Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 19:05:21 -0500 (CDT)
From: viren viven murthy <vvmurthy-AT-midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: BHA: Critical Realism and History


Hi Mervyn,

Sorry, I don't think he has yet said this in writing, but I am sure he
will deal explicitly with critical realism in his forthcoming work on
book on social theory.  My comment was based on a class I took with Sewell
during which he said that Bhaskar's work, and in particular, <<On the
Possibility of Naturalism>>, articulated philosophical theories had he had
been presupposing for sometime.  After he said this, I wanted to get his
response to Archer's criticisms of his "Duality of Structure"  article,
but he did not respond directly;  he did say that, unlike Archer, he
believed that culture was a structure, since it was also a generative
mechanism.  Archer separates the two, but I have not yet found anything in
Bhaskar that suggests that the culture cannot be a structure.


Best,

Viren   


On Tue, 27 Aug 2002, Mervyn Hartwig wrote:

> 
> Hi Viren, Toby,
> 
> >William Sewell only recently became a critical realist, but
> >claims to have been following similar principles in most of his historical
> >writings. 
> 
> Viren: If you have it ready to hand, could you please post the reference
> where he says this?
> 
> Toby: Brian Pinkstone <b.pinkstone-AT-uws.edu.au>
> has written extensively on Australian economic history, e.g. *Global
> Connections: a History of Exports and the Australian Economy* as well as
> more theoretically oriented articles in ec hist which bring in CR.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mervyn
> 
> 
> viren viven murthy <vvmurthy-AT-midway.uchicago.edu> writes
> >Welcome to the list Toby,
> >
> >I interested in applying Bhaskar's methodology to the study of
> >intellectual history and so I have also been looking for works that
> >interpret history from a critical realist perspective.
> >
> >One person who explicitly invokes a critical realist paradigm when writing
> >history is Peter Manicas.  You may want to take a look at his <<A History
> >and Philosophy of the Social Sciences>> and <<War and Democracy>>.
> >
> >William Sewell only recently became a critical realist, but
> >claims to have been following similar principles in most of his historical
> >writings.  His most famous book is <<Work and Revolution in France>>, but
> >you may also want to look at his book on Abey Seyes.  He also has an
> >important article on the  French Revolution as an event ( which he defines
> >in opposition to structure) in the journal <<Theory
> >and Society>>.
> >
> >On the other hand, I think that there would be a great deal of overlap
> >between the work of a critical realist historian and a Marxist
> >historian.  However, given Bhaskar's new turn, I suspect that
> >Transcendental Dialectical Critical Realists would deal with religion
> >differently.
> >
> >Best,
> >
> >Viren
> 
> 
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