The Critical + Meta-Realist Critique of the

Philosophical Discourse of Modernity

Critical Realism
12 May 2014
References
Bhaskar, R. (2012) 2002. Reections on MetaReality:
Transcendence, emancipation and everyday life.
London: Routledge.

Hartwig, M. (2011). Roy Bhaskars critique of the
philosophical discourse of modernity. Journal of
Critical Realism. Volume 10, No. 4.

Hartwig, M (ed.) (2007). Dictionary of Critical Realism.
London: Routledge.
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
Modernism: the very pure ideology of the capitalist mode
of production. (Bhaskar, 2002)

Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (PDM):
the philosophical discourse that has accompanied
the rise & consolidation of the capitalist system
(17th century to present globalising phase)

- displaced a philosophical discourse
in which we dened ourselves
in relation to an enchanted cosmic order
(intrinsically meaningful, valuable, and sacred)

- justies capitalism (the remorseless logic
of nascent capitalist mode of production
& exploitation of nature & human beings alike..,
a drive to accumulation (Bhaskar 2007)
Modernism
(1) Classical Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (CM)
(2) High-Modernism (HM)
(3) The Theory & Practise of Modernism (M)
(4) Post-Modernism (PM)
(5) Western Triumphalism & Fundamentalism (T/F)

The phases form a DIALECTICAL TOTALITY:
The phases are distinct, but each phase is
partially a critique of previous phases,
unwittingly a deepening of them, &
constellationally contain
what was implicitly present in them:

T/F > PM > M > HM > CM
5 Phases of PDM
Social Upheavals
Each phase of the discourse reects some broader
change in the social order, marked by revolutionary or
counter-revolutionary transitions/upheavals:
CM
English Civil War (1640-60)
French Revolution (1789-99)
HM
The European Revolutions of 1848
Russian Revolution of 1917
M
The defeat of Fascism
The Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949,
The onset of the Cold War & post-WW 2 de-colonisation
PM
The revolutionary upsurges of 1968 & early 1970s
Vietnam War
T/F
The collapse of the Soviet Bloc (1989-1991)
2nd phase of the globalisation of capital
From Critical Realism to the Philosophy of MetaReality:
from a philosophy of science
to a philosophy of universal self-realisation

The development of Critical Realism
situated explicitly within the wider context of the PDM
serving as critique of Western philosophical tradition.

A process of double immanent critique:
a critique of PDM
and a critique of its own previous phases.

The Critical + Meta-Realist Critique of PDM
Modernism
Classical Modernism
High Modernism
Modernization
Theory & Practice
Basic Critical Realism
Transcendental Realism
Critical Naturalism
Explanatory Critique
Dialectical
Critical Realism
Philosophy
of MetaReality
Postmodernism
Triumphalism/
Endism
Transcendental
Dialectical
Critical Realism

a


d
o
u
b
l
e


i
m
m
a
n
e
n
t


c
r
i
t
i
q
u
e

PDM CRITICAL REALISM

*
Each phase in the PDM (accompanying
change in the social order & social upheaval/
transition) & dening characteristics
*
The critical & meta-realist critique: The
embedded errors in the capitalist ideology and
how they serve to preserve/promote the
capitalist agenda

*
The critical & meta-realist account of Being
Report
EGOCENTRICITY: The Modern Ego vs. & > Pre- / Non-Modern Other

The Modern Ego (individual, group, class, etc.) is:
(a) contrasted to the Pre- and Non-Modern Other, and
(b) presented as the centre and goal of the universe
(to justify the Egos manipulation & exploitation of the Other)

ABSTRACT UNIVERSALITY: Everything else
(as distinguished & contrasted from the Modern Ego)

Explicitly excluded from the Modern Ego, but tacitly included as:
(a) the object of the Modern Egos exploitation
(b) the basis for the egos self-identity
CLASSICAL MODERNISM (CM)
English Civil War (1640-60) + French Revolution (1789-99)
A false duality: What is projected as Other is essential to & constitutive of
the Modern Ego.
E Dussel: The experience of the conquest & exploitation of other peoples is
essential to the constitution of the modern ego as subjectivity that takes
itself to be the centre or end of history.

A self-contradictory/self-refuting universality:
Explicitly excludes the Other (logic of centrism vs. universality)
but tacitly includes it (logic of abstract universality; vs. centrism)
the gure of the intrinsic exterior or past
as the necessary condition of the discourse
(the rst hint of the TINA form)

Impossible to maintain because either the Ego is part of the world
(resulting in the disappearance of the non-/pre-modern Other) or
the Ego is not part of the world (de-totalising itself from the world)


CLASSICAL MODERNISM (CM)
CLASSICAL MODERNISM (CM)
Bhaskars critique

Against the Isolated, Atomistic Ego: The Self is social & interrelated with
the cosmos. People are not disconnected egos but embodied
personalities with transcendentally real selves or ground-states
therefore, interrelated.

Against abstract universality: DIALECTICAL UNIVERSALITY -
The universal does not exist apart from the singular. The individual is
concretely singularised: A human being consists in a core universal
human nature, particular mediations and the rhythmics of his world line
uniquely individuating himas in e#ect a natural kind sui generis
HIGH MODERNITY (HM)
The European Revolutions of 1848 + Russian Revolution of 1917
Critiqued the INCOMPLETE TOTALITY + LACK OF REFLEXIVITY OF CM:
* its misrepresentation of the interests of a sector as those of all humanity.
* its incapacity to sustain itself due to its false & self-contradictory claims to
dualism & universality

HMs PRONENESS TO SUBSTITUTIONISM + ELITISM

Relying on some agent other than self to e#ect the desired social change.
The intellectuals, artists, & leaders who expressed the HM standpoint did not
articulate or represent the views of the masses on whose behalf they claimed
to speak.
HIGH MODERNITY (HM)
HM culpable of its own critique of CM: What is being claimed as universal is
but the vested interests of an elite class that substituted itself for the totality

Bhaskars critique

THE PRIMACY OF SELF-REFERENTIALITY
(the self-transformation or self-realisation
of the nature of the human subject):
Emancipatory social change begins with self-change.
We cannot rely on others (working class or elites/experts) to do it for us.
Ms desire to bring up the Pre-/Non-Modern to their level

UNILINEARITY: the assumption that history should unfold
in a deterministic wayspecically, the same stages
of economic & political growth as the Western World.
Denies the multiplicity of the causes of development.

JUDGEMENTALISM:
Not only is the West/Modern superior to the non-West/non-Modern,
but there is only one correct route to progress.
THE THEORY & PRACTICE OF MODERNISM (M)
The defeat of Fascism + The Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949
+ The onset of the Cold War & post-WW 2 de-colonisation
Bhaskars critique
The deterministic cast is marked with actualism.
No laws of historical development that determine a unique sequence.
Geo-history is not an inescapable process of development
towards a pre-ordained goal, but is radically open,
contingent and uneven.

The world is an OPEN SYSTEM.
THE THEORY & PRACTICE OF MODERNISM (M)
DISENCHANTMENT: Denial of the intrinsic meaning, signicance, & value
of reality, which, as a result, becomes arbitrary & subjective.
Meaning & value is sourced at the self-dening modern subject.

Bhaskars critique

RE-ENCHANTMENT of the world: Rediscovery of the world as
intrinsically meaningful and valuable, obscured only
by the disenchanted gaze of the DEMI-REAL
because of ignorance, error, illusion in all master-slave-type societies,
reaching its fullest expression in capitalist modernity.
Need to shed the DEMI REAL and see the world as enchanted
A TOTALITY characterised by:
(a) INTERNAL RELATIONALITY: Relations are not merely external
and mechanical, but internal, organic, holistic, totalising; and
(b) HOLISTIC CAUSALITY: The mode of operation of a complex totality
in which the form/structure of elements causally determines
the elements as well as the whole.
THE THEORY & PRACTICE OF MODERNISM (M)
POST MODERNISM (PM)
The revolutionary upsurges of 1968 & early 1970s
A backlash vs. the entire tradition of the PDM
A reaction against the abstractly (actualising) universalising tendency of PDM,
which obliterates identity & di#erence (which peaked in M theory & practice)
Founded on the aspiration to speak on behalf of the excluded

Critique of FORMALISM: the glorication of formal, analytical, abstract,
quantitative modes of reasoning & modes of being;
& the prioritisation of discursive modes of reasoning
over intuitive modes of reasoning
Critique of FUNCTIONALISM: the resulting instrumentalist mode of
manipulating nature (plasticity of nature or the non-ego) and
of treating human beings as objects of instrumental reasoning & practice.
POST MODERNISM (PM)
Critique of MATERIALISM (reductionist in theory, mechanical in practice):
Denying or underestimating the role of ideas, consciousness,
& human intentionality & agency in geo-history

Hinges on the sense of an absolute separateness of the Modern Ego
from the rest of the world & thus underwrites the establishment
of the master-slave relationship between the Modern & Non-Modern,
and the manipulative treatment of people & objects

Bhaskars critique

The PM critiques of Modernism are necessary, but inadequate & misleading
because of the following: PMs ONTOLOGICAL IRREALISM,
EPISTEMOLOGICAL RELATIVISM, & JUDGEMENTAL IRRATIONALITY,
its PROXIMITY TO THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY & DIFFERENCE,
its HEIGHTENED BUT UNSUSTAINABLE SENSE OF REFLEXIVITY,
as well as its LACK OF UNIVERSALITY, TOTALITY,
& A CONCEPTION OF EMANCIPATION.
POST MODERNISM (PM)
ONTOLOGICAL IRREALISM: the denial of ontology (also by Modernism)
& the denial of the possibility of saying anything
about the true nature of reality. Vs. 1Moment of ontology
(Ontological Realism as a commitment to a real world)

EPISTEMOLOGICAL RELATIVISM + JUDGEMENTAL IRRATIONALITY:
PMs emphasis on di#erence, relativity, & pluralism due to a perceived
incompatibility between Ontological Realism & Epistemological Relativism,
and between both and Judgemental Rationalism (which is a commitment
to the rationality of choice). The result is Judgemental Irrationality
(the denial of the possibility of giving better or worse grounds for a belief)

PROXIMITY TO THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY & DIFFERENCE:
the denial of anything universal as a reaction to HM elitism; and as a result,
its LACK OF UNIVERSALITY & inability to come to terms
even with its own universality.
POST MODERNISM (PM)
HEIGHTENED BUT UNSUSTAINABLE SENSE OF REFLEXIVITY:
Improvement over Modernism, but baby thrown out with the bathwater:
Loss of all interconnectedness & unity of humanity & living forms.
Vs. CRs DIALECTICAL UNIVERSALITY: Every universal is always
concretely singularised, and every being as a concrete singular can only
be universalised dialectically. $ CMs ABSTRACT ACTUALIST UNIVERSALITY
LACK OF A CONCEPTION OF EMANCIPATION: Due to its incapacity for
Judgemental Rationality, to give better or worse grounds for a belief.

LACK OF TOTALITY: Incapacity to sustain a coherent totality
& a notion of itself: It duplicates the Modern Ego vs. Pre-Modern duality
by positing its own Post-Modern vs. Modern duality.

By mistaking Epistemological Relativism as mutually exclusive
with Ontological Irrealism and Judgmental Rationality,
PM undermines its own capacity to sustain itself,
unable to provide ground for its own discourse.
TRIUMPHALISM + FUNDAMENTALISM (T/F)
Emphatic reassertion of bourgeois TRIUMPHALISM and ENDISM

TRIUMPHALISM: exaggeration of human powers (or those of a class, group)
to know, to possess, to control

ENDISM: Alleged attainment of the end of history & denial
of the ongoing nature of geohistoricity:
No more qualitative social & institutional change or ideologies of change
thus: no alternative to capitalism (as exemplied by Francis Fukuyama)

Hegel: World history travels from east to west; for Europe is the absolute end
of history, just as Asia is the beginning
The collapse of the Soviet Bloc (1989-1991)
2nd phase of the globalisation of capital
FUNDAMENTALISM or (Market or Religious or Epistemological)
FOUNDATIONALISM: the regressive, fear-based & often religiously
inspired forms of Fundamentalism bred by Western Triumphalism.
Ones knowledge is incorrigible or certain because it is based on
indubitable principles, resulting in an egocentricity that splits reality into 2:
those that conform and those that do not.

Like PM, Fundamentalism rejects universality and unity
and accepts the essentiality of di#erence.
But unlike PM, it claims that Im right; youre wrong
vs. PMs There is no right or wrong.
(A denial of Epistemological Relativism?)

In bourgeois TRIUMPHALISM and ENDISM, the ideology of neoliberalism
and neoconservatism proclaims the end of ideology.
The infallibility of the market is the means to solve
all forms of problems and crises.
TRIUMPHALISM + FUNDAMENTALISM (T/F)
TRIUMPHALISM + FUNDAMENTALISM (T/F)
Bhaskars critique
ONTOLOGICAL MONOVALENCE: the third great error of Western
Philosophy (aside from the Epistemic Fallacy and Actualism)

Being as purely positive, devoid of absence or negativity
- underpinned ultimately by the fear of change on the part
of the ruling elites
- refuted by the transcendental deduction of the category of
ABSENCE or REAL NEGATION & contrasts
with ONTOLOGICAL POLYVALENCE
which vindicates the reality of ABSENCE & ABSENTING
& embraces CHANGE
Moment of
the PDM
Dening
Characteristics
Moment of CR/
PMR
Being as
CM
(1) egocentricity
(2) abstract
universality
TR (1M)
NON-IDENTITY
STRUCTURED,
DIFFERENTIATED &
CHANGING
HM
(3) incomplete
totality
(4) lack of
reexivity
CN (2E)
PROCESS
ABSENCE (or
NEGATIVITY),
CONTRADICTION,
EMERGENCE
M
(5) unilinearity
- judgementalism
- disenchantment
Exp Crit (3L)
TOTALITY
INTERNAL
RELATIONALITY,
HOLISTIC CAUSALITY
PM
(6) formalism
- functionalism
(7) materialism
DCR (4D)
TRANSFORMATIVE
AGENCY
TRANSFORMATIVE
PRAXIS & REFLEXIVITY
T/F
(8) ontological
monovalence
TDCR (5A)
SPIRITUALITY
PMR (6R)
ENCHANTMENT
(7A/Z)
NON-DUALITY
TRANSCENDENCE

INTRINSICALLY
MEANINGFUL,
VALUABLE, & SACRED

ABSOLUTE
The critique of the
egocentricity &
abstract universality
corresponds to
Transcendental
Realisms critique
of the atomistic &
actualistic world
view of Empirical
Realism, & the
absence of the
possibility of an
account of ontology
identied at 1M
(Thinking Being as
NON-IDENTITY).
Moment of
the PDM
Dening
Characteristics
Moment of CR/
PMR
Being as
CM
(1) egocentricity
(2) abstract
universality
TR (1M)
NON-IDENTITY
STRUCTURED,
DIFFERENTIATED &
CHANGING
HM
(3) incomplete
totality
(4) lack of
reexivity
CN (2E)
PROCESS
ABSENCE (or
NEGATIVITY),
CONTRADICTION,
EMERGENCE
M
(5) unilinearity
- judgementalism
- disenchantment
Exp Crit (3L)
TOTALITY
INTERNAL
RELATIONALITY,
HOLISTIC CAUSALITY
PM
(6) formalism
- functionalism
(7) materialism
DCR (4D)
TRANSFORMATIVE
AGENCY
TRANSFORMATIVE
PRAXIS & REFLEXIVITY
T/F
(8) ontological
monovalence
TDCR (5A)
SPIRITUALITY
PMR (6R)
ENCHANTMENT
(7A/Z)
NON-DUALITY
TRANSCENDENCE

INTRINSICALLY
MEANINGFUL,
VALUABLE, & SACRED

ABSOLUTE
The critique of
incomplete totality &
lack of reexivity
corresponds to
Critical Naturalisms
critique of the splits
& dichotomies of
social thought,
& the absence of a
discourse on
negativity,
contradictions,
change, &
emergence (the
positive bipolar of
absence) as inherent
features of social life
identied on 2E
(Thinking Being as
PROCESS).
Moment of
the PDM
Dening
Characteristics
Moment of CR/
PMR
Being as
CM
(1) egocentricity
(2) abstract
universality
TR (1M)
NON-IDENTITY
STRUCTURED,
DIFFERENTIATED &
CHANGING
HM
(3) incomplete
totality
(4) lack of
reexivity
CN (2E)
PROCESS
ABSENCE (or
NEGATIVITY),
CONTRADICTION,
EMERGENCE
M
(5) unilinearity
- judgementalism
- disenchantment
Exp Crit (3L)
TOTALITY
INTERNAL
RELATIONALITY,
HOLISTIC CAUSALITY
PM
(6) formalism
- functionalism
(7) materialism
DCR (4D)
TRANSFORMATIVE
AGENCY
TRANSFORMATIVE
PRAXIS & REFLEXIVITY
T/F
(8) ontological
monovalence
TDCR (5A)
SPIRITUALITY
PMR (6R)
ENCHANTMENT
(7A/Z)
NON-DUALITY
TRANSCENDENCE

INTRINSICALLY
MEANINGFUL,
VALUABLE, & SACRED

ABSOLUTE
The critique of the
fundamental features
of Modernism
unilinearity,
judgementalism,
& disenchantment
corresponds to the
Explanatory Critique
of the fact-value split
and remedies the
exclusion of values
at 3L (Thinking Being
as TOTALITY).
Moment of
the PDM
Dening
Characteristics
Moment of CR/
PMR
Being as
CM
(1) egocentricity
(2) abstract
universality
TR (1M)
NON-IDENTITY
STRUCTURED,
DIFFERENTIATED &
CHANGING
HM
(3) incomplete
totality
(4) lack of
reexivity
CN (2E)
PROCESS
ABSENCE (or
NEGATIVITY),
CONTRADICTION,
EMERGENCE
M
(5) unilinearity
- judgementalism
- disenchantment
Exp Crit (3L)
TOTALITY
INTERNAL
RELATIONALITY,
HOLISTIC CAUSALITY
PM
(6) formalism
- functionalism
(7) materialism
DCR (4D)
TRANSFORMATIVE
AGENCY
TRANSFORMATIVE
PRAXIS & REFLEXIVITY
T/F
(8) ontological
monovalence
TDCR (5A)
SPIRITUALITY
PMR (6R)
ENCHANTMENT
(7A/Z)
NON-DUALITY
TRANSCENDENCE

INTRINSICALLY
MEANINGFUL,
VALUABLE, & SACRED

ABSOLUTE
The critique of
formalism,
functionalism, &
materialism
corresponds
to 4D of Dialectical
Critical Realism:
Thinking Being as
TRANSFORMATIVE
REFLEXIVITY &
PRAXIS
oriented towards
the absenting of
absences
(the elimination
of both negative
and positive
incompleteness)
in the dialectic of
desire to freedom.
Moment of
the PDM
Dening
Characteristics
Moment of CR/
PMR
Being as
CM
(1) egocentricity
(2) abstract
universality
TR (1M)
NON-IDENTITY
STRUCTURED,
DIFFERENTIATED &
CHANGING
HM
(3) incomplete
totality
(4) lack of
reexivity
CN (2E)
PROCESS
ABSENCE (or
NEGATIVITY),
CONTRADICTION,
EMERGENCE
M
(5) unilinearity
- judgementalism
- disenchantment
Exp Crit (3L)
TOTALITY
INTERNAL
RELATIONALITY,
HOLISTIC CAUSALITY
PM
(6) formalism
- functionalism
(7) materialism
DCR (4D)
TRANSFORMATIVE
AGENCY
TRANSFORMATIVE
PRAXIS & REFLEXIVITY
T/F
(8) ontological
monovalence
TDCR (5A)
SPIRITUALITY
PMR (6R)
ENCHANTMENT
(7A/Z)
NON-DUALITY
TRANSCENDENCE

INTRINSICALLY
MEANINGFUL,
VALUABLE, & SACRED

ABSOLUTE
Ontological
Monovalence
is a distortion
of that aspect
of the absolute
that we call
the Ground State &
the Cosmic Envelope
at 5A, 6R, & 7A/Z
(Thinking Being
as Transcendent,
Enchanted, &
Absolute).
Moment of
the PDM
Dening
Characteristics
CR/PMR Concepts
& Critique
Moment of CR/
PMR
Being as
CM
(1) egocentricity
(2) abstract
universality
the self as social &
interrelated with cosmos;
dialectical universality
TR (1M)
NON-IDENTITY
STRUCTURED,
DIFFERENTIATED &
CHANGING
HM
(3) incomplete
totality
(4) lack of
reexivity
open totality, reexivity; vs.
HMs substitutionism,
elitism, reductive
materialism
CN (2E)
PROCESS
ABSENCE (or
NEGATIVITY),
CONTRADICTION,
EMERGENCE
M
(5) unilinearity
- judgementalism
- disenchantment
multilinearity, open
systems; dialogue;
re-enchantment
Exp Crit (3L)
TOTALITY
INTERNAL
RELATIONALITY,
HOLISTIC CAUSALITY
PM
(6) formalism
- functionalism
(7) materialism
unity in diversity; vs. PMs
judgmental irrationalism &
lack of concept of
emancipation
DCR (4D)
TRANSFORMATIVE
AGENCY
TRANSFORMATIVE
PRAXIS & REFLEXIVITY
T/F
(8) ontological
monovalence
ontological polyvalence; the
reality of absence; critique of
materialism (consciousness
implicit in being); vs. subject-
object duality; false absolute
of market & other
fundamentalisms
TDCR (5A)
SPIRITUALITY
PMR (6R)
ENCHANTMENT
(7A/Z)
NON-DUALITY
TRANSCENDENCE

INTRINSICALLY
MEANINGFUL,
VALUABLE, & SACRED

ABSOLUTE