Subject: BHA: Request for Recommendations for a "Novice" 
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 14:12:42 -0400


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Bhaskar List Members,

I am new to this list, and am seeking some help and recommendations. I'm an applied sociologist (I evaluate educational and human service programs, for a living) and am newly studying critical realism. I must say that I've found Bhaskar's work, although clearly very important, initially pretty heavy going. I am now trudging through the anthology Critical Realism Essential Readings, and simultaneously perusing Plato, etc.The Problems of Philosophy and Their Resolution. The latter book claims, apparently without irony, "to be his most accessible, to date."

My questions:

1. Are there secondary texts or articles that list members would recommend that would ease my initiation to Bhaskar, and more generally, critical realism? (I just finished , Philosophy of Social Science: the Philosophical Foundations of Social Thought, by Ted Benton and Ian Craib, which is a succinct and serviceable primer, with a chapter on CR.)

2. Are their accessible works that discuss the "practical" applications or perhaps "implications" of CR for social science research? (I've enjoyed Andrew Sayer, Method in the Social Sciences, and would welcome other suggestions.)

3. Is there a preferred order for approaching Bhaskar's writings? For example, one reader suggested looking at his writings in reverse chronological order: "Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom," "Reclaiming Reality," "Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation," "The Possibility of Naturalism," and "A Realist Theory of Science."

Many thanks in advance for your suggestions and assistance. You may choose, if you would like, to reply off-list to: bradrose1-AT-attbi.com

Brad Rose, Ph.D.
e-mail: bradrose1-AT-attbi.com
"An optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." --James Bench Cabell, The Silver Stallion, 1926

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