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Critical Realism

Introduction

Critical Realism is offered as a proposed philosophical foundation for our discussions.  Many people will not feel the need for a philosophical foundation, but it may be useful to have this as a 'backstop' to help people find clarity when they cannot agree on the grounds upon which a contentious matter should be discussed.

Critical Realism is the belief that the world is real, but we only gain knowledge of the world through our experiences, and our experiences can be both partial and misleading; however, we can test our understanding and gain either a corrected understanding or greater confidence that our understanding is correct enough.  See 'NT Wright and Critical Realism' for a longer description.

This is a belief: we cannot produce evidence to test it, confirm it or disprove it.  But it is offered as a useful belief which enables us to have productive conversations about other, more practical matters.  As always, any suggested corrections, clarifications or other improvements are welcome.

Critical Realism can be expressed in a number of functionally equivalent ways, such as the following.

• There is only one truth.
• All truth is connected.

Details

One way to understand Critical Realism is to see it as a synthesis of Modernism and Postmodernism: to recognize the valid aspects of the Postmodern critique of Modernism, without abandoning the benefits provided by Modernism.  (This probably needs unpacking ...)

Critical Realism has been criticized on that basis that it is contradicted by Quantum Mechanics, but this is only the case for some interpretations of Quantum Mechanics.

Thus, you can argue that Critical Realism is incompatible with the 'Many Worlds' interpretation, but I would argue that this interpretation is, in any case, incoherent: in the classic 'Double Slit' experiment, the electron is supposed to pass through one slit in one universe and the other slit in another universe, but somehow these two electrons in two different universes are still able to interfere with each other.  (Do feel free to point out if I am misunderstanding or over-simplifying this option.)

You can also argue that Critical Realism is incompatible with our basic reality as described by Quantum Mechanics: there is not only one truth, as it is true that the electron passes through the first slot and not the second; and it is also true that it passes through the second slot and not the first.  But I think this misrepresents what Quantum Mechanics tells us about the world.  Physicists used to argue about whether light is a particle or a wave: some now say that we have discovered light is both a particle and a wave, but it is more accurate to say that we have discovered light is neither a particle not a wave - it sometimes behaves like one, sometimes behaves like the other, but is in reality something different.  A wave and a particle are both models which are sometimes useful, but they are only models.  Perhaps one day we will come up with another model which works better.  But, whatever our models say, there is only one truth: we have an electron, which behaves exactly as an electron should behave; we are confused by its behaviour and fail to understand it, but there is no constraint placed upon reality which requires it to behave in ways we can understand.