From: "bhandaric" <bhandaric at prodigy.net> Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 23:35:05 -0700
Haven't read Bhaskar himself, and am away from my books. But I highly recommend several important works influenced by him (well not his writing style): Peter Manicas' history of the social sciences (an imposingly erudite philosophical argument for the social sciences as an explanatory rather than predictive enterprise), Andrew Sayer's book on method (the discussion of statistical analysis is quite helpful) and Andrew Collier's introduction to critical realism (the idea of an explanatory critique is persuasively developed). Wm Outhwaite's books on method and Habermas are also excellent.; the former is one of the few serious English language treatments of Max Adler.
Carchedi has criticized Bhaskar for his use of the idea of closed system, itself borrowed from (bourgeois) general systems theory.
Yet as critical people, I think most of us will find stimulating and helpful Bhaskar's concept of an explanatory critique. Really there is nothing in common with Chopra's feel good nonsense.
As for Bhaskar's argument that science presupposes certain ontological assumptions, I cannot comment. In his latest book Nicholas Rescher has argued for self awareness and clarity as to our often implicit differentiation between the ontological assumptions we make as a matter of methodogical convenience or for the purposes of economy of thought (e.g. linear relations hold) and to our actual knowledge of the complexity of the world.
Yours, Rakesh