Heikki Patomaki states in, After
International Relations: Critical Realism and the (Re) Construction of World
Politics, that "I define critical realism in terms of a well-articulated
ontological realism, epistemological relativism and judgemental rationalism"
(p93).
What do people make of the claim that CR adopts
epistemological relativism? Given that one is an epistemic relativist how
does one justify judgemental rationalism?
To assert that the natural world is "real"
but that our knowledge of it is a mere social construction, that it does not
exist outside of "geo-historical processes" (p144) as far as I can see is
anything but a "realist philosophy of science". To speak frankly I do not see
how an epistemic relativist can claim that the world is "real" if our
knowledge of it is a mere social construction. Thus to say that the natural
world is real, according to Patomaki, is itself a social construction. Thus it
might be real but then again when society is reconstructed it may well turn to
be unreal, then real again and so on. A realist "philosophy of science" must
be concerned with our knowledge of the world not the world itself. Patomaki is
thus no realist. And if CR adopts epistemic relativism then neither is it. One
must be an epistemic realist.
This is an example of the epistemic fallacy. The world's
existence does not depend on our knowledge of it. Our knowledge is fallible
and socially constructed. This does NOT necessarily imply our knowledge is
wrong. It simply (1) means that the reality of the world does not depend on
our knowledge and (2) we can always be wrong. Socially constructed knowledge
is not necessarily fiction, although it likely has biases and blind
spots. The practice of dismissing anything but a "God's eye view of the world"
as falsehood is a typical
positivist practice.
Take what you wrote above. Would you say the world according to
Newton's physics was real or not? If it was real, when Einstein came along did
it become unreal? Knowledge changes, grows, and perhaps shrinks. This does not
mean the object of knowledge does so in the same
way.
Patomaki it seems to me believes in supernatural
forces. He claims that "different, emergent layers (such as biological, human
and social) are ontologically irreducible" (p8). Thus human nature has nothing
to do with biology nor do human social systems have anything to do with human
nature. If human nature cannot be reduced to biology then where does human
nature come from, God? If so, as a realist, he must prove that the
supernatural is real. If only the natural is real then human nature and human
social systems are natural kinds not "social kinds".
There is a big difference between having "nothing to
do with biology ..." etc. and "not being reducible to biology" etc. Take, for
example, water. It consists of hydrogen and oxygen, two substances that are
gaseous at room temperature and sea level and that burn in the presence of a
match. Water, however, is liquid under the same conditions and puts out fires.
While its power to do so depends on the nature of oxygen and hydrogen, the
characteristics of each alone do not explain the characteristics of water.
This argument is essentially one about emergent powers -- larger level things
have powers by virtue of the ways lower level things are combined and
structured within them. It is also one about the direction of causality: by
virtue of what logic do we think societies or water owe their characteristics
to people or oxygen/hydrogen rather than vice versa? For the atoms, it's
possible to have them alone (or at least not in combination) without water,
but for people is it possible to have them without society?
Not!
There are lots of possible answers for your question
about human nature. Besides God, there's social context, history, accident,
and life situation, to name a few.
Why
would you think only "the natural is real"? Do you think your bank account or
the U.S. constitution are unreal?
Marsh Feldman