Round table: is the common ground between pragmatism and critical realism more important than the differences?

ABSTRACT

One theme of this special issue is an incitement to reconsider the relationship between pragmatism and critical realism. While their advocates sometimes come into conflict, there are also clearly borrowings and overlaps between the traditions, and we therefore invited scholars with feet in either or indeed both camps to discuss their relationship. The discussion was conducted virtually, with participants submitting initial contributions, reviewing each other’s submissions, and then responding to each other in their second round of contributions.

KEYWORDS:

• Pragmatics
• critical realism
• pragmatism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Another example can be seen in the interviews which Jamie Morgan has been conducting within this journal. A full list is available on the CR Network page (https://criticalrealismnetwork.org/2021/04/05/interviews-with-critical-realists-and-fellow-travellers/) itself an example of an initiative to organise theoretical exchange in proactive ways to achieve specific purposes, rather than falling back on routine ways of doing things.

2 Obvious exceptions to this include Dave Elder-Vass (2016), Clive Lawson (2017) and Alistair Mutch (2013) but their contributions have long felt to me like the starting points for a much wider conversation within CR about the materiality of the digital which has yet to develop. I’ve found huge value in Archer’s (2000) approach to material culture here for thinking about these questions from the perspective of agency.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karin Zotzmann

Karin Zotzmann works as an associate professor in Applied Linguistics at the University of Southampton. She has published on the marketization of higher education, intercultural language education, social class and intersectionality in language teaching and learning and academic literacy. She is currently working on a book entitled: Corruption: A Critical Realist Discourse Analysis. Her work is theoretically informed by Critical Realism.

Emily Barman

Emily Barman is a professor of sociology, as well as Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost of Graduate Education, at Loyola University Chicago. Her research interests include economic sociology, organizational theory, and nonprofit studies. She has published several award-winning books, including Caring Capitalism: The Meaning and Measure of Social Value (Cambridge University Press, 2016), which examined the emergence of market-based solutions to social problems. Other publications include articles in American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Management Studies, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and Social Science History, among others.

Douglas V. Porpora

Douglas V. Porpora is a professor of sociology in the Department of Communication at Drexel University. He has been a critical realist since 1982 and a member of IACR since 1998. He has written widely on politics and social theory. Among his books are How Holocausts Happen: The U.S. in Central America (Temple 1990) and, most recently, Reconstructing Sociology: The Critical Realist Approach (Cambridge 2015).

Mark Carrigan

Dr Mark Carrigan is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Manchester where he is programme director for the MA Digital Technologies, Communication and Education. He directs the Post-Pandemic University project which is an international network comprising an online magazine, podcast hub and conference series. He's the author of Social Media for Academics, published by Sage and now in its second edition.

Dave Elder-Vass

Dave Elder-Vass is an Honorary Fellow at Loughborough University, UK. His latest book Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2016) argues for a more diverse understanding of contemporary economies. He has also published extensively on social ontology and social theory from a critical realist perspective, including The Causal Power of Social Structures (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and The Reality of Social Construction (Cambridge University Press, 2012). For more information see his website: https://eldervass.com/