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Situational realism, critical realism, causation and the charge of positivism

Fiona J. Hibberd
History of the Human Sciences published online 19 August 2010
DOI: 10.1177/0952695110373423
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History of the Human Sciences OnlineFirst, published on August 19, 2010 as doi:10.1177/0952695110373423

Situational realism,
critical realism,
causation and the
charge of positivism

History of the Human Sciences

000(00) 115
The Author(s) 2010
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DOI: 10.1177/0952695110373423
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Fiona J. Hibberd
School of Psychology, University of Sydney

Abstract
The system of realist philosophy developed by John Anderson situational realism has
recently been dismissed as positivist by a prominent critical realist. The reason for this
dismissal appears not to be the usual list of ideas deemed positivist, but the conviction
that situational realism mistakenly defends a form of actualism, i.e. that to conceive of
causal laws as constant conjunctions reduces the domain of the real to the domain of
the actual. This is, in part, a misreading of Andersons philosophy because, contrary to
Humes constant conjunction account, Anderson viewed causation as pluralistic and
non-linear. However, the critical realist charge does point to two important ontological
differences between these realist philosophies a levels-of-reality thesis and the notion
of causal powers. Situational realism has always maintained that the arguments for both
lead to difficulties that are logically insurmountable. Unfortunately, this is not addressed
in the critical realists dismissal of Andersons philosophy. Regardless of who makes the
charge of positivism, it frequently involves inattention to the real character of its target.
Keywords
causal powers, critical realism, levels of reality, positivism, situational realism
In a recent article, I provided an historical exposition of situational realism, a philosophy
established during the 1920s and 1930s by the Scottish-Australian philosopher John
Anderson (Hibberd, 2009). It was argued that, although insufficiently developed,

Corresponding author:
Dr Fiona Hibberd, School of Psychology, Brennan MacCallum Building, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW
2006, Australia. Tel.: 61 2 9351 2867
Email: fiona.hibberd@sydney.edu.au

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History of the Human Sciences 000(00)

Andersons system of philosophy provides the metaphysical foundations for an integrated

natural and social science and a curative for the fragmentation that currently exists across
the human sciences and within psychology. Examples of Andersons relevance to psychology were supplied and differences between his realism and the then contemporary philosophies 20th-century logical positivism and Deweys pragmatism were noted.
The most important features of Andersonian realism can be stated briefly.1
Andersons central thesis is that there is only one way of being that whatever exists
or occurs is on the same level of reality as any other occurrence; reality is seamless. What
exists are spatio-temporally located situations that have propositional structure. From
this propositionality, the conditions of existence, or categories, can be derived. These
categories (e.g. relation, particularity, universality, causality) are the invariant features
of all occurrences irrespective of whether the situation is historical, biological, psychological, social, etc. Ergo, there is no categorial distinction between man and nature;
distinctions between them are with respect to qualities. Situations are not constituted,
wholly or partly, by the relations they enter into or stand in. They are in continuous process processes continuing into one another is causation, i.e. there is interaction at all
points. Logic is concerned with how things are and, as such, provides the most highly
generalized description of reality. Knowledge is a matter of finding out what is the case,
but as observers and reasoners, we are fallible. Mental stuff, such as ideas, beliefs, concepts, percepts, images, sense data, schemas, appearances, propositional attitudes, etc.,
are all misguided reifications; mind is not a thing with content. Neither is it reducible
to brain states; cognition is relational. Similarly, social institutions and movements are
not reducible to their individual members; society is holistic in that social complexes
have characteristic ways of working not possessed by their component parts. And social
and other forces work through individuals in a thoroughly deterministic manner.
In contrast to the negligible international influence of Andersons realism, Roy Bhaskars critical realism has adherents in many countries from a wide range of disciplines. It
is a much more complex and worked-out philosophy than Andersons. (In fact, it is teeming with distinctions, concepts, neologisms and nonce-words.) Recently, critical realism
judged situational realism to be a positivist philosophy. The basis for this charge appears
not to be the usual assumptions deemed positivist by various commentators in the
psycho-social sciences, but a cluster of ideas concerning the concept of causation. In this
article, I compare these two philosophies with respect to this concept. This, I hope, will
be instructive because an increasing number of researchers believe that, in critical realism, they have found a comfortable middle ground between social constructionism and
its bete noire, positivist philosophy.

The Critical Realists Charge of Positivism

Notwithstanding the fact that Anderson would regard critical realism as distinctly nonrealist on a number of topics, these two philosophies obviously have common features.2
In particular:
1.

Both deem ontology to be logically prior to epistemology, and neither thinks

scientific objectivity unachievable.

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Hibberd

2.
3.

4.

Both agree that the central philosophical task is to develop a general theory of being,
a realist theory of the conditions of existence.
Both reject an ontology of atomistic things, of nothing but particulars, universals,
stuff, substance and properties, Platos realism about the Forms, much of linguistic
philosophy and positivism.
Both employ an immanent critique, one which aims to show that their opponent
admits implicitly what she or he denies explicitly that what is admitted implicitly
is unavoidable.

Yet Bhaskar (1999) considers critical realism to be unique as a realist philosophy

unique in its use of a transcendental method of argument, its immanent critique, its focus
on ontology, its critique of social reality, its connection with socialism, and its attention
to science. Perhaps, then, he is not (or was not) conversant with situational realism
which, I suggest, matches critical realism on every one of those features.
The editor of the Dictionary of Critical Realism, however, is somewhat conversant,
though he nevertheless maintains that situational realism is just another version of
empiricism or positivism:
In Australia, the realist tradition inaugurated by the Scottish-Australian philosopher
John Anderson (18931962) explicitly saw itself as entailing empiricism and positivism
(Anderson, 1962; Baker, 1986); and, while an emergentist strand, best exemplified in the
scientific essentialism of Brian Ellis (2001), has in part grown out of that tradition, it is
an emergentism that is reductionist in relation to the sociosphere. (Hartwig, 2007: 98)

Hartwig (2007) does not elaborate on these claims and I can find no published material
where this view of Andersons realism has been proposed and defended. Presumably a
defence is deemed unnecessary given Hartwigs conviction that situational realists happily align themselves with empiricism and positivism. Perhaps because of his keenness
to uphold Bhaskars view that critical realism is unrivalled, Hartwig quickly dismisses an
alternative version of realist philosophy with the positivist epitaph.
The term positivist has been a pejorative for some time in the human sciences.3 The
mantra is that the positivist subscribes to a number of ideas that have no place in presentday science and philosophy. Here are six of those (not necessarily independent) ideas
deemed to be positivist, or to imply positivism, and therefore passe:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Objectivity scientific objectivity is achievable;

Value-immunity research is done from within a value-free framework;
Discoverability scientific knowledge is something discovered (rather than produced or constructed);
Scientism science is defined narrowly and any definition must include a commitment to quantitative methods;
Logicality logic is necessary to scientific inquiry;
Non-reflexivity a notion of reflexivity is absent.

Notably in the psycho-social sciences, a conflation of positivism and realism is not

uncommon, especially among those of a social constructionist persuasion (e.g. Brand,
3

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1996: 39; Denzin and Lincoln, 2005; Guba and Lincoln, 1994; Lovie, 1992; Ussher,
2002).4 One consequence is that the philosophy or metatheory that upholds just some
of the ideas above is dismissed summarily and, thereafter, nothing the positivist
says is seriously considered. At the very least, this conflation suggests a neglect of the
literature that distinguishes between realist and positivist philosophies. The anti-realist
aspects of logical positivism were long ago reported (e.g. Passmore, 1943, 1944,
1948; Stebbing, 1933, 19334) and recent work has added to this body of research
(e.g. G. P. Baker, 1988; Coffa, 1991; Earman, 1993; Friedman, 1999; Richardson,
1998). Within the social sciences, Manicas (1987) refers to logical positivism and logical
empiricism as twentieth century logical empiricism and, in a luminous and penetrating
analysis, distances it from realism; Greenwood (1992) too reminds us of the anti-realist
elements in later versions of logical empiricist philosophy. Yet, in spite of this substantial literature, misconceptions persist.
To demonstrate situational realisms relationship to the ideas above would involve a significant digression from the aim of this article. Suffice it to say that objectivity, discoverability and logicality are features of Andersons philosophy while value-immunity, scientism and
non-reflexivity are not (see Hibberd, 2009). Note, however, that the content of logical positivist philosophy was such that their conception of objectivity was compromised, valueimmunity could not be maintained, and discoverability was precluded (Friedman, 1999;
Richardson and Uebel, 2005; Weissman, 1991). In short, the only feature that situational realism has in common with logical positivism is logicality, though Andersons view of logic is
very different from that of the logical positivists (Hibberd, 2005, 2009).
Still, I suspect that Hartwigs conviction of Andersonian realism as positivist involves
none of the ideas above. It is more likely that (1) although two of the terms Anderson
used to describe his philosophy were positivist and empiricist, Hartwig has assumed
that Anderson meant by those terms something akin to current usage, and (2) Hartwig
has misjudged situational realism as a defender of Humes theory of causal laws and
thereby positivist. Critical realism, on the other hand, is highly critical of an Humean
account of causation, deductive-nomological accounts of explanation, and it defends a
levels-of-reality thesis.
Let me examine these two possibilities. First, we should not be misled by Andersons
use of the term positivism to describe his system of philosophy. By positivist, he simply
means that his system is not just an exercise in criticism that it proposes positive theses,
especially with regard to the subject matter of logic. Andersons meaning has nothing to do
with current usage. He is referring to ideas that, if true, refer to the way the world is.5
Although the development of Andersons realism was concurrent with the halcyon days
of logical positivist philosophy, his only reference to the latter was to note its subjectivism.
However, Andersons use of the term empiricist is less straightforward. It is certainly consistent with the general definition of empiricism, that knowledge is based on
experience, but there the connection with British empiricism ends (Hibberd, 2009).
When Anderson uses the term empiricist as a thesis about knowledge, he adopts its
classical (Greek) meaning, namely, finding out by trial and error: whatever we know
we learn in other words, that to know something is to come into active relations, to
enter into transactions, with it . . . (Anderson, 1962[1962a]: 162).6 Yet, he also
regarded empiricism as an ontological thesis:
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The distinguishing-mark [sic] of empiricism as a philosophy is that it denies this [different

kinds or degrees of truth or reality], that it maintains that there is only one way of being.
(Anderson, 1962[1927a]: 3)
Realism is . . . an empiricist doctrine, or theory of existence as the single way of being
. . . . (Anderson, 1962[1930]: 48)

This less conventional understanding of empiricism as ontological occurs for the following reason. Anderson argues that the long-standing dispute between extreme rationalism
and empiricism always comes down to an ontological matter whether what we can
know can be of two (at least) quite different kinds or types: (a) truths other than matters
of fact or objects that transcend existence, and (b) contingent situations. His response is
that both types take the situational form and so we are always concerned with a single
way of being (see Hibberd, 2009). Say anything about the first type and you will find
yourself affirming or denying some attribute or condition of a quantified subject, just
as you would when saying something about the second type.
Although Anderson regards empiricism as an ontological thesis, he does not treat
experience as a fundamental category. Experience, on his account, is simply one type
of relation and relation is one of a number of categories (Hibberd, 2009). Experiencing
or knowing is an occurrence or situation and what enables the knowing and what is
known are also occurrences or situations. So, these goings on are, like everything else,
subject to the general categories, the general conditions of existence. Situational realism
is, in part, an empiricist philosophy, but it is so only in the two senses (ontological and
epistemological) just outlined. Andersons descriptions of his philosophy as positivist
and empiricist are not an alignment of it with either positivist philosophy of science or
British empiricism.
Second, if we take up the critical realist ideas identified above, we can add to the list
of ideas deemed positivist and, therefore, implausible:
7.
8.

Constant conjunction a commitment to an Humean notion of causation;

Nomologicality science and social science are both involved in a search for
universal laws;
9. D-N model a commitment to the Hempel theory of explanation whereby explanation proceeds by deductive subsumption under universal laws (interpreted as
empirical regularities);
10. Existence monism a levels-of-reality thesis is absent, reality is not stratified but
seamless.
Whether Anderson is guilty as charged with respect to these four ideas is best examined
through two of critical realisms central tenets the levels-of-reality thesis and a notion
of causal powers.

Levels of Reality
Andersons treatment of reality as only one way of being returns us to a central tenet of
his philosophy: anything that exists or occurs is a spatial and temporal situation or
5

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History of the Human Sciences 000(00)

occurrence that is on the same level of reality as anything else that exists (A. J. Baker,
1986: 1). This is at odds with the ontology of critical realism.7 When Bhaskars philosophy was first introduced as transcendental realism in 1975, its raison detre was to
show that the then dominant philosophy of science, empirical realism, was mistaken
in its assumption that the objects of scientific knowledge appear as conjunctions
or sequences of events (Bhaskar, 1975: 100).8 Contrary to Hartwigs (2007) belief,
Anderson would have raised no objection to this aim, having shown the defects of
Humes and Mills account some decades earlier (see Anderson, 1962[1938]). But as
Bhaskar sees it, the problem with empirical realism as a system of philosophy (and this
does mean a philosophy such as Andersons) is this:
By constituting an ontology based on the category of experience, as expressed in the concept of the empirical world and mediated by the ideas of the actuality of the causal laws and
the ubiquity of constant conjunctions, three domains of reality are collapsed into one. This
prevents the question of the conditions under which experience is in fact significant in science from being posed; and the ways in which these three levels are brought into harmony or
phase with one another from being described. (Bhaskar, 1978: 567)

Bhaskars metaphysical position is complex and the detail need not be provided here.
Suffice it to say that there are two related ways in which he attempts to establish ontological depth with respect to natural and social phenomena. The first concerns the three
domains or levels referred to in the excerpt above. These are (1) the real (causal mechanisms, series of events or occurrences and experiences), (2) the actual (series of events or
occurrences and experiences only), and (3) the empirical (experienced events only).
According to Bhaskar (1998a: 41), these overlapping domains are stratified and each
stratum is categorically distinct. Mechanisms, events and experiences obtain at the different strata or levels of reality, though all have an equal ontological status; one is no less
real than any other. Any philosophy that fails to recognize these three domains (such as
Andersons) is judged by critical realists to be actualist. Actualism is the view that causal laws are constant conjunctions of events (Humes theory of causality); possibility and
natural necessity are reduced to an actuality of events and/or states of affairs. This
denies the existence of underlying structures which determine how the things come
to have their events, and instead locates the succession of cause and effect at the level
of events: every time A happens, B happens (Collier, 1994: 7).
Bhaskars second approach to establishing ontological depth involves the claim that
the divisions of the sciences are based in part on real stratification of the aspects of
nature of which these sciences speak (Collier, 1994: 107). Specifically, an ordered
series of causal (generative) mechanisms exists across strata. The laws of physics and
chemistry, for example, refer to the generative mechanisms at those levels and they may
explain something about biological mechanisms, though they will not explain them
away. The relations between the more basic and less basic domains are one-way relations of inclusion: all animals are composed of chemical substances but not all chemical
substances are parts of animals, and so on (ibid.). So Bhaskars stratification of reality is
also a stratification of mechanisms. Concepts of rootedness, emergence and downward
causation are also invoked. Higher-level mechanisms, those of a social kind, for
6

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example, are rooted in, and emergent from, mechanisms at a lower level. They can
project their causal powers downward and affect changes at lower levels, such as when
psycho-social mechanisms bring about changes in a human body.
It should be immediately obvious that situational realism does not readily accommodate the actualist label. To repeat the point made previously, Anderson rejected
Humes account of causality as constant conjunction. Andersons alternative is a philosophy of process which takes causation to be pluralistic and dynamic, one that accommodates interaction at all points. It involves an efficient cause acting upon a causal
field to produce an effect (Hibberd, 2009). Granted that situational realism rejects all
notions of causal powers (more about that in the following section) but this does not
necessitate commitment to a constant conjunction account. And, as we have seen,
Andersons ontology is based on categories of existence, not experience. Situational realism is not an example of the empirical realism described by Bhaskar.
However, Anderson certainly thought that there are laws to be discovered in all
sciences, notwithstanding the great difficulty in doing so.9 Yet he is clearly at odds with
positivism over the nature of a law. He did not address criteria of nomologicality, but he
would reject the positivists conception of laws as simply exceptionless regularities.
And, given Andersons view of the concept of probability, he would also repudiate
Hempels inclusion of inductive-statistical explanation into the covering law model.
However, Anderson thought that laws play a role in causal explanation. Some commitment to a version of the covering law model, one that takes laws to be causal connections
between situation types instantiated in particular sequences of events, is not at odds with
his system. In short, situational realism supports nomologicality but rejects the D-N
model of explanation.
Finally, to existence monism. This is the thesis that there are not kinds or sorts or levels of existence. Anderson frequently argued that to claim otherwise leads to the problems associated with dualism. He agrees with Bhaskar (and with Hume) that cause
and effect are spatio-temporally distinct and he recognizes the existence of causal
mechanisms interacting with other causal mechanisms, not all of which can be observed
directly. However, situational realism explicitly rejects any notion of levels of reality
(Anderson, 1962[1930]).10 This is the core of the metaphysical dispute between these two
versions of realism. Anderson shuns any levels-of-reality thesis. Bhaskar thinks the
notion absolutely necessary.
Present-day metaphysics is replete with discussion about how a hierarchical account
of nature stratified into levels is best conceptualized, and talk of levels is particularly
prominent in philosophy of mind and psychology (e.g. Martin and Sugarman, 1999). For
most discussants, a non-layered world is inconceivable and seldom do they defend their
position. The rationale appears to be that the structure of reality is indicated by the structure of science (Schaffer, 2003). This same rationale was offered some 90 years ago by
the philosopher Samuel Alexander, a major influence on Anderson. But Andersons
(2005[1944]) rather brusque response was to say that disciplinary distinctions among
sciences have a social, not ontological, basis. Current philosophy is far more terminologically complex than in Andersons day. Debates about levels of reality now involve
notions such as mereological structures, ordered supervenience structures, ordered
realization structures and ordered nomological structures. Yet, in spite of, or perhaps
7

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History of the Human Sciences 000(00)

because of, these conceptual tools, the difficulty in providing a model of levels remains
(Heil, 1998, 2003b; Kim, 2002). There is some consensus that the concept supervenience, which is central to the concept of emergence and a layered model of the world,
is typically characterized as a purely modal notion providing no ontological illumination or explanatory depth (Heil, 1998: 154). And it is possible that the assumption that
reality is layered stems from reading off features of the world from features of our language (Heil, 2003b: 218).
Perhaps, as Kim (2002) claims, the Cartesian model of a bifurcated world has been
transposed into a layered world. Certainly, Andersons argument against levels of reality
is just that advanced against a Cartesian account of mind and against all forms of dualism
(Hibberd, 2009). Adapting it to Bhaskars levels-of-reality thesis, the argument runs as
follows: there has to be some kind of relation between Bhaskars causal mechanisms
(supposedly located at one level, say l1) and any effects (supposedly located at another
level, say l2). Regardless of what that relation is, it has to be described as belonging to l1,
the realm of generative mechanisms, but then so has the other term of the relation,
effects, because relations just are the connections between the items standing in those
relations. Consequently, one cannot help but treat mechanisms and their effects as joint
items in a single situation. Ergo, any ontological notion of different levels collapses.
Obviously, parts of a system can be configured to form a particular relational structure
and this system will have certain qualities, but this does not license the inference that its
qualities exist at a higher level than its parts, nor that these qualities are emergents, nor
that the psycho-social, for example, is reducible to the biological. The key point is that
levels are not part of the worlds furniture.11 Arguably, Andersons notion of nonlinear, causal fields is less misleading than levels of reality. In referring to that which
is acted upon and which becomes X, there is no suggestion of higher emergents. Neither,
then, is there any suggestion of higher emergents being more evolved than lower emergents, or of a lower basis being more substantial than that at a higher level. The notion of
emergents is a reification.
An objection similar to Andersons rebuttal of levels has recently been made by
Kaidesoja (2007). According to critical realism, causal mechanisms are causal powers
and Kaidesoja, though not dismissing a concept of causal power, laments the lack of
detail pertaining to Bhaskars account of powers:
From this perspective, it becomes problematic to answer to [sic] the question: how are
causal powers of things related to actual entities (e.g. observable events, processes, things
and states of affairs)? It is not enough to assert that the exercised causal powers somehow
produce the actual objects of observations, because the precise nature of this relation of production remains inevitably obscure since it is hard to see how something that is categorically distinct from actual entities could produce any actual spatio-temporal effects.
(Kaidesoja, 2007: 75; emphases added)

This is precisely Andersons point how can interaction across levels be explained without collapsing those levels? Although Anderson and Bhaskar agree that mechanisms,
events and experiences are logically independent, this does not imply a distinction
between ontological levels.
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Hibberd

The Concept of Causal Powers

As we have seen, one reason for Bhaskars insistence on levels of reality is his adherence
to a concept of emergent causal powers. Generative mechanisms just are the causal powers of things (Bhaskar, 1998a: 367). The rudimentary features of critical realisms
account of causal powers are:
1.

2.
3.

All structures, including social structures, possess causal powers. These are their
powers to effect change. Causal powers are complex, irreducible, fundamental features of this world (Bhaskar, 1998b: 80).
Causal powers are potentialities which may or may not be exercised. Can does not
equal does (Collier, 1994: 10).
Tendencies are causal powers (potentialities) which are exercised (set in motion).
They may not be actualized at the level of events or manifest to people. They can
be set in motion and this is independent of any outcome at the level of the actual
(Pinkstone and Hartwig, 2007: 458). The category mistake in philosophy is the confusion of powers and tendencies with their realization.

To quote Bhaskar:
Things possess powers . . . to do and suffer things that they are not actually doing and suffering and that they may never actually do or suffer. It remains true to say of a Boeing 727 that it
can (has the power to) fly 600 m.p.h. even if it is safely locked up in its hangar. (1978: 87)
All men (living in certain kinds of societies) possess the power to steal; kleptomaniacs
possess the tendency to do so. (1978: 230)
We know what it is like to be in a situation where we tend to lose our patience or temper
and we know what it is like keeping it. Tendencies exercised unfulfilled; shown, perhaps,
but unrealized in virtue of our self-control. (1978: 99)

This is to say we have the power to become angry and when we feel angry some of the
intrinsic enabling conditions, of a relatively enduring kind for the powers exercise, are
satisfied; we are in some state or condition to lose our temper. Bhaskar is not concerned
with the effects of a tendency there may not be any, he thinks. On any particular occasion, the kleptomaniac may not steal and we may not lose our temper. Causal powers, then,
are said to be located in an ontological realm which lies beyond or behind the realms of
events and experience. Hence, the critical realists charges of empiricism-positivism and
actualism. Anderson is without a concept of powers and in maintaining that there are
no levels of reality, he fails to recognize the categorial distinctions between causal powers,
the events they may generate, and the experiences we may have of them.12
Within current mainstream philosophy, this area of metaphysics powers is topical
and is said to cleanly divide empiricists from realists, unlike the levels-of-reality thesis.
Following Hume, the empiricist line is that powers are nothing at all (e.g. Carnap, 1936;
D. Lewis, 1997; Mackie, 1973; Ryle, 1949). Following Reid, Locke and Berkeley, the
realist line is that dispositions have as their basis real, causal powers. Among presentday realist philosophers of science, a concept of powers is deemed an essential alternative
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10

History of the Human Sciences 000(00)

to Humes metaphysics. Bhaskar is joined by Greenwood (1991) on this matter as they

develop the ideas of their supervisor Harre (1970). Bennett and Hacker (2003), Ellis
(2001), Heil (2003a) and Pols (1982, 1998) also retain a notion of causal powers13 as
do Andersons students, Armstrong (1997) and Molnar (2003).13
Andersons (1932) dismissal of the concept of powers draws on an infinite regress argument that, according to Anderson, Hume had directed at Locke. Here is the argument: if
something is actually done, it is claimed that it could only be done if a relevant power was
exercised. You can only do X if the power to do X is exercised, but exercising the X power
is also to do something. Thus in order to exercise the X power, we must exercise the power
to exercise the X power. Now we are on the path of an infinite regress, and it is a vicious
one - we can never actually do X because we are always chasing the eternally elusive,
spontaneously occurring first power (McMullen, 2008, personal communication).
In addressing the question of what powers do when they are not manifested, Psillos
(2006) employs a similar regress argument. Many will find this argument unsatisfactory
(e.g. Molnar, 2003). More telling for Bhaskars account is his view that: to say that X has
a power to do something is to say that it possesses a structure or is of such a kind that it
will do it, if the appropriate conditions obtain (Bhaskar, 1978: 88, 231). But these two
statements are not equivalent. Here, as in other places throughout the critical realist
literature, there is an illicit movement from a relational conception of powers, as in
X having the power, or ability, or capacity to do Y, to a property-type conception, as
in powers being items instantiated in structures. X having the power to do Y cannot be
some kind of internal state because this takes powers to be both relational and an intrinsic
property of whatever stands in that relation, thereby engaging the fallacy of constitutive
relations discussed in Hibberd (2009). The relation to Y cannot be built into the structure
of X. Similarly, if a power is supposed to be a component of some structure, it cannot be
characterized relationally, and its intrinsic properties must be, at least in principle, discoverable. Given this erroneous conceptualization, it is unsurprising that Kaidesoja
(2007) notes the absence of detail in critical realisms conception of powers.
In his The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation, Mackie (1974), a student of
Andersons, argues that the concept of powers needs to be explained in terms of causation rather than causation in terms of powers. Interestingly, critical realism sometimes
arrives at just this position, despite claims to the contrary. Take the following example:
people strike matches and light cigarettes in their apartments. This is normal. But a gas
leak is not normal and should not occur. So, we ascribe the cause of the explosion which
wrecked the apartments to a quantity of gas rather than to someones lighting a cigarette.
To ask what caused the explosion, is to ask What made the difference between those
times, or those cases, within a certain range, in which no such explosion occurred, and
in this case in which an explosion did occur? (Mackie, 1974: 35). Mackies example is
not a case of similar antecedents repeatedly followed contiguously by similar successors.
In fact, it is consistent with Bhaskars observation that:
When something is cited as a cause it is, I think, most typically being viewed as that factor
which, in the circumstances that actually prevailed, so tipped the balance of events as to
produce the known outcome. Clearly such a concept is non-Humean and generative.
(1998b: 83)
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Both Mackie and Bhaskar refer to the factor that made the difference, that tipped the
balance. (This is non-Humean.) Yet Mackie does so without the concepts of powers and
tendencies. More recently, P. Lewis (2000) has drawn on Mackies account because he
thinks that the critical realist theory of causal powers is at odds with their position that
social structure is causally efficacious.
Lastly, the empirical reason given for employing a concept of causal powers is that fundamental particles are said to have no internal structure: What these properties are is
exhausted by what they have a potential for doing (Molnar, 2003: 136). This, then, is
thought to license the inference that such properties are ungrounded or bare powers. Psillos
(2006), however, notes that the evidence from physics is currently incomplete. One possibility is that the properties of elementary particles are grounded in symmetries (rather than
being pure powers) which act as meta-laws and thereby determine ordinary laws of nature.
So, like levels of reality, it is not obvious that powers and tendencies are part of the
worlds furniture. It is possible that their only basis is in the language of ordinary discourse.

Conclusion
My primary aim has been to consider the basis of critical realisms charge of positivism
recently directed at Andersons philosophy. In certain respects the charge differs from
the commonplace misidentification of realism with positivism. The latter tends to misrepresent both philosophies in that various ideas are either incorrectly identified as positivist or mistakenly predicated of realism.
Critical realisms charge, on the other hand, appears to attribute Humean positivism to
Andersons philosophy. But it errs in not recognizing that Anderson dismissed Humes
theory of causality as constant conjunction, developing instead the concept of non-linear
causal fields. This points to major differences between the two versions of realism
regarding the concept of causation. Critical realism argues for a levels-of-reality thesis
and develops the notion of causal powers. Situational realism upholds existence monism
and rejects the notion of powers. Anderson repeatedly argued that to propose levels or
types of reality inevitably leads to a form of dualism. And, importantly, the basis of
situational realisms rejection of causal powers is not an empiricism which maintains
that causal powers are not real because they cannot be observed. It is rather that the critical realists concept of powers involves at least two fallacies it confuses relations and
properties and it entails a vicious infinite regress.
Superficially, then, there is some substance to the critical realists charge of positivism. Yes, Anderson did think that there are laws to be discovered across all the sciences.
Yes, he did defend a non-stratified reality without causal powers. But his understanding
of the nature of a law is contrary to positivist philosophy, and a non-stratified reality is
defended because Anderson did not think that contrary positions have or can overcome
the various logical obstacles entailed in their arguments. Couple this with the fact that
although Anderson shares one feature from the six ideas commonly deemed positivist
logicality his understanding of logic is quite different. Scratch away the surface and
the charge of positivism is not much of a stick to beat the realist with.
Why, then, is the positivist epitaph frequently shallow and misplaced? Psychologists
and social scientists have sometimes been chided for their complacency, ignorance and
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distortion of fundamental problems in their field (e.g. Bickhard, 1992; Koch, 1992;
Suppe, 1984). Certainly many have not kept abreast of research in the philosophy of science. Given the vast amount of literature involved, this is excusable. What is less fathomable is the critics readiness to proclaim on such matters despite their unfamiliarity with
that literature. Theirs, it would seem, is a quick and easy approach to conceptual and historical matters: read only secondary source material, ignore the Chinese whispers effect
and follow the Zeitgeist. One consequence is that 20th century positivism and realism are
not well understood. This is why social constructionism has been hailed as a viable alternative to positivism when it is not (Hibberd, 2005), why positivism and realism are
sometimes said to be equivalent when they are not, and perhaps why the critical realists
dismissal of Andersons philosophy is hollow. A breakdown in the process of critical
inquiry is understandable in any scientific enterprise. Continuing to ignore that breakdown is not.
Notes
1. How they are established and/or supported is set out in Hibberd (2009).
2. Two of those topics are critical realisms theory of truth and its epistemology.
3. Almost 30 years ago, Wetherick (1979: 99) commented on [t]he ritual denunciations of positivism which preface every account of so-called radical psychology.
4. Precisely which version of positivism, and which of realism, the critic has in mind is never
stated.
5. The term positive was used in a similar sense by the American New Realists of the early
20th century who were committed to certain positive beliefs (Holt et al., 1912: 31). See the
entry Positivist in Williams (1976) for the various shifts in meaning.
6. This accords with ecological approaches to knowing (e.g. Good, 2007).
7. It is also at odds with levels-of-reality theories developed by Herbert Spencer (1922[1860]),
Samuel Alexander (1920) and Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1923). They proposed an emergent evolutionism because they wanted to incorporate evolutionary theory into metaphysics. And it is
contrary to more recent attempts by Nicolai Hartmann (1953[1949]) and Paul Oppenheim and
Hilary Putnam (1958), among others, to develop the levels-of-reality thesis, though Oppenheim and Putnam oppose emergentism.
8. Bhaskars rationale was the intelligibility of experimental practice. When experimenters work
to control certain variables, they are working to prevent certain mechanisms from interacting
in complicated ways and giving rise to a flux of events. Their aim is to obtain a regularity
under controlled conditions so as to identify the single mechanism responsible for that regularity. Bhaskar concludes from this that mechanisms lie behind the regularities produced in
experimental settings. Causation is not simply conjunctions of events.
9. For arguments against the supposed impossibility and irrelevance of laws in the social
sciences, see McIntyre (1996). McIntyre finds the arguments against a lawful science of
human action to be so weak, they are little more than window dressing.
10. Of course, the word levels can be used metaphorically in the exploratory stages of inquiry
but eventually it must be cashed out. A literal meaning, explicit and detailed, has to be provided if the metaphor is not to lead inquiry in the wrong direction. Anderson would argue that
levels as a metaphor cannot be cashed out.
11. It follows that there is no fundamental level either.
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12. Certainly Anderson (1962) takes the categories to be invariant across anything that exists or
occurs, because the whole point about categories, as contrasted with qualities, is that they
apply to all material (Anderson, 1962[1962a]: 182).
13. Hartwigs belief, quoted on p. 3, that Elliss philosophy has links to Andersonian realism is
incorrect.
14. There are, of course, differences between these accounts.

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Biographical Note
Fiona J. Hibberd is Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney. Her
research interest is the philosophy of psychology and she is the author of Unfolding Social Constructionism (2005) and other papers. Her teaching includes the history and philosophy of psychology, psychoanalytic theories of personality and conceptual issues in psychometrics.

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