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This paper addresses the question of the relations between emotions and personhood, with a view to advancing a critical realist account of the role of emotions in social life. It is argued that the constitution of persons has to be approached from an ontological perspective, and that this raises questions about how sociology has addressed the meaning and role of emotions. Margaret Archer's critical realist perspective on them as commentaries on human concerns is broadly endorsed, but some significant correctives are proposed, especially with respect to the important distinction between primary and secondary emotions. To this end, it is argued that the affect spectrum theory advanced by Warren TenHouten can be fruitfully appended to a critical realist theory of emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constitutes an extended response to Athanasia Chalari's paper The Causal Impact of Resistance, which suggests that one may derive from internal conversations a causal explanation of resistance. In the context of our engagements with critical realism and digital research into social movements, we review Chalari's main argument, before applying it to a concrete case: the student protests in London, 2010. Whilst our account is sympathetic to Chalari's focus on interiority, we critique the individualism that is implicit in her argument, arguing that it emerges because of an underlying neglect of the relational aspects of resistance. Instead, we offer a relational realist analysis that treats resistance as process within an ontologically stratified account of reality that is mindful of the contingency of political acts. Taking this route, we establish resistance as an emergent relation, generative of distinctive 'relational goods' in the context of collective action, which we locate at different levels of reality, as we move from an analysis of individual to collective reflexivity. In doing so we offer a sympathetic critique of Chalari, building on the thought provoking arguments contained within it, whilst also making a contribution to the theorisation of social movements and the 'relational turn' within realist social theory ( Archer, 2010, 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper replies to Porpora, King, and Varela's responses to my earlier paper “For Emergence”, focussing on the relationship between the concepts of social structure and social relations. It recognises the importance of identifying the mechanisms responsible whenever we make claims for the emergence of causal powers, and discusses the mechanism underlying one case of social structure: normative institutions. It also shows how critical realism reconciles the claims that both social structures and human individuals have emergent causal powers that combine to produce actual social events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To provide rigour when preparing a research design, the researcher needs to carefully consider not only the methodology but also the philosophical intent of the study. This, however, is often absent from reported research and provides the reader with little evidence by which to judge the merits of the chosen methodology and its influence on the study. The purpose of this paper is to set out the case for critical realism as a framework to guide appropriate action in practice development and realistic evaluation for understanding the consequences of those actions. It is evident that critical realism and critical social science share common ground. Emancipatory practice development (ePD) is based on the philosophy of critical social science and therefore by virtue is linked to the tenets of critical realism. Until now, the evaluation of ePD programme has been well served by 4th-generation evaluation. However, this paper outlines the need for a different approach to evaluation, one that is based on critical realism, that is concerned with emancipation, and that can be used in the ever-changing environment of clinical practice. Realistic evaluation not only links strongly to ePD programmes, but also serves as the basis for effective research questions that will test the outcomes of the research and inform the transferability of ePD mechanisms into differing contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prominent strand within both sociological and social theory has been concerned to develop a 'systems approach' with which to explore social life. One of the most original contributions to a systems approach has arisen within critical realism. In particular critical realism demonstrates that it is possible to abstract the causal powers of different objects of analysis to examine their interaction within concrete and contingent 'open systems'. The recent dialectical turn of critical realism develops this systems approach in a much more rigorous manner. However, in this paper I argue that the (dialectical) critical realist mode of abstraction ultimately fails to embed concepts and categories internally within the specific ideological and historical forms of social relations. Or rather, critical realists do not seek to develop concepts that reflect the self-movement of a historical and contradictory essence. This self-movement is what I prefer to call a 'system'. Consequently critical realists are led to separate method from system in theory construction and such a separation leads to a problematic dualist mode of theorizing. I make these observations from a Hegelian-Marxist position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as its point of departure the contested nature of the body, in mainstream theory and the sociology of health and illness alike, this paper seeks, albeit tentatively, to chart a critical realist alternative to these debates using the controversial terrain of chronic illness and disability as a case study. A critical realist approach, it is suggested, enables us to: (i) bring the biological body, impaired or otherwise, 'back in'; (ii) relate the individual to society in a challenging, non-conflationary or non 'unidirectional' way; and (iii) rethink questions of identity, difference and the ethics of care through a commitment to real bodies and real selves, real lives and real worlds. Within all this, it is argued, modern medicine does indeed, contra disability theory and postmodern calls for the pursuit of so-called 'arche-health', have a continuing role to play in the mitigation of human pain and suffering, including the realities of chronic disabling illness conditions and the associated 'greying' of Western populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that a defining aspect of technology is the role that it plays in extending human capabilities. The conception of extension defended here is first compared with some well known extension theories from the philosophy of technology and then developed both by considering extension as a form of 'enrolment' and by integrating this conception of extension within a more general, ontological, conception of material artefacts. By drawing attention to the 'extension' aspect of technology, however, the intention is not only to distinguish technology from other material artefacts, but also to attempt to contribute to understanding of the peculiar position technology occupies in modern societies [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lack of clarity about underlying philosophical commitments leads to lack of clarity at other levels of analysis. Here I show that the literature on so-called 'causal mechanisms' is rife with conceptual problems, stemming from insufficient rigor with respect to the metaphysics of causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Examines the philosophical perspective known as critical realism argued by Roy Bhaskar. Impact of Bhaskar's work on the creation of a paradigm for constructing a critical sociology; Details on how social sciences can contribute to critical realism's future development; Description of the reciprocal reproduction of concrete human communities and the liberatory dynamics of human agency.

Discusses the fragmentation of sociology. Relationship between sociology and the philosophies of science; Discussion on an alternative philosophy for sociology based on critical realism; Implications of causal realism to sociology.

Presents several abstracts of articles which appeared in the March 1998 issue of `Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior.' `Social Ontology, and Critical Realism,' by Tobin Nelhaus; `The Break of Conversation,' by Zali Gurevitch; `Verbal Discrimination: A Neglected Chapter in the Social Psychology of Aggression,' by Carl F. Graumann.