in the process of critical

inquiry is understandable in any scientific enterprise. Continuing to ignore that break-

down is not.

Notes

1. How they are established and/or supported is set out in Hibberd (2009).

2. Two of those topics are critical realisms theory of truth and its epistemology.

3. Almost 30 years ago, Wetherick (1979: 99) commented on [t]he ritual denunciations of posi-

tivism which preface every account of so-called radical psychology.

4. Precisely which version of positivism, and which of realism, the critic has in mind is never

stated.

5. The term positive was used in a similar sense by the American New Realists of the early

20th century who were committed to certain positive beliefs (Holt et al., 1912: 31). See the

entry Positivist in Williams (1976) for the various shifts in meaning.

6. This accords with ecological approaches to knowing (e.g. Good, 2007).

7. It is also at odds with levels-of-reality theories developed by Herbert Spencer (1922[1860]),

Samuel Alexander (1920) and Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1923). They proposed an emergent evo-

lutionism because they wanted to incorporate evolutionary theory into metaphysics. And it is

contrary to more recent attempts by Nicolai Hartmann (1953[1949]) and Paul Oppenheim and

Hilary Putnam (1958), among others, to develop the levels-of-reality thesis, though Oppen-

heim and Putnam oppose emergentism.

8. Bhaskars rationale was the intelligibility of experimental practice. When experimenters workto control certain variables, they are working to prevent certain mechanisms from interacting

in complicated ways and giving rise to a flux of events. Their aim is to obtain a regularity

under controlled conditions so as to identify the single mechanism responsible for that regu-

larity. Bhaskar concludes from this that mechanisms lie behind the regularities produced in

experimental settings. Causation is not simply conjunctions of events.

9. For arguments against the supposed impossibility and irrelevance of laws in the social

sciences, see McIntyre (1996). McIntyre finds the arguments against a lawful science of

human action to be so weak, they are little more than window dressing.

10. Of course, the word levels can be used metaphorically in the exploratory stages of inquirybut eventually it must be cashed out. A literal meaning, explicit and detailed, has to be pro-

vided if the metaphor is not to lead inquiry in the wrong direction. Anderson would argue that

levels as a metaphor cannot be cashed out.

11. It follows that there is no fundamental level either.


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12. Certainly Anderson (1962) takes the categories to be invariant across anything that exists or

occurs, because the whole point about categories, as contrasted with qualities, is that they

apply toallmaterial (Anderson, 1962[1962a]: 182).

13. Hartwigs belief, quoted on p. 3, that Elliss philosophy has links to Andersonian realism isincorrect.

14. There are, of course, differences between these accounts.

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Biographical Note

Fiona J. Hibberdis Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney. Her

research interest is the philosophy of psychology and she is the author ofUnfolding Social Con-

structionism(2005) and other papers. Her teaching includes the history and philosophy of psychol-ogy, psychoanalytic theories of personality and conceptual issues in psychometrics.

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Hibberd - Situational Realism, Critical Realism, Causation and the Charge of Positivism