The question of epistemic fallacy in practical research: the case of IR

ABSTRACT

In international politics, bridging the gap between the real and knowledge poses a persistent challenge as translating the real into concepts and narratives can nurture the epistemic fallacy. Critical realism addresses this by separating ontology from epistemology at the meta-theoretical level, yet in practical research, critical realism tends to impose assumptions about the ontological complexity of the real at the transcendental level. This paper examines the practical difficulty of overcoming the epistemic fallacy in International Relations inquiries, asserting that critical realism does not effectively guide practical inquiries in separating ontology from epistemology at a methodological level. Despite the meta-theoretical separation, research inquiries can remain theory-laden and epistemically dependent. The solution lies in problematizing ontological presentation, and sustaining critique at the discursive level on International Relations theories, methodologies, and implications. This approach maintains a critical focus on ontological aspects at the practical level to deal with the challenge of the epistemic fallacy.

KEYWORDS:

• The epistemic fallacy
• critical realism
• methodology
• theory
• international relations
• problematization

Introduction

In international relations (IR), like many other research areas in social sciences, we mainly deal with interpretations of realities. The gap between ‘the real’ and ‘knowledge’ has been a significant concern in producing knowledge. This led to a critical discussion about ontology and epistemology in social sciences, including IR, and the role of theories and methodologies in bridging the gap between the real and interpretations. For example, movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan should be considered terrorist organizations or insurgent movements? Similarly, Hamas in Palestine should be framed as a terrorist organization or a freedom fighter? Although our knowledge about the real can be relative and constitutive, the gap between the real and knowledge has been a central concern in methodological debates, regardless of being positivist, relativist, or critical realist. When the knowledge doesn't represent the real or misrepresents the real, then there is the epistemic fallacy that should be addressed  – there is the epistemic fallacy because the perceived ‘knowledge’ reduces the real to its (miss)presentation. Drawing on Bhaskar, the ‘epistemic fallacy’ refers to a reduction of reality to our knowledge about reality. In other words, the epistemic fallacy refers to conceptualizing ontology in the domain of knowledge; consequently, it denies ontology beyond our experiment, language, and discourse (Bhaskar 2005). According to Bhaskar, the epistemic fallacy occurs when the ontology is reduced to ‘the definition of being in terms of knowledge’ at the meta-theoretical level (Bhaskar 1991, 8). However, this paper focuses on the practical level, and thus, the epistemic fallacy refers to the conceptualization of international complexities in the domain of dominant ideas embedded in experimentation and language that would create a gap between the real and knowledge. Here, ontology refers to the nature of being, and epistemology refers to the knowledge about the nature of being (Wight 2006, 26; Bhaskar 2008, 5).

The key question is how we bridge the gap between the real and the knowledge. This question is not new, but it still requires a critical examination. To do so, this paper focuses on the critical realism (CR) response to the epistemic fallacy and critically examines the shortcomings in practices in the context of IR. A variety of methodological and philosophical views, such as positivism, post-positivism, and critical realism, made significant efforts to bridge the gap between the real and the knowledge (Jackson and Nexon 2009; Kurki 2008; Wight 2017). These philosophical approaches have deeply impacted today's IR theoretical debates and their methodological implications (Wendt 1999; Wight and Joseph 2010). For example, in IR, liberalism (and its strands), realism (with its strands) and constructivism have different philosophical views on ontology, epistemology, and methodology (Ashley 1984; Cox 1981; Dunne, Kurki, and Smith 2013). Critical realism is the most recent one, which offered a philosophical analysis of the gap between the real and the knowledge at the meta-theoretical level and argued that the deep structure of the real is unobservable and thus reducing it to our interpretation causes the epistemic fallacy problem. Critical realists preach that the stratified nature of reality is ‘hierarchical and [has] differentiated systems’ (Rutzou 2017, 409) with an unobservable deeper structure. To avoid reducing the real into the epistemic domain, it seems that the deeper structure (ontology) should be assumed or claimed before epistemic premises (epistemology). However, explaining the deeper structure (causal power) of real (ontology) seems complicated without any epistemological departure point. Thus, I argue that CR does not provide a practical solution to how methodologically it is possible to ontologically assume and explain underlying mechanisms without epistemic presuppositions in abstracts, concepts, and theories.

At the same time, the issue of the epistemic fallacy is considered in alignment with CR's core argument, which advocates for ontological realism with a stratified nature, epistemological relativism, which asserts that beliefs are socially produced and knowledge is transient; and judgmental rationalism, emphasizing the crucial role of human judgment and reasoning in the scientific process. Hence, unlike judgmental relativism, CR argues that all beliefs are not equally valid (Bhaskar 1998a, 236); therefore, it remains theoretically possible to make choices between competing theories (Danermark 2002, 202; Wight 2006, 26). As such, CR does not advocate for an absolutist epistemological position; instead, it is open to competing theories through further research, discussion, and debate to discover the truth. Although there is always room for debate and further research, knowledge production is a social process prone to the danger of the epistemic fallacy. To overcome the epistemic fallacy problem, CR advocates judgemental rationalism and some methodological solutions to reach the most plausible explanation of the real (will be detailed in section 4).

It is worth noting that there has been considerable attention to the epistemic fallacy problem, relativism, and the possibility of knowledge within the literature (Al-Amoudi and Willmott 2011; Bhaskar 1998b; 1998a; Cruickshank 2004; Groff 2004). However, the discussion remained mainly at the meta-theoretical and philosophical level, with little attention to ontological presentation in practical research. This paper specifically focuses on the influence of epistemic concepts in social inquiry, producing knowledge, and judging competing theories. Hence, this paper is not about the concept of truth or knowledge; instead, it focuses on the possibility of inquiry and the presentation of the real based on CR promises. The paper argues that although there are modes of inferences suggested in CR philosophy, methodologies at the practical level remain epistemically dependent and this increases the risk of the epistemic fallacy (this will be detailed later). Particularly, data collection and analysis fundamentally depend on the theoretical framework, which defines the departure point of ontological analysis. This makes the risk of the epistemic fallacy highly probable in IR and, thus, poses a methodological question of how it is possible to capture the real ontology without a conceptual departure point. This question is not against CR's core philosophical argument about separating ontology and epistemology; rather, my argument focuses on the gap between the real and the knowledge at the practical level and thus examines the epistemic fallacy in practice through CR's lens of analysis. Although it seems that there is no solution for avoiding the epistemic fallacy in practical research, CR provides a critical awareness of the possibility and contingent of the epistemic fallacy compared to positivism and post-positivism by addressing it at the meta-theoretical level (Bhaskar 2005).

Given this, there are methodological challenges at the practical level to avoid reducing the real (ontology) to the domain of knowledge (epistemology). Exploring the real is an epistemic-dependent move because our departure point is embedded with concepts and theories. Theories, concepts, and research designs (e.g. strategies for data collection and analysis) provide an epistemological departure in practical research. Theories and concepts hold epistemic dispositional properties and hold the ontological configuration of the real; and this conceptual configuration ‘serves as a sound bridge’ between the real world and our understanding of it (Wonka 2007, 49). My second argument is to problematize the presentation of the real within any conceptual configurations such as theories, narratives, and discourses. This is a consistent problematization of ontological presentation of the real to enhance critical thinking and make judgmental rationalism possible about both the real and the knowledge, addressing the gap between the real and the knowledge. Therefore, a two-level critical awareness is required to address the epistemic fallacy and methodological limitation. First, we should encompass constant critique in the domain of knowledge, including concepts, theories, and promises. This helps to critically examine the presentation of ontology in the domain of knowledge to problematize how and why reality is presented or configured in a particular way (to be detailed later). Second, we should consider critical methodology by asking the question of how the deployment of methodology in research became possible and justified because methodologies are not concept-free procedures. These enable one to check the epistemic fallacy through constant critique (Levine 2012). Hence, his paper refreshes our thinking about the gap between real and knowledge and examines the epistemic fallacy problem in practical research. This helps to bring the debate about the epistemic fallacy from the meta-theoretical level to theories and practical research and enhances critical thinking in social science.

To detail the argument, this paper is divided into the following sections. First, it details the epistemic fallacy discussion in CR to offer a broader context for the argument and shows how it is important to employ it at the practical level. It follows with an examination of the epistemic fallacy discussion in IR debates. It then explores epistemic fallacy in practical research by examining modes of inferences and the impacts of theory on data gathering and analysis. After that, the paper discusses limitations within the methodology, highlighting the necessity of critical awareness of it through the problematization of the ontological presentation. Finally, the paper discusses critical thinking related to the epistemic fallacy and offers suggestions for the debate, which is important to sustain critique within the discipline.

A critical realist theory of ontology and the epistemic fallacy issue

The issue of the epistemic fallacy in practice is largely overlooked in IR scholarship. Leading critical realist scholars in IR, such as Patomäki, Wight and Kurki, do not focus explicitly on the epistemic fallacy issue in their main works (Kurki 2008; Patomäki 2002; Wight 2006). They all nod toward Bhaskar's explanation of the epistemic fallacy at the meta-theoretical level. Bhaskar coined the term ‘the epistemic fallacy’ to criticize positivism and the post-positivism (Bhaskar 2005). According to Bhaskar, both strands are the victim of the epistemic fallacy due to reducing ontology to experimental conditions and language. IR critical realists have drawn on Bhaskar and advocated that ontology has a deep and unobservable structure that functions as a causal power behind events, processes, and actions. Wight argues, ‘Putting ontological matters at the heart of analysis reverses a longstanding dogma of traditional IR scholarship’ (Wight 2006, 2). However, it is not clear enough how focusing on ontology instead of epistemology in practice is possible and helps research.

It is important to note that CR is not just about metaphysical debates, it is also a philosophy about the nature of reality, and thus, the issues of the epistemic fallacy should also be addressed in practice. According to CR, the reality is not a single entity; instead, it is a multi-layered or stratified phenomenon (Bhaskar 2008). Based on this analogy, ontological strata of reality include three levels: the real, actual, and empirical. The domain of the real includes mechanisms, events, and experiences; the domain of actual includes events and experiences; the domain of the empirical only includes experiences. In short, reducing these levels of reality to one, based on empirical regularities in positivism, or reducing the real to language/discourse, or reducing the complexity of social structures to individuals in sociological individualism, would cause the epistemic fallacy. In addition, the real is an intransitive object for research that designates deeper relations, structures, and the generative mechanism, which exist independent of our knowledge and inquiry (Bhaskar 2005). Thus, human knowledge about the generative mechanism of the deeper structure is relative and fallible; therefore, the epistemic fallacy in practice is not only possible but a crucial part of producing knowledge. Following Bhaskar, to avoid the epistemic fallacy in IR inquiry, one should prioritize ontology over epistemology, and the real should be conceived as multi-layer and beyond our knowledge. First, the world is out there beyond social interactions, language, theories, and knowledge. Second, the reality is stratified and differentiated beyond the experimental condition. Third, therefore, ontology is not reducible to our understanding of it or to epistemology. Consequently, reducing ontology to epistemology or knowledge causes the epistemic fallacy.

The distinction between transitive and intransitive domains of knowledge in the epistemic fallacy analysis makes it more urgent to examine the epistemic fallacy in practice. Ontology belongs to the intransitive object of research called the ‘open system’ (the domain of the real), while epistemology belongs to the transitive dimension, encompassing concepts and theories derived from a closed system. Critical realists characterize the social world as an open system and posit that it is characterized by a constellation of structures, mechanisms, and other entities responsible for the observable patterns of events (Mukumbang, De Souza, and Eastwood 2023, 513). The open system in IR is complex, encompassing power relations, interventions, conflicts, refugee crises, international organizations, norm contestations, ideologies, and the hierarchical nature of the international system. Treating the international as a closed system contributes to the epistemic fallacy. Hence, it's crucial to address the ontological representation of realities in theories and concepts in IR to see how the real is presented. Drawing on CR, the world is an open system possessing causal powers, while methodological limitations in practical social research, such as data collection, research design and theorization, constitute a closed system that one can claim a ‘constant conjunction of events’ in such research, that ‘is not a sufficient condition for a causal law’ (Bhaskar 2005, 11). Its implication is that configuring the world in IR based on our concepts and theories would cause the epistemic fallacy because it reduces the ‘intransitive’ to ‘transitive’ dimensions. Given this, CR acknowledges that knowledge is fallible, and thus, we are rationally judgmental about knowledge and take a position based on further evidence to provide a better explanation (Wight 2006). In practice, this implies that our explanation relies on a closed system, as we consistently establish boundaries to define our research object and isolate it from the open system, and this happens through concepts, theories and framework of data collection. But CR's acknowledgment of the fallibility of knowledge doesn't rule out the importance of the epistemic fallacy but rather makes it a more urgent issue in practice.

Leading critical realists offered little to understand how it is possible to explain the real without an epistemic departure point. Bhaskar argues that ‘natural mechanisms endure and act outside the conditions that enable us to identify them’ (Bhaskar 2008, 2). But in practice, it is not clear how it is possible to capture the mechanisms that act outside of a research condition or boundary. Currently, it seems that concluding the causal power of a deeper structure from the closed system would be a reductionist analogy of ontology and thus the epistemic fallacy. In Levine's words, this reduction ‘carried risks’ of the fallacy (Levine 2012, 47). Theoretically, it is probable that there is no risk of the epistemic fallacy if our research is ‘designating the activity of generative mechanisms and structures’ (Bhaskar 2008, 3), but in practice, it is not clear.

When it comes to practical debates about avoiding the epistemic fallacy, CR suggests that one must form an ontological presupposition about the world that differs from procedures of knowledge about it. As Bhaskar argues, ‘if we are going to have knowledge of particular things, you must be able to detach the conclusions of some epistemic investigation from the epistemic investigation’ (Bhaskar 2007, 193). The detachment of a conclusion of an argument from its epistemological grounds is thus a methodological question. Bhaskar further argues:

This is what I call ‘referential detachment’ and it is what we do when we talk about the world, detaching things (including totalities) from their evidential and supporting context. So we have the motifs here of: the suspension of the natural attitude; the attitude which epistemologizes or normalizes ontology; and the procedure of detachment. (Bhaskar 2007, 194)

This is a methodological issue that needs to be seriously examined. The central argument is that a conclusion about the real world should be detached from the employed method of investigation. It seems that the linkage between methodology and epistemology has not appeared as an issue in influencing the epistemological conclusion. However, methodology constitutes a way of producing knowledge and its justification. By putting ontology first, it is a question of how methodology connects ontology with epistemology (not the other way around) to really elucidate ontology. In other words, the picture seems to blur when thinking about how methodology and ontology mutually inform each other without any epistemic point of departure. Bhaskar argues, ‘epistemology is not part of an ontology, in other words our beliefs and everything to do with our beliefs are not part of ontology for that investigation’ (Bhaskar 2007, 194). He argues that there ‘is a level of deeper structure, containing a generative mechanism, which will allow us to explain why the empirical result must be so, and it is this level of structure that we scientists now need to identify’ (Bhaskar 2007, 196). Again, there are practical issues: how methodology helps a research project to go beyond our ‘beliefs’ and theories to elucidate deeper structures of the real that generate causal mechanisms. When it comes to IR, the methodological aspects of the epistemic fallacy have remained under-analyzed and have mainly been assumed at the meta-theoretical level.

Critical realism and debate on epistemic fallacy in IR scholarship

Critical realists in IR celebrate the deeper structure of the real as the generative mechanism that offers a way to go beyond positivism and post-positivism. Traditionally, IR was dominated by positivism, which defined a law-like causality, concluded from a ‘closed system’ or constant conjunction of events (Kurki 2008). Constant conjunctions are not ‘law’ but ‘a potential mode of their identification; [therefore,] their value is epistemological not ontological’(Wight 2006, 46). Hence, critical realists in IR claimed that CR helped to consider causality as the function of a deeper structure of the real, which helps to bring back the notion of causality and realist ontology to IR research programs (Kurki 2007; Patomäki 2002), helping the discipline to provide a more complex analysis of causation and reality (there are different versions of CR in IR, but they all believe in stratified nature of the real with deep structure). The hope to capture deeper structures of the real was to overcome the epistemic fallacy. In practice, it means to present the complexity of the real in the domain of knowledge. According to IR critical realists, the real structure of international politics exists independently of the actual patterns of events and discourse. This means that what we observe at the surface, such as terrorism, civil war, nuclear weapons threats, military invasion, genocide, trade war, and so on, has unobservable/deeper structures. As such, methodologically, the domain of the real is unobservable, and researchers can only observe domains of the empirical through experiences (directly or indirectly) and the domain of the actual through events and experiences together. From this philosophical point of departure, critical realists in IR stood out against positivism and post-positivism to solve the ontological problem and offer a new intellectual landscape.

In practice, regardless of philosophical departure viewpoint, the presentation of the real is an issue. Unlike positivism, CR does not advocate for objective knowledge; thus, the ontological presentation in CR is not objective. In positivism, the real is ‘out there,’ and through experimental research, one can develop objective knowledge about it. For structuralists such as Waltz, international politics is considered within a bounded realm, and a theory of international politics reveals ‘some law-like regularities within it’ (Waltz 1979, 116). This reflects a positivist and empiricist position of the social sciences, which has been dominated by Hume's philosophy of empiricism and the theory of causation. However, according to Kurki as a critical realist, Humeanism is unable to explain the causal complexities of unobservable entities such as ideas, meanings, and reasons in world politics (Kurki 2008). For critical realists, the world around us is not a bounded realm or a ‘closed system’ to be investigated in laboratory settings, and the perception of a bounded realm associates research with the epistemic fallacy.

IR critical realists have a similiter position towards post-positivist approaches, so-called reflectivism, including critical theory, poststructuralism, feminism, and constructivism in IR (Kurki 2008). Post-positivism rejects Humean causal theories and assigns an adequate role to factors such as ideas, rules, norms, and discourses and argues that non-material factors play a constitutive role in producing realties (Kratochwil 2000; Wendt 1999). This approach focuses on intersubjectivity in international politics and rejects the Humean concept of objectivity and causation in the first place. In post-positivism, therefore, we face a different ontological presentation, which is inherently rooted in concepts and language or subjectivity. Positivism and post-positivism created a dichotomy in epistemological analyses of IR theories between causal and constitutive theories. According to Wendt, there are causal theories, which belong to the rationalist and positivist camp, and constitutive theories, which belong to the constructivist or post-positivist camp (Wendt 1999). However, critical realists argue that the post-positivist view rejects the whole concept of causation and reduces ‘science’ to Humean notion of causation. As a result, post-positivism ‘leads to a paradoxical legitimisation of the Humean empiricist conception of causation in IR, as well as certain theoretically reductionist tendencies’ (Kurki 2008, 125). Understanding causal mechanisms as constitutive procedures, in fact, reduces the world to cognitive appropriations such as discourse and language, which leads to the epistemic fallacy.

A solution to parallel divides between positivism and post-positivism, apparently, lies in the CR that provides a philosophical ground to interlink ontology, epistemology, and methodology (Patomäki and Wight 2000). The implication of CR is to see causal analysis not as quantitatively regularity analysis; rather, methodologically, CR enables us to see causal structures and their relational dimensions through processes and patterns of events (not regularities). Epistemologically, its implication is not to see IR inquiries as neutral or objective as is assumed in positivism; rather, IR inquiries are themselves social activities and ‘politically embedded and fallible’ (Kurki 2008, 15). Ontologically, social reality is not ‘flat’ or one-dimensional (Wight 2006, 136). Therefore, positivism is not able to conceptualize complexities such as deep structures, which in turn impact relations and processes of world politics. As such, IR should consider deeper reality and conceptualize causal powers of complexities accordingly (Sayer 1992). Based on this analysis, the expectation is that CR should provide a methodological solution to conceptualizing the stratified ontology and its causal power beyond an epistemic departure point to avoid the epistemic fallacy throughout inquiries. How is this possible?

The central issue is that the implication of the unobservability of the deeper structure, as the core assumption of CR at the meta-theoretical level, has not been examined seriously in practical research. Yeung once argued that ‘A philosophy is sound only if it guides the selection of methods in carrying out empirical research’ (Yeung 1997, 70). This means that ontological and epistemological discourses in social science philosophies must provide methodological justifications for practical tasks such as theory building, data gathering and analysis (Danermark 2002; Sayer 1992). This is not the solution to assume the unobservability of deep ontological structure at the philosophical level while producing knowledge and presenting the real based on a closed system and observable aspect of the real. If this is the case, then there is the negligence of deeper structure in practice that would cause the epistemic fallacy. Or methodological approaches should justify the presentation of the real in the domain of a closed system. In the next section, I examine methodological debates in this regard.

CR's methodology and epistemic fallacy in practical research

From CR's point of view, knowledge is fallible, and the way to go forward and enhance knowledge is judgmental rationalism, as mentioned at the beginning. This is also crucial in terms of emancipatory change, which is necessary to go beyond theories and ‘enslaving appearances’ (Collier 1994, 15). In Collier's words, ‘knowledge may be not only of what appears, but of underlying structures, which endure longer than those appearances, and generate them or make them possible’ (Collier 1994, 6). However, the question is how to go beyond appearance and use judgmental rationalism to grasp the real, contribute to emancipatory societal changes, and produce truthful knowledge.

To bridge the gap between reality and knowledge, a growing body of literature focuses on methodological solutions in CR (Carter and New 2004; Danermark 2002; Sayer 1992), which is significant to the process of critically dealing with the configuration of the stratified ontology in theory, data collection, and analytical inferences. Although Bhaskar said, ‘it is the nature of objects that determines their cognitive possibilities for us’ (Bhaskar 2005, 27), we are not sure how our knowledge truly reflects the world and goes beyond our perspectives about the world. Sayer advocates a ‘double hermeneutic’ approach as an interpretation method to minimize the distinction between the thought object and the real object. In CR, although social phenomena cannot be conceived independently of actors or subjects, they do exist independently of the researcher's mind. As far as research is a social activity, it is not a theory-/concept-neutral process. For critical realists, such as Sayer, research is a theory-laden process, if not a theory-determined, but in practice, it is always difficult to distinguish between these two and I will come back at this point at the end. Theorization is a process that provide a conceptual departure to understand the real. This means that theories, as epistemic conditions, still affect our observation to deal with the deeper structure, although CR doesn't consider the impacts of theories as methodological determinism. Given this, conceiving the real through a theoretical model of concepts and abstracts is central in CR, and there have been efforts to bridge between theories and the real through methods. In IR, Patomäki suggests building a ‘double hermeneutic’ approach and an ‘iconic model’ to conceive reality at the theoretical level (Patomäki 2002). Danermark et al. suggest having a combined research method considering different inference modes in developing research and testing concepts and theories (Danermark 2002). Yeung suggests that iterative abstraction of real, in corresponding to the grounded theory method and triangulation, are useful ways for practical research (Yeung 1997). Others, such as Bergene, argue that comparative studies are critical to understanding the contrast cases (Bergene 2007). However, these suggestions are concentrated on interpretation rather than ontological presentation.

CR does not suggest a new unique methodology to deal with ontological presentation (Danermark 2002, 73), but it does claim a different understanding of causality and modes of inference (Kurki 2008; Wuisman 2005). In terms of causality, CR focuses on the underlying causal powers to ‘explain why the patterns of facts we observe exist’ (Kurki 2007, 365). Causal power refers to the ‘efficient cause’ of something beyond the patterns of events once observed (Kaidesoja 2007). Critical realists have introduced an ontologically oriented model for social inquiries to move beyond observable patterns: ‘Ontology → Methodology → Social theories and practical research’ (Danermark 2002, 4). According to this tripartite regulatory relationship, methodology connects ontology and knowledge, which should be based on experimental processes. However, the difficulty lies in the methodology that should inform us about the deeper structure of the ontology, which is unobservable and embedded in an open system. If a methodology cannot do this, then gaining knowledge about the deeper structure would remain a constant epistemological problem. Therefore, there is a need to go beyond the above-mentioned ‘methods’ and examine logical modes of inferences, the role of theories, data collection and analysis. CR methodological approaches depend on the contextualization of research to minimize the distinction between the thought object and the real object, which is rooted in the theory of ‘scientific discovery’ in CR philosophy. Thus, it is the key to seeing how CR's practical methods can deal with the epistemic fallacy in practice.

Initially, the ‘scientific discovery’ in CR philosophy involves a three-staged dialectical process. The first stage involves drawing a result from the empirical world, which is not assumed as a regular pattern as accepted in empiricism. The second stage involves model building, where plausible generative mechanisms are imagined. In this stage, what has been imagined can be treated as real or a truth-claim. The third stage involves the experimental process, ‘in which the reality of the mechanisms postulated in the model are subjected to empirical scrutiny’ (Bhaskar 1998b, 50). However, the impact of the second stage on the third might make the epistemic fallacy possible because this model still locates the departure point of analysis in the transitive dimension. The epistemic fallacy can occur in three areas separately or simultaneously, which all belong to the transitive dimensions: the first involves the logical modes of inference. The second involves the data collection process, and the third involves the analytical process; however, theory and concepts can impact all of them. In CR, methodological recommendations mostly focus on the first and the latter.

CR and logical modes of inference

The logical modes of inferences are essentially an interpretive method rather than problematizing the ontological presentation. CR proposes abduction and retroduction as modes of inference instead of induction and deduction, and for Bhaskar, retroduction is a ‘postulated explanation’ subjected to empirical scrutiny (Bhaskar 2005, 13 & 19). IR scholars such as Patomäki and Wight argue that the CR mode of inference is retroduction, which is a process of a ‘constant spiral of discovery and understanding’ (Patomäki and Wight 2000, 224). Simultaneously, others argue that induction and deduction are parts of abduction and retroduction in the practice (Wuisman 2005). Deduction and induction constitute the logic of inference, while abduction and retroduction are defined as ways of reasoning and thinking to proceed from something to something else. The idea is that an abductive mode of inference allows one to go beyond the surface of the real world. Hence, abduction creates an opportunity to generate conjectures or new ideas. From a CR point of view, deduction and induction are insufficient to disclose a deeper structure. An inductive approach is uncertain in terms of establishing causal relations throughout the inquiry and generating knowledge because there is no conceptual framework for understanding the reality to interpret data. Thus, one cannot be sure that a ‘description of observed occurrences (no matter how many they are) is true also of unobserved occurrences’ (Danermark 2002, 86). This goes against the grounded theory method that some scholars recommended (Yeung 1997, 62). On the other hand, in a deductive approach, the starting point of research is theory and observation to test hypotheses derived from that theory, but the problem is that deductive inference cannot say anything new beyond what it already has through its premises or theories (Danermark 2002, 81).

Although abduction looks similar to deduction, it is different in terms of not being bound to given premises. Abduction connects events or empirical objects to rules or conceptual frameworks and then leads to a new supposition on the empirical object or reconnects theories with objects (Legg 2001). It is a process of interpretation and recontextualization of a particular phenomenon within a ‘conceptual framework or a set of ideas’ (Danermark 2002, 81). Thus, the abductive approach is related to the theoretical plausibility of empirical research. The fourth inference approach is retroduction, which differs from the three described above. Wuisman and Jackson treated retroduction as a synonym for abduction; however, Chiasson considers retroduction as a ‘deliberate and recursive process involving more than the making of an abductive inference’ (Chiasson 2005, 226). Therefore, retroduction, which could include deduction, induction, and abduction, is the logic that could lead toward discovering new hypotheses (Chiasson 2014, 178). Sayer argues:

Events are causally explained by retroducing and confirming the existence of mechanisms, and in turn the existence of mechanisms is explained by reference to the structure and constitution of the objects which possess them. (Sayer 1992, 235)

Retroduction is part of the theoretical explanation process dealing with the real causal powers, but CR also suggests retrodiction – a practical inferential process from effects to causes (Hartwig 2007, 257). However, retrodiction complements retroduction in practical research and is intricately reliant on the latter (Elder-Vass 2010, 28 & 191). The focus here is the theoretical explanation of the real and its ontological representation; thus, the attention remains on retroduction. In practical research, retroduction is the way of moving from knowledge about one level of reality to its deeper mechanism or strata that contributed to the generation of that phenomenon (Lawson 1997, 26). It is still unclear how to disclose the underlying mechanism of the deep structure without a theoretical and epistemological departure. What is the chance and possibility of moving to a new idea? If there is no chance to present ontology without theorization, IR inquiry could remain theory-laden as an epistemic departure point, which increases the probability of the epistemic fallacy because theories and concepts belong to the transitive dimension of reality. As Greyberg-Inan argues, theories and concepts are ‘colored glasses [that] provide a tint to the landscape we observe’ (Freyberg-Inan 2017, 78). Concluding the intransitive dimension of reality from its transitive dimension makes it difficult to avoid the epistemic fallacy in practical research, although believing in some sort of independent ontology at the metaphysical level.

It is especially imprecise how sequences of movement between theory and data will help move beyond an epistemically dependent theoretical model of research. Even when recommending the two modes of inferences, such as abduction/ retroduction, a gap between ontology and methodology remains (Wuisman 2005, 394). According to Wuisman, abduction alone does not provide a causal relationship between empirical (observable) and the real (unobservable structure). It also cannot define a method of inference per se by rejecting induction and deduction. To solve this problem, one must consider both induction and deduction inferences in alignment with abductive inferences throughout a social science research project. Wuisman further emphasizes: ‘In order to find out, based on the inferred hypothesis, a number of deductions should be made. These deductions refer to the patterns and regularities that must typically be the case if the hypothesized underlying mechanism is operating as the general rule’ (Wuisman 2005, 384). However, there is not a clear recommendation as to how to question the presentation of ontology throughout the process, which includes theoretical abstraction and truth claims through data collection.

There is no general agreement among leading critical realist scholars on preferences of induction and deduction inferences in the context of abduction and retroduction. For example, as a leading critical realist of social science, Sayer promotes retroduction, but between induction and deduction, he prefers deduction. He argues: ‘Unlike induction, deduction is a valid form of inference: the conclusions of a deductive argument cannot be rejected without contradiction while the premises are accepted’ (Sayer 1992, 169). Again, this means that social inquiry will remain theory-laden, if not theory-determined. To reach a valid inference, Wuisman recommends a composition of both induction and deduction with abduction inferences. As a result, Sayer and Wuisman create space for theory-driving inference or a ‘hypothetico-deductive’ (Sayer 1992, 169) procedure in line with abduction and retroduction. This may help build an analytical framework to interpret data in a research project in IR and create new conjectures. However, the data analysis and creating conjecture are unlikely to go beyond theoretical assumptions and disclose the deeper structure of the real because, as Sayer argues, ‘the data we ‘gather’ in science are already (pre-)conceptualized’ (Sayer 1992, 52). If this is the case, there is still the risk of the epistemic fallacy throughout a practical process.

Theory, data collection, and analysis

Although CR provides a transcendent solution and considers reality as something out there that belongs to the intransitive dimension (Bhaskar and Lawson 1998), the presentation of reality is the key issue. In practice, however, researchers will have a configuration of the reality in their mind as a theoretical analogy of the real world. This configuration of reality is subjective and can impact both the definition of the relevance of data in research and data analysis. The relevance of data refers to the collected evidence to present reality to constitute the truth, which is supposed to be related to underlying mechanisms of deeper structures that one thinks about it at the theoretical level. As far as both data collection and analysis are concept-dependent processes, it is highly likely that the research conclusion cannot go beyond our theoretical configuration. Its implications for IR are that our knowledge reflects a picture of the deeper structure, which originated from the closed system of our theoretical configuration of the real and guided the empirical analysis. This ‘picture’ is theory-laden and thus epistemic-depend; Patomäki called it the ‘iconic model,’ which is a ‘descriptive picture of a possible real world’ (Patomäki 2002, 126).

However, it seems that CR expects that methods should enable researchers to collect relevant data about the underlying mechanisms of a deeper structure without being impacted from the epistemological level. And then, the theory should be tested against such evidence. In theory, collecting relevant data and setting up a sufficient analytical mode is meant to justify relations between data and the deeper structure. For example, the process-tracing methodology is designed to help researchers trace events to reach/disclose the deeper structure of the real (Beach and Pedersen 2013; Reykers and Beach 2017). However, in practice, it is the task of theory to provide an ontological image or ‘map’ (Wight 2017) of reality (as a primary configuration) to guide methodological applications. In other words, theory as an epistemological statement, by its nature, defines the relevance of data to the real world. Wuisman, as a critical realist, insists: ‘A cycle of discovery can only be triggered by the interaction between a theoretically informed, reflective and inquisitive mind and the manifestations that appear in the domain of the empirical’ (Wuisman 2005, 394). Therefore, theories lead methodology in practice and validate data collection and processes of analysis (modes of inferences). At first glance, it seems possible to theorize the ontological image of reality and the interactive process occurring between different layers of reality because we assume that everything could emerge through data collection and analysis. However, as far as a research project is theory-laden, as an epistemic point of departure, there is always a question of whether the data and conclusion reflect the ontological nature of the real. This, in turn, questions the possibility of the detachment of the conclusion from the method.

To avoid this type of question, IR scholars, such as Bennett, insist that CR is not theoretically determined but is a theory-led inquiry. He argues, ‘our theories about mechanisms often generate observable implications on what should be true if the posited mechanisms operate in the manner what we theorise’ (Bennett 2013, 208). This is important, but still, theories create an epistemological condition in the research, if not theoretical determinism. Suppose data come from ‘events’ as the surface level of reality in IR, but there should be a theoretical understanding of their possible relation to the deeper structure (levels of mechanisms). This can be the case at meta-theoretical assumptions, but, in practice, reaching the real world's deeper structure through a theoretical guide increases the risk of the epistemic fallacy that Bhaskar warned about. This could be the case even without being a theory-determined researcher, although it's difficult to distinguish between theory-driven and theory-determined research in practice, as mentioned before. This problem can occur during data collection and analysis in IR because theories, in the first place, tincture our understanding of deeper mechanisms of world politics. Even theory itself is rooted in history, imagination, and context (Bain and Nardin 2017; Hall 2017; Spruyt 2020). As Lawson argues, history can act as a ‘predetermined site for the empirical verification of abstract claims’ and theory building in IR (Lawson 2012, 204).

A typical critical realist work in IR is Wagner's book titled Social Emergence in International Relations (2016), which is focused on East Asian cases such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Plus Three (APT) and the East Asia Summit (EAS). Wagner's book provides a detailed account of the theoretical shortcomings of rational choice and institutionalist ontological assumptions deployed in IR realism, liberalism, and constructivism literature. She theorizes institutions in East Asia as ‘social emergence in the international system’ (Wagner 2016, 7) based on a critical realist ontological assumption that considers a deeper structure of the emergence rather than focusing on the functions of institutions. Wagner's theory is built upon a critical realist theory of ontology, and her contribution is that she applies critical realism in IR studies to explain ontology; thereby, she has tried to shift the attention from the functions and purposes of regional institutions to their composition to offer an ontological analysis of the social emergence. In her account, the researcher can grasp the ontological emergence of international politics that is constituted through structure – agent interactions in the context of an open system. Therefore, the deeper structure of the real generates causal power and thus produces the social emergence such as regional institutions.

The underlying mechanism of the deeper structure of reality (social relations) is assumed as the cornerstone of theoretical development and research explanation. According to her theory, three potentials constituted and enforced social emergence: entities, mechanisms, and structures (Wagner 2016, 127). In her methodology section, she uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) to explain how these underlying mechanisms worked in the emergence of East Asian institutions. Although this is a significant work, three observations can be made related to the debate here on the epistemic fallacy. First, the unobservable deeper structure theorized by CR is something that should be discovered over the course of research inquiry, but in Wagner's theory of social emergence, it is a known phenomenon from the very first round of theorization. Its implication is that the theory will lead to a predictable conclusion from the start. Thus, it does not meet Bhaskar's ‘referential detachment’ principles and also shows that the boundary between theory-laden and theory-determined research could be blurred in practice.

Second, therefore, Wagner's approach leads toward a problematic ontological presentation. On the one hand, she considers ‘reality as a stratified and open system of emergent entities’ (Wagner 2016, 15) based on critical realist ontology. On the other hand, she has focused on ‘the endogenous processes’ of social emergence, such as the internal dynamics of East Asian regional institutions. It seems that the social emergence that Wagner talks about should be part of an open system, and thus, it would be difficult to draw a line between endogenous and exogenous interactions within the process of social emergence. When it comes to the causal analysis of a deeper structure, critical realism, however, demonstrates a holistic approach rather than isolating the internal dynamics of social phenomena. If one considers social emergence a purely endogenous process, then it is hardly an unobservable phenomenon, while according to CR, the deeper structure of the real is not observable. In this case, it is rather a phenomenon that can be graspable for observation from the outset as it has been theorized as such. Particularly, regional institutions are the produced structure of broader interactions; thus, isolating it as an endogenous process within institutions, per se, would be ontologically a reductionist approach. She argues: ‘a regional institution is one of the emergent entities that becomes visible at the regional level of the international system through the interaction of states, it is itself also a novel entity of the international system with its own emergent properties and powers’ (Wagner 2016, 92). In Wagner's work, the unobservable reality becomes observable through theorization and conceptualization. This means the real transformed from the intransitive domain to the transitive domain of knowledge, which has been treated as the epistemic fallacy in the CR. However, this ‘explanatory reduction’ (Wagner 2016, 109) conduces the ontology within epistemic structures and theoretically could cause the epistemic fallacy.

Third, methodologically, Wanger researched the emergent property through discourse analysis. For Wagner, discourse is a ‘social practice contributes to the production, reproduction, and transformation of the social world’ (Wagner 2016, 144). When it comes to discourse and CR, she argues that discourse is ‘regarded as a facet of all three domains of the real (the real, the actual, and the empirical), and captures the generative or emergent qualities of social interaction’ (Wagner 2016, 150). Its implication is that a researcher can observe the emergence of a deeper structure in the discourse based on the theoretical and conceptual framework she has prepared. In her book, indeed, the ‘emergence’ of reality has been grasped by viewing discourse emergence as an observable form of reality (which may be connected to the deeper structure). However, the deeper structure (unobservable) has already been predicted and introduced by theory. As such, it is the theory that leads the data collection process, data analysis, and research conclusions. This example suggests that there is a potential that theory-led methodology exacerbates the possibilities of the epistemic fallacy in data collection and analysis. Because theory transforms the intransitive dimension to the transitive domain in practice, or in this scenario, at least, one searches the intransitive dimension within the transitive domain. This potentially causes interpretation and ontological presentation problems.

A similar problem can happen in larger projects of data collection, where conceptual structures lead toward a particular way of data collection and definition. For example, data collection on Afghanistan (from 2001 to 2021) by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) is a case in point, which is one of the most well-known databases about armed conflicts and has been widely used for conflict analysis. The UCDP database defines the ‘internationalized conflict’ as a ‘conflict where the government, or the opposing side, or both sides receive support from external states that actively participate in the conflict’ (Palik 2020, 13). At the same time, Afghanistan's war is widely accepted as a proxy war in which Pakistan has supported the Taliban to push the US-led coalition out and undermine the Afghan government (Farasoo 2021; Ibrahimi and Farasoo 2022). However, the UCDP database has no record of the Taliban's external relations with Pakistan in post-2001 because Afghanistan's war has not conceptually been defined as a proxy war by the UCDP. The database defined the Afghan war as an ‘internationalized intrastate’ conflict because of the ‘involvement of foreign governments with troops’ (Petterson 2020, 6). This shows that the conceptual configuration behind data collection impacts the presentation of the real and its interpretation by making the risk of the epistemic fallacy possible in practice. The narrow scope of data collection and conceptualization can reduce the open system to a closed system in IR. Some methodologists, such as Scott, acknowledge this issue and argue that ‘observational data are never considered to be theory-neutral, but always mediated through structures, paradigms and world views’ (Scott 2000, 13). This can be observed when applying theories and political views over the course of research projects to explain reality. Due to this problem, scholars such as Höglund and Öberg have warned that ‘many types of methods used to collect data are barely addressed in the methodology literature [to unpack] problems related to information and evidence’ (Höglund and Öberg 2011, 3).

The argument is that theory-laden research is prone to reduce the complexity of realities to a theoretical configuration because the theory creates a particular expectation for observation and thus ontological presentation. The underlying point is that choosing a theory as a departure point makes the risk of the epistemic fallacy contingent because the world could be reduced to a theoretical configuration and presentation – no need to say that ideologies and political discourses have similar impacts.

Critical awareness as problematization of the ontological presentation

It has been argued that theories, epistemological assumptions, and ideologies not only function as conceptual structures to shape data collection about the real but offer a presentational content of the real. Thus, we are dealing with the presentational content of deeper structure in the domain of knowledge rather than the whole reality of the world. To deal with the epistemic fallacy, the way is to problematize the ontological presentation and conceptual structure of the real in IR. ‘Problematization’ in social science is not a new argument, and the literature has largely drawn on the Foucauldian notion of problematization, which is mainly about knowledge, discourse, and history (Bacchi 2012; Foucault 1985; Stengers 2019). There has been attention to problematization in IR, focusing on discourses and powers in shaping the epistemological aspects of IR (Acharya 2016; Anderl and Witt 2020). From CR's perspective, achieving a better explanation of the real is possible through ⁠judgmental rationalism, which makes the choice between competing theories possible and contributes to emancipatory changes. But what is the possibility of judgmental rationalism, and how could one be more specific on this?

My argument focuses on the problematization of ontological truth in IR inquiries, dealing with the deeper structure of the real constituted powers, mechanisms, and tendencies, and thus, constituted causal processes. This type of problematization questions the picture of the real presented in theories, concepts, and research design before questioning the explanation per se. The question Bhaskar raises can lead to the problematization of the ontological presentation in research. Bhaskar argues: ‘a philosophical ontology is developed by reflection upon what must be the case for science to be possible; and this is independent of any actual scientific knowledge’ (Bhaskar 2008, 29). This can be applied to IR inquiries by considering three important points. First, the reality is beyond our epistemic structure, and second, what has been presented in the epistemic structure is fallible (these two are well discussed in CR). Third, one needs to be curious about how the ontological presentation in theories and concepts becomes possible; therefore, the ontological presentation should be problematized to ensure that the real is not reduced to the epistemic structure while drawing boundaries and defining properties of the real. For example, regarding a boundary, it is crucial to consider questions such as in what political and discursive contexts research is conducted, how a research object is presented, and how it is separated from the broader (open)system. For instance, it is crucial to consider whether an intrastate war is purely a civil war or has broader regional and international dimensions. Discourses, framings, and ideological positions draw these boundaries to present a particular ontological picture of the real. This brings me to the ontological properties of how a research object is presented – it is presented as a structure, process, relations, intersection of individual actors, or emergent property. Questioning the ontological boundaries and properties presented in theory will lead to critical thinking to deal with the epistemic fallacy in research. Questioning the ontological presentation enables a researcher to think critically about the deeper structure of the real presented in epistemic structures.

In IR, epistemic structures such as theories, concepts, and discourse lead toward a particular understanding of causal structures of crises such as wars, terrorism, and violence. CR tells us that there is something more to be explored because our knowledge is fallible, which is crucial to celebrating critical awareness. Critical awareness is about (a) the fallibility of knowledge, (b) the limitation of methodology, (c) data collection and analysis as concept-dependent processes, and (d) the presentation of ontology within concepts and theorization. Theorization is a process of making abstractions about reality to offer an ontological presentation and interpretative logic. Therefore, it involves mapping the reality (or some of its aspects) in the researcher's mind (Mearsheimer and Walt 2013). As Wight insisted: ‘All theories presuppose a basic ontology from which all other considerations follow’ (Wight 2006, 2). As argued, these ontological assumptions, or claims about reality, inform practical data collection and analysis. This increases the chances of an epistemically dependent conclusion, as I have shown in Wagner's case and the UCDP data collection.

A theory-laden analysis is almost a common practice in IR studies. For example, for realist IR scholars, state behavior is based on self-interest or power relations, and for constructivists, state behavior acts as part of the whole social process that has constructed social relations as such. For Marxism, world politics is related to economic relations and so on. Theory-led departures impact IR inquiry's conclusions from the outset because they define the ontological configuration of world politics based on specific theoretical lenses (Berenskötter 2018; Jackson and Nexon 2013), thus creating epistemic departure points for analysis. Therefore, drawing on CR logic as a theory-laden paradigm in IR analysis would similarly make the epistemic fallacy possible. The reason is that CR does not provide a methodological solution to think about the unobservable world, or the deeper structure, without a concept or theory-guided approach. Consequently, the methodology remains epistemically centric, which prevents ontological propositions from leading methodology from the outset – if methodology can be conceivable without epistemological propositions/claims. Therefore, IR critical realists do not give us an alternative methodology to go beyond theoretical assumptions and abandon epistemic departure points in studying the deeper structure of international relations.

Methodologically, the issue is that the relevant evidence can only be collected from the real domain that the theory has depicted. Leading methodologists suggest that ‘the potential sources of information have to be selected in a theory-informed manner’ (Reykers and Beach 2017, 269–270). This may expose social inquiry to risks of the ‘epistemic fallacy’ in practice because methodologically, to identify the ‘protentional source of information,’ research cannot be guided without theory into the unobservable domain of deeper structures (as seen in Wagner's study). To make it simple, let's see Jackson's elaboration on this. He classifies the unobservable world as having detectable and undetectable parts. For example, electrons are unobserved and detectable when using appropriate equipment. However, detection equipment is supposed to detect a hypothetically known ‘thing’ in science. The point is – how can a deeper structure, as an unobservable thing, be known by putting ontology first without any departure from the epistemic basis? Classifying the unobservable into the detectable and undetectable does not change the potential risks of the epistemic fallacy because, again, there should be some level of knowledge to form detectors. Jackson further argues:

The construction of such detectors is a complicated process, involving many rounds of the subtle interpenetration of theory and observation: the unobservable entity and its properties have to be conceptualized, an appropriate apparatus has to be constructed, and the data generated by that apparatus has to be interpreted. (Jackson 2011, 85)

Based on this assessment, logical inferences, such as abduction and retroduction for disclosing the unobservable in international politics, will not work without certain rounds of theorization. Theories ‘indirectly’ connect science with reality (Danermark 2002, 23) by offering an image of the real, but it seems that there is no practical methodological solution to unpack the deeper structure of the real without theory. As noted above, theories are related to historical, cultural, and political contexts and ideologies; and they also have presentational power to configure the real in a particular way. Political narrative and discourse in IR make the epistemic fallacy more contingent and interest-oriented. Modes of inferences, such as retroduction and abduction, are used to recontextualize and generate conjectures, perhaps useful in the process of data analysis. However, the question of data collection (the relevance of data) and the roles of theories and concepts remain intact. Therefore, it seems difficult to rely on Bhaskar's solution of ‘referential detachment,’ whereby the conclusions of research should be detached from methodological processes.

The solution is not to dismiss theorization, however. Instead, problematizing the presentation of ontology in theories and data is the key to sustaining critical thinking about the gap between the real and knowledge in IR. Problematization is a critical analysis of ‘knowledge’ including theories, concepts, and abstractions to question why ontology is presented in a particular way. Problematization can be about any epistemological, historical, and political assumptions that lead theories to present ontology in a particular way. For example, within the security context of the 9/11 attack on the US in 2001, many Islamist militants, such as the Taliban, were considered terrorists; however, after two decades of war, the US signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020 and considered the group as a legitimate political entity in Afghanistan, regardless of its terrorization strategy in the country. When it comes to literature and theory building in IR, ontological presentations have been highly related to political discourse and narratives. Therefore, to sustain critical thinking about the deeper structure of the real, it is crucial to problematize ontological presentation in any epistemic arrays, including theories, discourse, and conceptual structures.

My argument is specifically about problematizing presentations of ontology and the nature of truth claims about it in any research and political narratives. In the literature, for example, Levine calls for a ‘sustainable critique’ of producing knowledge in IR to make it more responsible, and according to him, it is possible through a ‘chastened reason’ (Levine 2012). Levine's method for ‘chastened reason’ to develop a sustainable critique in IR is based on detachment, and he calls it ‘estrangement’ or ‘negative dialectics,’ which somehow resonates with Bhaskar's detachment mentioned before. The idea is to go beyond the ‘reifications’ of theories, concepts, and paradigms in research, but practically speaking, there is no clear solution to do so. In his case study of the Palestine–Israel conflict, Levine juxtaposed different paradigmatic views; however, it is still unclear how he does ‘chastened’ perspectives, including his own view. Despite such difficulties, pluralism is the recently suggested solution by Levine, Jackson, Wight, Kurki, and others to advocate critique and tame dogmatism by considering multiple research agendas. For Levine, pluralism is used to juxtapose different incompatible perspectives (Levine 2012, 63), and for Jackson, ‘engaged pluralism’ brings together contentious conversations to produce ‘ever-finer differentiations’ in IR (Jackson 2011, 207). For Wight, however, an ‘integrative pluralism’ is the solution to open ground for ‘comprehensive and multi-dimensional accounts’ instead of simply juxtaposing perspectives. Therefore, Wight's pluralism accepts the validity of a wide range of perspectives (Wight 2019, 68); however, it is still not very clear how methodologically integrative pluralism is possible.

Despite the recent advocacy for pluralism, there are differences and disagreements in defining a clear method and agenda for critical thinking. Unlike Levine, Jackson is not arguing for ‘negative dialectics’ to chasten the reason but to produce ‘systematic, open to public criticism, and focused on producing worldly knowledge’ (Jackson 2011, 196). And it should be based on a ‘systematic connection between a claim's substantive premises’ (Jackson 2011, 193). Clearly, one needs a methodological solution to justify such a systematic connection between promises and the world out there. To advance this, Jackson calls for ‘scientific criticism’ to expose knowledge to ‘communal engagement,’ and therefore, a constant judgment makes scientific criticism possible, which is necessary for critical knowledge and discovering any fallacies. At some point, Jackson's idea seems close to Levine's theory of chastening reason through a sustained critique. Wight also believes that there is a need for a ‘deeper critical appreciation’ of integrating bodies of knowledge, as mentioned before (Wight 2006, 295).

However, critical realism in IR is about ontology and its presentation in theories or epistemic structures. It means to sustain the focus on the deep structure of the real in IR to explain causal mechanisms. To stay with this, it is the key to problematizing the presentation of ontology in theories and discourse. Thus, the problematization of ontological presentation would help to question theories about ontology as to why the real is presented in a particular way – for example, why the nuclear programs in countries such as North Korea and Iran are dangerous, but some others are not. Why have some militant groups been presented as terrorist entities by some countries while they have been treated as freedom fighters by others? The way that a theory explains the unobservable deeper structure of international politics and its productions should be problematized because it presents a particular type of ontology of the real that defines identities and politics. In international politics, history, concepts, ideologies, and discourses significantly impact our theoretical configuration about issues. Hence, as argued, methodology without theoretical configuration will not lead to the domain of the unobservable. The evidence comes from the observable world through a certain theoretical lens, and thus any conjecture made to guess the unobservable would be epistemically dependent, which still could preserve the risk of the epistemic fallacy. Therefore, the problematization of the ontological presentation in IR debates is crucial for critical thinking.

One can argue that the theory is built on critical realist ontological assumptions in the first place at the meta-theoretical level and thus assumes a deeper structure out there to avoid the epistemic fallacy. This is true, and critical realists would claim this, but there are two problems: First, the meta-theoretical assumption doesn't solve problems at the practical level. In practice, we want to know unknown things about the real world. Second, if the deeper structure (assumption) appears as a known reality in theoretical framing (as shown in the case of Wagner above), it will be a challenge to lead a research project in a domain of the unobservable (without any theory, it can be treated as unknown (potentially knowable) because it is the theory that makes it ‘known’), methodologically speaking. When theory leads toward a known thing from the outset, then there is uncertainty in discovering unknown things because it will form a theory-determined data collection and analytical process. Problematization makes distinguishing between theory-laden and theory-determinism possible by considering that research is open to competing theories and building new ones through reconfiguring the real. This would be instrumental in moving from one theory to another. Otherwise, it would be a challenge to distinguish them in practice. By problematization of ontological presentation, we can go beyond theoretical determinism but still will have theory-laden practice to guess alternative conceptualizations and ontological presentations. Theories are inevitable in IR; however, theoretical presentation of reality should be problematized to sustain the focus of IR inquiries on the ontological structure of reality. Therefore, the critique should be within the transitive dimension by problematizing the presentation of ontology in theories to pave the way for alternatives and reduce the risk of the epistemic fallacy, and this is crucial for emancipatory change in IR theorizing.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that the epistemic fallacy is addressed in CR at the meta-theoretical level; however, its risk in practical research needs further attention. This is because there is no such methodological solution to completely detach the conclusion from the research procedure or reach ontology within the open system without any epistemic departure point. First, any departure point is concept-dependent; thus, theory and concepts guide research procedures and provide an epistemic departure. Second, theories on unobservable/deeper structure, or any concepts and abstraction of them, are related to the transitive domain and closed system, which is the realm of epistemology. I have argued that the epistemic departure point increases the risk of the epistemic fallacy in IR inquiries. Perhaps this is why IR critical realists keep the window open for critical thinking by claiming that human knowledge is fallible. To deal with the fallibility of knowledge, we need sustained criticism.

Any sustainable critical approach needs a clear agenda and method related to ontology to amplify critical thinking on two levels. The first one is the theorization of critique to deal with the epistemic fallacy through questioning the configuration of the real/ontology in the epistemic domain, which I call problematization of ontological presentation. The second is a critical discussion on methodology for dealing with epistemic fallacy in practical research. This two-level critique is crucial in IR critical realism to sustain critical thinking as constant criticism. Constant criticism is a process of the problematization of the presentation of ontology by methodology and theories in research. At the theoretical level, constant criticism problematizes claims, discourses, and paradigms in presenting the deep structure of international politics in a particular way. At the methodological level, it requires asking how it is possible to reach the deeper structure of reality by way of a certain methodological approach and conceptual structure. A critical methodology in research must question the concept and procedure of data collection and its mode of inferences of data analysis. This helps to query whether a methodology is an epistemic-free practice. Similarly, problematizing the presentation of ontology in a particular way in theories and concepts will help us to challenge our theoretical and epistemological constraints and political biases. This two-level critical thinking in practical IR research will help to sustain criticism to deal with the epistemic fallacy in practice.

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Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.