If "critical realism" is followed to its logical conclusion, then we impose our concepts upon the world, and they do not help us interpret the world but occlude it from our view.
I'm not sure I'm following the distinctions... obviously reality and interpretation/meaning always play into things, the question is how. I feel like you are viewing critical realism like a detached post-modern subjectivism, rather than what I understand to be a humble empiricism. I think critical realism agrees that you have a direct experiences from reality, but recognizes that how that actually lands with us is complicated... e.g. Jacob deceiving Isaac to appear as Esau.
Can't we distinguish a Critical Direct Realism, rather than a Naive Direct Realism which doesn't take into account the journey of meaning building? Can we touch grass and recognize the impact of conceptual frameworks (and other embodied ways of knowing and relating...)? Are you worried that critical realism makes a way for a totalizing presuppositionalism?
I appreciate this intervention. My first stab at writing this comment was turning into a blog post, so I'll just save it for that. But generally, I think we need to get a sense of what we're trying to avoid on both sides: On the one side, there's skepticism of different kinds, including the postmodern subjectivist kind. On the other, there are kinds of realism that have something wrong with them, either dogmatism or naiveté. To show our avoidance of these, I'll say that we're all after sophisticated realism. I think the question is what way sophistication lies!
In particular, the suggestion that sophistication comes from recognizing conceptions and meaning-building as mediating between us and reality is not what I think. There is some element of that that I appreciate and want to incorporate in my understanding, but the idea of mediation by concepts, etc. is the target of some of my arguments, because I see it as related to different kinds of skepticism and dogmatism. (At Wheaton, I saw a postmodern skepticism that posed as sophisticated but threatened to undermine Christian faith. At Westminster, I saw a Christian dogmatism that attempted to adopt the correct conception/worldview all at once, with no further empirical input or discussion across perspectives necessary.)
I'll dig into it more in a post, but I would present empiricism as the path to sophistication, that is, constant returning to experience of the world to verify, correct, and amplify one's understanding. Experience and perspective are important not because we all have subjective perspectives, and that's the best we can do. (All we can hope is to respect lots of people's subjective experience.) Instead, experience and perspective are important because they provide different data on the one, common world in which we live, different corners and facets of objective reality. Without constant data-gathering and triangulation with others, we cannot be sure that we are not ourselves viewing things from a limited (and therefore, subjective) perspective.
I'll be interested to see how some of this plays out at Revoice next week. Looking forward to meeting you guys in person!
I'm not sure I'm following the distinctions... obviously reality and interpretation/meaning always play into things, the question is how. I feel like you are viewing critical realism like a detached post-modern subjectivism, rather than what I understand to be a humble empiricism. I think critical realism agrees that you have a direct experiences from reality, but recognizes that how that actually lands with us is complicated... e.g. Jacob deceiving Isaac to appear as Esau.
Can't we distinguish a Critical Direct Realism, rather than a Naive Direct Realism which doesn't take into account the journey of meaning building? Can we touch grass and recognize the impact of conceptual frameworks (and other embodied ways of knowing and relating...)? Are you worried that critical realism makes a way for a totalizing presuppositionalism?
David,
I appreciate this intervention. My first stab at writing this comment was turning into a blog post, so I'll just save it for that. But generally, I think we need to get a sense of what we're trying to avoid on both sides: On the one side, there's skepticism of different kinds, including the postmodern subjectivist kind. On the other, there are kinds of realism that have something wrong with them, either dogmatism or naiveté. To show our avoidance of these, I'll say that we're all after sophisticated realism. I think the question is what way sophistication lies!
In particular, the suggestion that sophistication comes from recognizing conceptions and meaning-building as mediating between us and reality is not what I think. There is some element of that that I appreciate and want to incorporate in my understanding, but the idea of mediation by concepts, etc. is the target of some of my arguments, because I see it as related to different kinds of skepticism and dogmatism. (At Wheaton, I saw a postmodern skepticism that posed as sophisticated but threatened to undermine Christian faith. At Westminster, I saw a Christian dogmatism that attempted to adopt the correct conception/worldview all at once, with no further empirical input or discussion across perspectives necessary.)
I'll dig into it more in a post, but I would present empiricism as the path to sophistication, that is, constant returning to experience of the world to verify, correct, and amplify one's understanding. Experience and perspective are important not because we all have subjective perspectives, and that's the best we can do. (All we can hope is to respect lots of people's subjective experience.) Instead, experience and perspective are important because they provide different data on the one, common world in which we live, different corners and facets of objective reality. Without constant data-gathering and triangulation with others, we cannot be sure that we are not ourselves viewing things from a limited (and therefore, subjective) perspective.
I'll be interested to see how some of this plays out at Revoice next week. Looking forward to meeting you guys in person!