Roy Bhaskar

Roy Bhaskar
Born
Ram Roy Bhaskar

(1944-05-15)15 May 1944
Teddington, England
Died19 November 2014(2014-11-19) (aged 70)
Leeds, England
Alma mater
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolCritical realism (philosophy of the social sciences)
Doctoral advisorRom Harré
Main interests
Notable ideas

Ram Roy Bhaskar[a] (15 May 1944 – 19 November 2014) was an English philosopher of science who is best known as the initiator of the philosophical movement of critical realism (CR). Bhaskar argued that the task of science is "the production of the knowledge of those enduring and continually active mechanisms of nature that produce the phenomena of the world",[1] rather than the discovery of quantitative laws, and that experimental science makes sense only if such mechanisms exist and operate outside the lab as well as inside it.

Roy Bhaskar is certainly the most prominent advocate for "critical realism," but he did not initiate either the term or the concept. The term was used earlier by Donald Campbell (1974/1988, p. 432), and the concept of combining ontological realism and epistemological constructivism goes back at least to Herbert Blumer (1969).[2][3] Bhaskar went on to apply that realism about mechanisms and causal powers to the philosophy of social science, and he also elaborated a series of arguments to support the critical role of philosophy and the human sciences.[4] According to Bhaskar, it is possible and desirable for the study of society to be scientific.

Bhaskar was a World Scholar at the Institute of Education, University College London.[5]


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  1. ^ Bhaskar, Roy (2008). A realist theory of science. London: Verso. p. 47. ISBN 978-1-84467-204-2. OCLC 154707552.
  2. ^ Blumer, H. (1969). The methodological position of symbolic interactionism. In H. Blumer, Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.
  3. ^ Campbell, D. T. (1974). Evolutionary epistemology. In P. A. Schlipp (Ed.), The philosophy of Karl Popper, pp. 413–463. La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Co.
  4. ^ Bhaskar, Roy, 1944-2014. (2010). Reclaiming reality: a critical introduction to contemporary philosophy. London: Routledge. pp. 1–10. ISBN 978-0-203-84331-4. OCLC 712652144.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ "Biography of Roy Bhaskar". roybhaskar.wordpress.com.

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