Abstract

HAMLIN, Cynthia Lins. Critical realism: a research program for the Social Sciences. Dados [online]. 2000, vol.43, n.2, pp. 00-00. ISSN 0011-5258.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0011-52582000000200006.

The article describes critical realism as a philosophical approach that stresses some themes central to all sociological thought: the relation between philosophy and sociology; the notion of cause; the problem of naturalism; the relation between concepts, models, and reality; the relation between agency and structure, and so on. It is further argued that in positing the non-dissolution of the ontological and epistemological dimensions of knowledge, critical realism may represent a viable alternative to the dead-ends of conventionalism and skepticism found in the positivist and pragmatist approaches.

Keywords : philosophy of social sciences; realism; naturalism.