Philosophy of the Social

Sciences
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Knowing Social Reality: A Critique of Bhaskar and Archer's Attempt

to Derive a Social Ontology from Lay Knowledge
Justin Cruickshank
Philosophy of the Social Sciences published online 21 July 2009
DOI: 10.1177/0048393109340664

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 Philosophy of the Social Sciences OnlineFirst, published on July 21, 2009 as
doi:10.1177/0048393109340664

Philosophy of
the Social Sciences
Volume XX Number X
Month XXXX xx-xx

Knowing Social Reality

2009 The Author(s)
10.1177/0048393109340664
http://pos.sagepub.com
A Critique of Bhaskar and
Archers Attempt to Derive
a Social Ontology from Lay Knowledge
Justin Cruickshank
University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

Critical realists argue that the condition of possibility of the sciences is that
they are based on a correct set of ontological assumptions or definitions. The
task of philosophy is to underlabor for the sciences, by ensuring that the
explanations developed are congruent with the ontological condition of pos-
sibility of the sciences. This requires critical realists to justify their claims
about ontology and, to do this, they turn to ontological assumptions that are
held to obtain in natural scientific knowledge and social agents lay knowl-
edge. A number of problems with this approach are discussed and a problem-
solving alternative is advocated.

Keywords: critical realism; fallibilism; ontology; Popper; underlaborer

Introduction

For critical realists, research in the social sciences needs to be based on an

ontological meta-theory which defines social reality in terms of structures
(conceptualized as emergent properties) and agents with free will whose
actions are conditioned (rather than determined) by social structures. A meta-
theory offering such definitions is required because, for critical realists,
adequate casual explanations have to be based on the correct definition of
social reality and the social sciences currently lack a correct definition.
This approach has occasioned much criticism. Some critics seek an
alternative approach to the structureagency problem, while others reject
the notion that social science research needs to be based on a meta-theory

Received 22 July 2008

Authors Note: I would like the thank the anonymous referees for their constructive criticism.
I, of course, remain responsible for any remaining errors.

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2 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

that defines social reality. Critics arguing for an alternative approach to the
structureagency problem tend to either argue for a form of methodological
individualism that treats any reference to social structures as an untenable
structural determinism (see, for instance, Trigg 1985). Or, alternatively, oth-
ers argue that structures need to be conceptualized not as emergent properties
but as recursively reproduced practices within networks of intersubjective
meanings (Berger and Luckmann 1966; Giddens 1979, 1984; King 1999,
2004). Most of the criticism, though, has dealt not with alternative resolutions
to the structureagency problem, but with the notion that research needs to
be based on a meta-theory that defines social reality (in terms of agents,
structures, or agents and structures). Those who adopt this line of criticism
come from a wide variety of backgrounds that include Marxism (Gunn
1988), some versions of social constructionism (see, for instance, Potter
1996, 1998 and Shotter 1993), neopragmatism (Baert 2005, Rorty 1996,
1998), neo-Wittgenstianism (Pleasants 1999) and post-positivism (Holmwood
1996, 2001; Holmwood and Stewart 1991; Kemp 2005).
Obviously these approaches vary radically in what they deem to be
acceptable and useful social science but, nonetheless, there is some conver-
gence on the issue of criticizing meta-theory. The main point made by many
of these critics is that any form of meta-theory will postulate a set of
abstractions that are too general to be of substantive use in empirical
research because the abstractions are elastic enough for any data to be read
into them. Thus Baert (2005), for instance, discusses how the critical realist
approach to British postwar political history by Marsh et al. (1999) invokes
the lexicon of structures and agency to explain events, but without this
leading to any explanatory or substantive insight. Baerts argument is that
a detailed history of postwar British politics would, obviously, deal with
the relationship between sociopolitical circumstances, such as recessions,
deindustrialization, etc., and individuals. Nevertheless, the concepts of
structure and agency cannot add anything to this because any event can
have the labels structure and agency applied to it, given that the concepts
are elastic enough to be applied to anything. To this, critical realists may
counter that their concepts of structures as emergent properties and agency
were of importance because they did make reference to the real defining
features of social reality. The problem though is that redescribing data to
fit some general categories that are elastic enough to be applied to any
research problem does not prove that these categories are actually justified
because they pick out the defining features of reality. Invoking these cate-
gories to explain substantive issues is different from justifying the veracity

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 3

of these definitions; and treating the invocation of these categories as their

justification obviously begs the question.
The problem explored in this article concerns the attempt by critical
realists to justify their ontological meta-theory independently of its applica-
tion. This brings us to the arguments of Bhaskar (1995, 1997) and Archer
(1995). They seek to justify the critical realist ontology by deriving hitherto
implicit ontological assumptions from a domain of knowledge, and then
turn these assumptions into clear ontological definitions, which philosophy
can then apply back to the sciences. As regards the natural sciences, this
means explicating the hitherto implicit ontological assumptions in scien-
tific knowledge and, as regards the social sciences, critical realists turn
away from the (putative) knowledge of social scientists to explicate the
ontological assumptions taken to obtain in lay knowledge. The discussion
of how critical realists seek to justify their ontological claims will start with
their approach to the natural sciences because critical realists draw on their
philosophy of the natural sciences in their construction of ontological defi-
nitions for the social sciences.
Both the specific attempt to derive a social ontology from lay knowl-
edge and the general approach of basing ontological definitions on implicit
assumptions about reality will be criticized. As regards the former, it will
be argued that the attempt to turn lay ontological assumptions into onto-
logical definitions for the social sciences begs the question, and that the
attempt by some neo-Marxist critical realists to treat lay knowledge as
false consciousness precludes the attempt to treat ontological assump-
tions in lay knowledge as being correct. As regards the general approach
of turning implicit ontological assumptions in a domain of knowledge into
ontological definitions that can be applied to the sciences, it will be argued
that this contradicts the critical realist argument about the epistemic fal-
lacy. That is, using assumptions about reality located in domains of
knowledge falls foul of the critical realist argument that ontological ques-
tions about reality must not be transposed into epistemological ques-
tions about how we know reality (see Bhaskar 1975, 16; 1979, 133). It will
be argued that instead of holding that explanations in the social sciences
have to be based on ontological definitions, one ought to maintain that
knowledge develops through the critical revision and replacement of sub-
stantive knowledge claims.

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4 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Philosophy as an Underlaborer for the Sciences

For critical realists, the correct ontological assumptions or definitions fur-
nish the condition of possibility of the sciences. This is because explanations
about how phenomena interact have to be based on a correct set of ontologi-
cal assumptions or definitions concerning what reality is. The consequence
of holding to an incorrect set of ontological assumptions or definitions is thus
explanatory failure, because the phenomena being explained will necessarily
be misconceptualized: one would misconstrue what it was that one was try-
ing to explain. The task of philosophy, as far as critical realists are con-
cerned, is to underlabor for the sciences by removing any potential
conceptual confusion over the issue of ontology (Bhaskar 1975, 10).1 To do
this, critical realists pose a transcendental question and answer this, in the
natural sciences, by turning to the ontological assumptions taken to obtain
in the natural sciences. Having located the condition of possibility of the
natural sciences the next step is to turn these hitherto implicit assumptions
into an explicit set of definitions that can be used to inform the construction
of scientific theories. In other words, the role of philosophy is to make
scientists aware of their own working assumptions about reality. Given this,
the critical realist view of the natural sciences may be described as treating
the said sciences as a self-justifying epistemic exemplar. They may be
described as an epistemic exemplar because they have achieved a high
degree of epistemicor explanatorysuccess, and this is self-justifying
because rather than turn to philosophy to justify knowledge claims, the
knowledge claims of the natural sciences are justified by their own internal
ontological assumptions. Hence such assumptions are taken to be the ans
wer to the transcendental question concerning the condition of possibility
of the natural sciences.
The ontological assumptions that are taken to be implicit in all forms of
natural science, for critical realists, are that the natural world is a stratified
open system. It is an open system because it is open to change at the realm

1. Bhaskar derives this metaphor of the underlaborer from Lockes comment that:
[T]he commonwealth of learning is not at this time without master builders, whose mighty
designs, in advancing the sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the admiration of poster-
ity; but everyone must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham; and in an age that produces such
masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that
strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an underlaborer in clearing ground a little, and
removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge. (Locke 1690, xlii-xliii)
Given that Bhaskar rejects Lockean empiricism, the use of this term is potentially confusing.

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 5

of observable events. It is stratified because causal mechanisms, which are

taken to be unobservable in themselves, exist beneath the realm of chang-
ing empirical events and because natural reality is constituted by different
strata of emergent properties in the form of the biological and chemical
domains which are irreducible down to the domain of physics.2 As the
natural sciences constitute a self-justifying epistemic exemplar, philosophy
has to restrict its ambitions to underlaboring, i.e., rendering explicit the
aforementioned ontological assumptions qua condition of possibility of the
natural sciences.
To say that these ontological assumptions are correct assumptions that fur
nish the condition of possibility of the natural sciences is not the same as say-
ing that these ontological assumptions are isomorphs of the defining features
of natural reality. To understand this, we need to understand a distinction
drawn by critical realists between the intransitive domain and the transitive
domain (Bhaskar 1975; see also Sayer 1984). The former pertains to reality
and the latter to our theories about reality. The domain of theories is
referred to as the transitive domain because theoriesand indeed knowl-
edge generallyis taken to be fallible and thus subject to revision and
replacement. As regards the ontological assumptions within the natural sci-
ences, these are taken to be assumptions within the transitive domain which
are successfulbut fallibleassumptions about the intransitive domain.
That is, while these assumptions are held to be the condition of possibility
of science achieving its current level of epistemicor explanatory
success, this is not to say that these assumptions mirror the defining fea-
tures of the intransitive domain. The ontological assumptions within the
transitive domain may be responsible for making science work but this
does not mean that they are infallible. This approach to ontology leads
Bhaskar to argue that critical realism treats metaphysics as a conceptual
science (1975, 36). What this means is that ontology, for critical realists,
does not entail speculation about the intransitive domain, or the ultimate
nature of being. Rather, the task of developing an ontology is that of turning
the hitherto implicit assumptions about reality, in the transitive domain of

2. Critical realists draw a distinction between the domains of the real, the actual and the
empirical (see Bhaskar 1975, 13). The domain of the empirical is that which is experienced;
the domain of the actual pertains to events caused by underlying causal mechanisms and the
experiences of these; and the domain of the real includes the above two domains plus the
domain of the underlying causal mechanisms themselves.

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6 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

natural scientific knowledge, into an explicit set of philosophical definitions

that can guide the sciences.3
This approach to the philosophy of the natural sciences, which focuses on
ontology, is held to be unique in avoiding what critical realists refer to as the
epistemic fallacy. In making this case, critical realists focus on positivism,
which is defined broadly to cover both the inductive method and the hypo-
thetico-deductive (or H-D) method.4 It is argued that because positivist phi-
losophies of science are based either explicitly or implicitly on an empiricist
epistemology, the methodologies advocated must be based on the direct
observation of fixed empirical regularities. Thus with the inductive method,
one could verify a theory by directly observing relations of cause and effect,
while with the H-D method one would not be able to observe relations of
cause and effect, but one could nonetheless corroborate or falsify a theory by
testing it against the effects of causal laws, which are taken to produce fixed
empirical regularities. This leads critical realists to argue that positivism pro-
duces an implicit ontology, which is a closed-systems ontology (Bhaskar
1975, 1979). This closed-systems ontology, which presumes the natural
world to be constituted (or partly constituted, in the case of the H-D method)
by fixed empirical regularities that are closed to change, is obviously rejected
by critical realists. Cutting reality to fit an empiricist epistemology may suit
the positivist philosopher but, for critical realists, this fails to conceptualize
natural reality as a stratified open system and so it fails to understand the very
condition of possibility of the natural sciences.
The problem with this approach to the epistemic fallacy is that the fal-
lacy is defined so broadly that the only way to avoid it is to engage in some
form of absolutist metaphysics. That is, the only way to avoid it would be
to step outside the transitive domain of knowledge claims, and use meta-
physics to define the essential properties of the intransitive domain. When
Bhaskar defines metaphysics as a conceptual science he clearly eschews

3. Bhaskar makes a distinction between philosophical ontology and scientific ontology.

The former is the general stratified open systems ontology and the latter pertains to any spe-
cific accounts of reality developed in scientific research. A scientific ontology must be congru-
ent with the philosophical ontology, and the concern here is only with the philosophical
ontology because if the argument for this is untenable then there is no need to base scientific
ontologies on this. Benton and Craib (2001) discuss this issue as critical realists but define
philosophical ontology in terms of metaphysical speculation about the ultimate essence of
reality and scientific ontologies in terms of the assumptions made within specific disciplines.
Their discussion is therefore at odds with Bhaskars version.
4. See Papineau 1982 for a review that comments on Bhaskars tendency to criticize
broad isms.

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 7

this approach to metaphysics and, instead, draws out ontological assump-

tions from within the transitive domain. In doing this he is, of course, draw-
ing out assumptions about reality from a domain of knowledge and, in so
doing, must be guilty, ex hypothesi, of transposing ontological questions
into epistemological questions: what reality is becomes defined in terms of
the assumptions about it that obtain in our knowledge claims. Reality is that
which we know and assume reality to be.
So, from this, we may say that the attempt to avoid the epistemic fallacy
by turning to ontology, and treating metaphysics as a conceptual science,
failed because it fell foul of the putative epistemic fallacy itself. If the social
sciences could also be treated as a self-justifying epistemic exemplar then the
same problem would, obviously, reappear. However, the social sciences
clearly lack the same explanatory power as the natural sciences and the social
sciences lack agreement over ontological assumptions. Given this, critical
realists have two options. First, they could hold that the task of underlaboring
for the social sciences would have to be postponed until such time as the
social sciences managed to arrive at a set of correct ontological assumptions.
Second, critical realists could seek out a domain of knowledge that acted as
a surrogate for social scientific knowledge, from which ontological assump-
tions could be derived and turned into a set of ontological definitions to guide
the social sciences. If this option were taken, then the role of the underlaborer
for the social sciences would be different from the underlaborer for the natu-
ral sciences. This is because rather than inform scientists about their hitherto
implicit working assumptions, the underlaborer would have to argue that the
social sciences needed a new set of ontological definitions, because the exist-
ing ontological assumptions were erroneous. Critical realists take the second
option and the domain of knowledge they turn to is social agents knowledge,
i.e., lay knowledge. The ontological assumptions in lay knowledge are
treated by critical realists as being correct but vague, and so we may say that
lay knowledge is treated as an epistemic proto-exemplar. The task of the
philosophical underlaborer then becomes that of building on this epistemic
proto-exemplar, turning correct but vague ontological assumptions into a
clear set of correct ontological definitions, which can then be argued for as
the unified ontological base for social science explanations.

Treating Lay Knowledge as an Epistemic Proto-Exemplar

The argument about deriving ontological assumptions from lay knowl-

edge is made by Bhaskar (1979) and Archer (1984). Bhaskar argues that one

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8 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

cannot try to overcome the ontological pluralism in the social sciences by

selecting one perspective and universalizing the ontological assumptions of
that perspective. He argues thus:

Now it would clearly beg the question to pick some or other forms of social
scientific activity to act as premises for a transcendental inquiry. For such
activities are themselves the subject of substantive theoretical controversy,
and presuppose different and conflicting conceptions of society. But it does
not follow from this that one cannot isolate more or less universally recog-
nized features of substantive social life itself. (Bhaskar 1998, 14)

To isolate some more or less universally recognized features of social life,

Bhaskar turns to lay knowledge in the form of the conceptions of social
reality that obtain in lay discourse. He argues that lay debates about social,
political, economic, and ethical issues implicitly draw on generic onto-
logical assumptions of individuals confronting a social reality that has a
power over individuals (1979, 172). Thus, to use his examples, debates
about Thatcherism and the welfare state must all draw on notions of indi-
viduals dealing with a social reality that is more than individuals.
An alternative starting point is to turn from lay discourse to lay agents
experiences and treat such experiences as an epistemic proto-exemplar.
Archer develops such a position, arguing thus:

An inescapable part of our inescapably social condition is to be aware of

its constraints, sanctions and restrictionsbe they for good or evil. [. . .] At
the same time, an inalienable part of our human condition is the feeling of
freedom: we are the sovereign artificers responsible for our own desti-
nies, and capable of re-making our social environment to befit human
habitation. This book begins by accepting that such ambivalence in the
daily experience of ordinary people is fully authentic. (Archer 1995, 1-2;
emphasis added)

Archer does not say that lay agents have experiences that are different from
social scientists. She does though argue that social scientists have refused
to recognize the import of such experiences. Archer argues that:

[f]rom the beginning [. . .] betrayal and delusion have been common practice
when approaching the vexatious fact of society and its human constitution.
The earliest attempts to conceptualize this unique entity produced two diver-
gent ontologies [i.e., structuralist determinism and methodological individu-
alism] which, in changing guises, have been with us ever since. Both evade

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 9

the encounter with the vexatious ambivalence of social reality. (Archer 1995,
2; emphasis added)

Having treated lay knowledge (in the form of lay discourse and lay experi-
ence) as what is termed here an epistemic proto-exemplar, and derived
ontological assumptions about social reality from this, the next step is to
turn these assumptions into a clear set of ontological definitions. This
brings us to the structureagency problem and the issue of naturalism.
Critical realists argue that the structureagency problem is the problem
of central importance in the social sciences for two reasons. First, as noted
above, all the sciences need to be based on a correct set of ontological
assumptions, because this is the condition of possibility for the natural and
social sciences to produce accurate explanations. Second, the social sci-
ences lack correct ontological assumptions but lay agents have correctif
vagueontological assumptions that pertain to individuals with free will
interacting with social forces that are more than other individuals and
which conditionbut do not determinethe agency of individual agents.
This emphasis on individuals and social forces that are more than indi-
viduals brings us to the problem of defining social reality in a way that can
explain how social forces or social structures condition the agency of indi-
viduals. Seeking a solution to the structureagency problem that argues that
structures determine individuals behavior and consciousness or, con-
versely, that only individuals exist, is obviously rejected by critical realists
because this is incongruent with the ontological assumptions held to obtain
in lay knowledge. Hence Archer argued, as noted above, that social scien-
tists who dealt with the vexatious fact of society have hitherto subjected
experience of freedom and constraint to betrayal and delusion by focusing
on either structure or agency and not their interaction.
To define social structures, critical realists turn to their philosophy of
natural science, and argue that social reality is a stratified open system with
social structures being emergent properties. Social structures are held to be
emergent properties because they emerge from the actions of individuals
and then become a stratum of reality that can exert a causal power over
individuals and condition their agency (Archer 1995). Thus capitalism, for
instance, was created by the actions of individual traders several centuries
ago, but is now an emergent property with causal powers of its own. Social
structures exist in open systems because agents are not determined pas-
sively to reproduce structural continuity and because structures interact in
contingent ways to produce changing effects (see Archer 1995, Archer
et al. 1998, Bhaskar 1979, and Sayer 1984 and 2000).

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10 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Naturalism and Its Limitations

Critical realists regard their position as naturalist, because both the
natural and the social sciences seek to explain the operation of causal
mechanisms in stratified open systems. This naturalism is held to be both
a contingent and a qualified naturalism (see Bhaskar 1979, 2-3; see also
Archer et al. 1998 and Collier 1994, 237-48). What critical realists are try-
ing to avoid here is the accusation of scientism, whereby the methods of
the natural sciences are dogmatically imposed on the social sciences, and
the accusation of reifying structures, with the focus being on structures
determining the activity of agents.
The naturalism advocated by critical realists is held to be a contingent
naturalism because there is no a priori decision to argue for a unity of method
for the natural and social sciences. Instead, the ontology of the natural sci-
ences was only drawn upon because: (a) the social sciences lacked any cor-
rect ontological assumptions; (b) and lay knowledge had a true but vague
grasp of what constitutes social reality that needed to be built on and that
happened to be broadly congruent with the ontology that obtained in natural
science. This contingent naturalism is also held to be a qualified naturalism.
Bhaskar (1979, 37-54) introduces a number of qualifications to his argument
to say how social structures are different from natural structures; the most
important of which, for this discussion, are the ontological limits to natural-
ism. The ontological limits to naturalism are that social structures unlike
natural structures: (a) do not exist independently of the activities they govern;
(b) do not exist independently of agents conceptions of what they are doing;
and (c) are only relatively enduring (Bhaskar 1979, 38).
The last ontological limitation is simply the recognition that the intran-
sitive domain of social reality is not actually intransitive because social
structures, unlike natural structures, will change over time. As regards the
first and second ontological limitations, matters are more problematic bec
ause it appears that, given these limitations, structures are reducible down
to agents activities and conceptsi.e., it appears that social structures are
not emergent properties after all. In which case, as Benton (1981) argues,
we would end up, if we accepted these qualifications, with a form of meth-
odological individualism. Or, as Archer (1995) argues, we would have the
same ontology that Giddens posits in his structuration theory (see
Giddens 1979, 1984), which defines structures in terms of social rules (and
resources) that agents draw uponor instantiatein their activities. In
neither case would structures be emergent properties that were ontologi-
cally distinct from agents.

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 11

Archer (1995) responds to this problem by arguing that we can give

structures a stronger existence than Bhaskar allows here. As regards the
first ontological limitation, she makes a distinction between structures
being activity dependent in the present tense and activity dependent in the
past tense (Archer 1995, 143-45). Methodological individualists and, for
Archer, those who accepted Giddens structuration theory, would argue
that structures are activity dependent in the present tense. This would
reduce structures into the activities of agents in the here and now, thus
denying structures any reality in their own right. In contrast to this, Archer
argues that realists should accept that structures are activity dependent in
the past tense, meaning that structures were created by the actions of agents
in the past and, subsequently, these structures have become emergent prop-
erties with causal powers in their own right.
As regards the second ontological limitation, Archer argues that while
agents, as conscious beings, must have some concept of what they are
doing and why they are doing it, it is not the case that structures necessarily
rely on agents concepts. So, while friendship may rely on two people con-
ceptualizing the other as a friend, social structures such as capitalism do not
exist because people share a set of concepts (Archer 1995, 145-47). Capi
talism was created by the actions of past agents and is now an emergent
property that cannot just be changed or replaced if agents change their
concepts in the here and now: there is no necessary link between structures
and agents conceptions because structures are emergent properties that are
irreducible to agents conceptions and, given this, structures may resist con
ceptual shifts amongst agents.
With the above, the assumption was that a structure is dependent on
agents having accurate conceptions of it. Archer, though, considers the pos-
sibility that structures may depend on being conceptualized inaccurately.
Such a view of structures is of very limited significance for her, however.
She admits that the fur trade, for example, diminished once people stopped
inaccurately conceptualizing it as glamorous and saw it accurately as some-
thing quite brutal (Archer 1995, 146). However, Archer is adamant that we
ought not to universalize the notion that structures (or at least those struc-
tures which have some form of negative impact) are dependent on inaccu-
rate conceptualization. She argues that:

To universalize this proposition, quite apart from its conspiratorial overtones,

is to swallow a story about the functional necessity of every inappropriate
concept and of the fundamental a prioristic coherence of concepts and real-
ity. (Archer 1995, 146)

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12 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Instead of making a priori assumptions about the functional relationship

between structures and agents conceptions of them, the relationship ought
to be a matter of empirical investigation. Archer argues that:

There are no grounds for demonstrating this [the functional necessity of

incorrect conceptualisation] as an a priori truth; the matter seems to be one
for empirical investigation, particularly since we can find evidence of large
scale conceptual shifts (feminism) which existing structures have withstood
largely unchanged. And what this points to in turn is the indispensability of
theorizing about them and then investigating whose conceptual shifts are
responsible for which structural changes, when, where and under what condi-
tions. (Archer 1995, 146; emphasis in original)

So, agents may not be structural dopes who are determined by structures,
but nor are they able to change structures by changing their actions or con-
ceptions of structures in the here and now, because structures are emergent
properties. Agents may change structures but this will take time, and learn-
ing about this is a matter of empirical investigation rather than a priori
theorizing.

From Epistemic Issues to Causal Issues

In the above debate, the issue of concern to critical realists is resolving

the structureagency problem in such a way as to retain an emphasis on
structures as real entities that are irreducible down to individuals, while
avoiding structural determinism. The issue of concern for us though is not
the resolution of the structureagency problem, but the way that agents
knowledge is conceptualized by critical realists. This is obviously a vital
issue for critical realism given that the ontological assumptions held to
obtain in lay knowledge are treated as an epistemic proto-exemplar. Or, to
put it another way, if agents were structural dopes whose conceptions and
actions were determined by structures, then one would not only fail to
resolve the structureagency problem by failing to give equal importance
to both structure and agency. One would, more importantly, have failed to
justify the ontological definitions of structure and agency, because those
definitions could not be justified by being derived from the ontological
assumptions that were taken to obtain in lay knowledge qua epistemic
proto-exemplar. One could not say that lay knowledge had correct but
vague ontological assumptions (of individuals and social forces), which
critical realist philosophy could build on with a contingent and qualified

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 13

naturalism, and then use this naturalism to argue that structures determined
agents consciousness. If lay knowledge is to be used as an epistemic proto-
exemplar, then one must hold that lay agents have assumptions about real-
ity which are correct (but fallible). Treating lay agents ontological assumptions
as products of structures would cut off the branch critical realists are sitting
on because the reference to structures came from lay knowledge.
Taking the view that lay knowledge is an epistemic proto-exemplar with
correct but vague ontological assumptions does not necessarily commit one
to the view that agents substantive views on immigration, unemployment,
gender, the welfare state, etc. are correct. That is, it does not commit one to
the view that lay knowledge is necessarily correct on substantive matters,
simply by being lay knowledge. In saying that lay knowledge is an epis-
temic proto-exemplar, one is not committed to some form of folk episte-
mology that holds all views of lay agents are correct. What it does commit
the critical realist to, though, is the view that the ontological assumptions
about social reality being constituted by constraining social factors of some
kind and agents with free will are correct (but vague). Agents can be correct
to think in terms of constraint and freedom characterizing the social world
but completely wrong when applying this to substantive social, political,
economic, etc. matters. In short, critical realists can bring in an epistemo-
logical break between lay assumptions about what social reality is, and
substantive lay beliefs about sociopolitical issues.
The problem, however, is that critical realists do not develop their enga
gement with lay knowledge. Instead, they switch the focus from epistemic
issues (i.e., the treatment of lay knowledge as an epistemic proto-exemplar)
to causal issues concerning the role of agents beliefs in facilitating social
structural reproduction or change. As we will now see, the switch to these
causal issues has epistemic ramifications and the way critical realists treat
these causal issues is highly problematic for their own attempt to justify
their ontological definitions of social reality.
Those critical realists who regard critical realism as a form of neo-
Marxism hold that agents beliefs are caused by capitalist structures and
that this, in turn, causes agents behavior to be conformist, with this leading
to the reproduction of capitalism. These neo-Marxist critical realists, contra
Archer, make the a priori assumption that there is a relationship of functional
necessity between capitalist structures and agents inaccurate conceptions of
capitalism. For these critical realists, the inequality and exploitation caused
by capitalism can only be sustained if most agents inaccurately conceptual-
ize capitalism. As Collier puts it:

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14 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Particular institutions and false beliefs about them may be in a functional

relation, such that false beliefs serve to preserve the institutions that they
are about. Where institutions oppress a substantial number of people, they
will only be stable if protected by such false beliefs. (Collier 1998: 446;
emphasis altered)

This argument about false beliefs, which are also referred to as false con
sciousness by critical realists (see Bhaskar 1991, 145-61, and 1979,
54-65), encounters the problem mentioned above about critical realists cut-
ting off the branch they are sitting on. For one cannot derive an ontology of
social structures from lay knowledge and then use this ontology of social
structures to explain how lay knowledge is actually false consciousness
causally determined by social structures.
If a critical realist regarded critical realism as a development of Marxism
then the counter argument may be made that critical realism developed its
ontology by refining Marxs work. However, if one took such an approach
to critical realism, hoping to justify the ontology by reference to Marxism
as a social scientific self-justifying epistemic exemplar, rather than lay
knowledge as an epistemic proto-exemplar, then two problems present
themselves. First, one would, given what Bhaskar argued above, be beg-
ging the question in favor of Marxism. That is, to universalize the onto-
logical assumptions of one perspective, for Bhaskar, is to beg the question
in favor of that perspective. Second, the claim that critical realism is neces-
sarily connected to Marxism runs into a problem with Bhaskars qualifica-
tions to his naturalism, which stressed the dependence of structures on
agents actions and conceptions: with Bhaskars qualified naturalism agents
consciousness, contra Marx, determines social being. Of course, as noted
above, Archer develops Bhaskars qualifications to his naturalism, but she
does so by holding that structures, as emergent properties, do not depend
on agents (true or false) conceptions of them to exist.
One way to avoid these problems would be to reject the notion that struc-
tural continuity is a direct result of agents having false conceptions of those
structures. Instead, one could argue that the relationship between agents
concepts and structural change or continuity is a contingent matter for
empirical investigation rather than a priori theorizing. This appears to be the
view taken by Archer. On this view, it would not matter whether there was a
shift from false to true conceptions of a structure or a shift from one set of
false conceptions to another set of false conceptions, if the new conceptions
were critical of the structure in question. That is, one could bracket off the
epistemic issue of truth and falsity, and focus instead on the causal issue of

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 15

agents critical conceptions leading them to carry out behaviors that sought to
change social structures, with such behaviors, if successful, changing struc-
tures over time. There would be no necessary link between critical concep-
tions and structural change because, of course, for Archer, structures qua
emergent properties are not reducible down to agents (true or false) concep-
tions and may resist agents attempts at structural change.
However, one can argue that Archers argument does trade on an implied
notion of agents conceptions gaining a causal power from their truth con-
tent if, of course, the truth content pertains to a negative feature of the
structure in question. Thus when Archer says that there may be examples
of structures like the fur trade being undermined because of a shift in con-
ceptions from positive but false to critical and true, she is linking critical
power to truth content. Of course, she qualifies this by saying that we ought
not to universalize the notion that agents true and critical conceptions of
negative structures will always result in behaviors that change those struc-
tures, because structures are emergent properties. On this issue Archer
(1995, 146) states that the rise of feminist conceptions may have led to a
rise in valid and thus critical conceptions of patriarchal structures, but that
these structures still exist. Nevertheless, the point is that critical power is
based on the truth content of agents conceptions even if this critical power
is not actually realized in structural transformation. There can be no neces-
sary link between true and critical conceptions of structures and structural
change for Archer, because structures qua emergent properties are not reduc-
ible to agents conceptions of them. All of which means that we arrive at
another a priori conclusion, which is the opposite of the a priori conclusion
that capitalist structures require false consciousness to continue existing,
namely that if and when structures are changed, it is by agents holding
conceptions that are necessarily true. Obviously such an a priori conception
of structural change would be just as tendentious as the a priori claim that
the continuity of structures depended on false consciousness.
The main problem here though is not the ambiguity in Archers argument,
but the fact that her critique of the argument about false consciousness being
a functional prerequisite for the continued existence of some structures misses
the main import of this problem. It is not the case that one ought to bracket
off issues concerning the epistemic merit or demerit of agents conceptions,
or say that structural change, when it occurs, depends on agents developing
true and critical conceptions that derive their critical power from being true.
Rather, to sustain the argument that ontological definitions can be derived
from lay knowledge, with lay knowledge being treated as an epistemic proto-
exemplar, one must maintain that agents qua agents are knowledgeable. This

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16 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

need not commit one to a folk epistemology for, as argued above, critical
realists can introduce an epistemological break to distinguish ontological
assumptions from substantive views. Nonetheless, agents qua agents have to
be defined as knowledgeable in at least the minimal sense that their onto-
logical assumptions are correct, to sustain the notion of lay knowledge being
an epistemic proto-exemplar for critical realists to build on.
Taking this approach to lay agents knowledge would set critical realists
apart from other sociologists who treat lay agents qua lay agents as knowl-
edgeable. Normally when a sociological position defines agents qua agents
as knowledgeable, the philosophical notions of knowledge (concerning
truth, justification, fallibilism, etc.) are eschewed in favor of the notion of
knowledge as making and remaking the social world. With this view of
knowledge, the agent qua agent is knowledgeable because the social world
is constituted by shared meanings that are reconstituted by agents in the
course of their daily activities. One recent example of such a position is
provided by King (1999, 2004). He criticizes Archer, referring to her posi-
tion as methodological solipsism (King 1999, 217). His objection to
Archers argument is that she hypostatizes the experience of a lone indi-
vidual and uses this to draw sociological conclusions about the existence
of social structures qua emergent properties. Against this, King argues that
individuals are located in intersubjective networks of meaning. Consequently,
one can neither talk of a lone individuals subjective experience nor infer
the existence of a nonhuman (structural) force beyond agents. One may
recognize constraints, but these constraints are provided by other agents and
not structures that, as emergent properties, are ontologically different from
agents (King 1999, 217). Another example is provided by Giddens (1984)
who argues that the continuity of social life depends on knowledgeable
agents knowing what they are doingi.e., knowing what they are recre-
ating. He argues thus:

Social actors can be wrong some of the time [. . .]. but if there is any continu-
ity to social life at all, most actors must be right most of the time [. . .]. The
knowledgeability incorporated in the practical activities which make up
the bulk of everyday life is a constitutive feature (together with power) of the
social world. (1984, 90; emphasis added)

Against King, Archer (2000) argues that such interpretivism commits the
epistemic fallacy by reducing ontological questions about what exists to
epistemological questions about how we know reality (Archer 2000, 469-71).
As regards Giddens position, Archer (1995) argues, as noted above, that
structures can only be dependent on agents activities in the past tense and

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 17

that structures do not depend on agents conceptions of them. So, for Archer,
structures are not reducible down to agents activities or conceptions of what
they are doing in the present tense. Therefore Archer has no truck with the
notion of knowledge as making and remaking the social world.

Why Is Lay Knowledge an Epistemic Proto-Exemplar?

The focus on the causal issues concerning agents conceptions and the
reproduction or change of structures avoided any discussion of why lay
knowledge ought to be treated as an epistemic proto-exemplar. If we accepted
critical realism, we would have to assume that agents are knowledgeable,
at least as regards their ontological assumptions, and we know that lay
knowledge cannot be conceptualized in the way that sociologists such
as King and Giddens conceptualize it. However, we do not know why lay
knowledge ought to be treated as having correct (but vague) assumptions
about social reality within it.
As it stands therefore, one may say that the argument of critical realism
begs the question in two ways. First, if one accepts that it is erroneous to
universalize the ontological assumptions of groups A, B, or C (with these
being social scientists) because this would, by itself and without further
justifying argument, simply beg the question in favor of groups A, B, or C,
then it does not follow that one can universalize the ontological assumptions
of group D (lay agents) without encountering the same problem. Second, if
true but vague notions of individuals being constrained by factors beyond
their control are regarded as a recognition that social reality is constituted
by structures and agents, then this begs the question. The reason for this is
that vague notions of putative social forces impacting on agents could be
theorized in a number of different ways and such vague notions would only
be taken as support for an ontology of structures as emergent properties
interacting with agents if one was already committed to such an ontology.
That is, one could conceptualize the experience of constraint in terms of
other individuals or networks of meanings. So, by itself, this recognition
does not justify any particular ontological stance.
To avoid these problems we need some form of epistemological argu-
ment as to why it is that lay assumptions about freedom and constraint can
be used as an epistemic proto-exemplar. One approach to this problem is to
hold that Archer gives us an implicit empiricist argument, to the effect that
lay agents knowledge (or at least its ontological assumptions) may be
treated as correct because it stems from experience. In support of this we

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18 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

may note that she describes lay experience as fully authentic, meaning
that lay agents have a passive and immediate understanding of their fully
authentic experience of social reality; which stands in marked contrast to
theorists who betray the source of knowledge within, to become deluded by
actively constructing theories which clash with the unmediated and thus
authentic knowledge of lay agents. The consequence of this is that Archer
commits the epistemic fallacy.
Archer does not agree that her argument is empiricist but she does con-
sider it a real enough threat to try to preempt such a reading of her work.
After saying that lay experience of the vexatious fact of society is fully
authentic she goes on to argue that [i]ts authenticity does not derive from
viewing subjective experiences as self-veridical. By themselves, the strength
of our feelings is never a guarantee of their veracity: our certitudes are a
poor guide to certainty (1995, 2). Having stressed that the authenticity of
lay experience does not rest on the epistemic authority of the senses justify-
ing knowledge claims about social reality, Archer argues that:

lay reflections on ourselves and our society are never restricted to sense-data
or the supposed hard facts it yieldsfor much of the time we think and act
in terms of group properties like elections, interest rates, theories, and
beliefs. (Archer 1995, 29-30)

So, Archer denies that her argument is empiricist and, to establish an alterna-
tive, Archer turns from lay experience to lay discourse, asserting that collec-
tive concepts are valid and necessary. However, one could argue that the use
of such concepts was simply a misuse of language by lay agents because it
went beyond what one may experience (namely individuals and not struc-
tures). Alternatively, one may follow Weber and argue that such concepts are
a shorthand way of describing a social world that is only really populated by
individuals. As Weber argues: it would be possible, though extremely pedan-
tic and long-winded, entirely to eliminate such [collective] concepts (Weber
1922, 18). This is not necessarily to endorse Webers individualistic view, but
it is to say that one cannot invoke the use of collective concepts as a simple
proof against the validity of empiricism. Indeed, Archer does end up scotching
her argument by stating that methodological collectivists (such as Mandelbaum)
used some form of collective references whilst still being committed to a form
of empiricist epistemology (Archer 1995, 46-54). So the fact that agents use
such concepts does not tell us such concepts are true unless one is already
committed to the view that collective entities actually exist. In which case,
invoking their use as proof of their veracity cannot fail to beg the question.

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 19

One way to try and avoid these problems would be to deny that the critical
realist ontology was actually derived from lay knowledge. In her response to
Kings (1999) charge that her argument about lay experience produces a form
of methodological solipsism, Archer (2000) does indeed deny that her social
ontology was derived from lay experience. Instead, we are presented with the
causal criterion argument, with Archer arguing that: [t]he existence of
structural properties and powers is established by the causal criterion, that is
in terms of their generative effects (Archer 2000, 469; emphasis in original).
With this argument the position taken is that we know about the existence of
structural emergent properties because individual agents are constrained by
forces beyond their (immediate) control. Now, while it may seem intuitively
plausible to say that we know society is more than individuals because
people are constrained by economic, cultural, etc. social forces, there is a
problem with the causal criterion argument. The problem is that saying that
individuals are not totally free because the social environment constrains
them is not sufficient by itself to justify the critical realist approach to the
structureagency problem, because this recognition, by itself, could lead to a
number of alternative ontologies, as argued earlier. Thus an individualist
could talk of individuals and unintended consequences (such as high-risk
financial decisions leading to a crisis) and an interpretativist could talk of
individuals situated within intersubjective networks.

From Transcendental Questions to Fallibilism

We can learn from critical realisms mistakes by noting a tension between
the attempt to answer a transcendental question, concerning the condition of
possibility of the sciences, and the recognition of fallibilism. In seeking to
answer the transcendental question by turning to ontology, critical realists
were forced to justify the ontological definitions developed. The attempt to
do this by saying that ontological definitions were conceptual isomorphs of
the really real realm, or intransitive domain, was eschewed. In its stead, the
argument was that the ontological definitions were derived from ontological
assumptions in the transitive domain, of correctbut fallibleknowledge,
with the transitive domain in question, for the social sciences, being lay
knowledge (or one aspect of it), rather than social scientific knowledge. As
we have seen, this attempt to justify the treatment of lay knowledge as an
epistemic proto-exemplar, from which we may derive correctbut vague
ontological assumptions, failed for several reasons. One response to this
could be to search for an alternative way to justify the ontological definitions.

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20 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

This would be a difficult option for critical realists to pursue, though, given
that: deriving them from a domain of knowledge commits the epistemic fal-
lacy; universalizing the claims of one theoretical perspective begs the ques-
tion; claiming that the definitions mirror the intransitive domain presumes
infallibility; and moving from a recognition of some form of constraint to the
critical realist ontological definitions begs the question. An alternative is to
switch the focus from asking transcendental questions and trying to justify the
answers given, to fallibilism and the importance of criticism for revising and
replacing substantive knowledge claims.
Critical realists hold that knowledge is fallible and so the ontological
assumptions are not meant to be infallible isomorphs of the intransitive
domain. The problem here is that the recognition of fallibilism is confined
to a minimal role, of saying what ontology is not. This is a problem because
if knowledge is held to be fallible then, rather than simply using this to say
that ones claims are not infallible, one needs to put this recognition to
work, so to speak. Doing this, one would argue that as knowledge claims
are fallible they need to be revised and replaced through criticism. This
would be antithetical to the search for an answer to a transcendental ques-
tion because one would not be seeking some fixed answer but rather hold-
ing that all forms of knowledge claim were open to revision and replacement.
Now it may be countered that the ontological assumptions taken to be the
condition of possibility of the natural and social sciences are not pre-
sumed to be fixed but are open to change. After all, a critical realist could
argue, these assumptions were taken to be fallible. The problem here
though is that the focus is on justifying these assumptions and not on criti-
cizing them. That is, as regards the social sciences, the emphasis is on using
lay assumptions about constraint and free will to prioritize the structure
agency problem and its resolution. This, obviously, is not really a surprise.
For one cannot say that assumptions X and Y are the condition of possibility
of the sciences and then criticize these and argue for a new set of assump-
tions, without either scientific knowledge looking rather insecure, or the
search for temporary answers to the transcendental question looking rather
redundant. Constantly to change the condition of possibility of the sciences
is to either make it look as if there is no such condition (thus inviting skep-
ticism). Or, alternatively, it is to make the search for such a condition
appear redundant, because while scientists continue to produce knowledge,
the (critical realist) philosophers would change the postulated condition of
possibility for this. While the scientists got on with producing explanations,
the philosophers would be changing their minds as to how this was possi-
ble, leading to the view either that this was to the detriment of the sciences

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 21

(because they lacked a condition of possibility); or the detriment of (critical

realist) philosophy (if science worked without any condition of possibil-
ity being agreed on by philosophers).
Taking a maximal rather than a minimal approach to fallibilism, one
may argue that the natural and social sciences are able to advance knowl-
edge through substantive problem solving rather than by adherence to fixed
ontological categories. That is to say, knowledge grows as substantive,
empirical research problems are encountered with theoretical and methodo-
logical tools being adapted to meet the research problem. Solutions to
research problems are then subject to criticism that will help open up new
explanatory problems. At this point, a critical realist may counter that this
approach commits the epistemic fallacy because the focus is on changing
knowledge claims, thus transposing questions about what reality is into
questions about how we know the world.
To begin to address this criticism, we may turn to Poppers philosophy,
or at least one aspect of it, concerning justification and fallibilism in epis-
temology. For Popper, justificationist epistemologies seek to overcome
fallibilism by locating a source of knowledge within the individual in the
form of the authority of the senses (for Bacon) or the authority of the intel-
lect (for Descartes) (1963, 15-16). With this solution to the problem of how
knowledge may be attained, the truth was held to be manifest as soon as one
paid due heed to the source of knowledge within. The problem is that an
optimistic epistemology that holds that every individual may have the ability
to know the manifest truth quickly becomes a pessimistic epistemology
when human fallibilism continues to exist. For all one can do is explain the
failure to transcend fallibilism in terms of individuals epistemicand
indeed moralfailure to pay due heed to the sources of knowledge within
(Popper 1963, 3-30). If one did try to overcome fallibilism, however, by
turning to the authority of the senses then, for Popper, one would lose any
notion of reality. As Popper argues:

We are never justified or entitled to claim the truth of a theory, or of a

belief, by reason of the alleged immediacy or directness of the belief. This,
in my view, is putting the cart before the horse: immediacy or directness may
be the result of the biological fact that a theory is true [. . .]. But to argue that
immediacy or directness establishes truth, or is a criterion of truth, is the
fundamental mistake of idealism. (Popper 1972b, 68; emphasis altered)

So, if one accepted the search for justification then one may be active in
removing prejudices from ones mind but, after that, knowledge acquisition

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22 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

ought to be a passive matter of immediately recognizing a manifest truth.

However, this would usher in idealism because all we are immediately
aware of are our ideas (see also Popper 1996, 82).
In opposition to justificationism, Popper turns what had been considered
as a vice (Popper notes that there had been a religious aspect to the work of
many justificationists; see Popper 1963, 17, 1972b, 68, and 1983, 13-17)
into a virtue. The issue here being that if knowledge is regarded as fallible,
then it becomes incumbent on us to further the growth of knowledge by
using criticism to revise and replace our present knowledge claims. The
focus here would be on theories rather than beliefs because theories, or at
least scientific theories rather than metaphysical theories, would, for
Popper, be open to potential empirical refutation. By contrast, a focus on
beliefs would return us to the problem of saying how beliefs could be justi-
fied so as to avoid skepticism. With Poppers alternative to justification,
knowledge grows as problems are located in a theory that had previously
solved problems in a precursor theory and, when a solution to the newly
located problem is developed, it too will be subject to criticism and, in due
course, it will be replaced by an alternative theory.
Given this, one may say that Popper anticipated the epistemic fallacy
and constructed it in a more useful way. Clearly, critical realists defined the
fallacy too broadly, so than any claim, other than an absolutist metaphysical
claim about the really real realm (or the intransitive domain), would fall
foul of this (including critical realism). With Poppers approach to this
problem, it is not epistemology per se that is rejected, but only those epis-
temologies that seek to justify knowledge claims by holding that they are
in agreement with some postulated inner source of knowledge. That is, the
problem is the production of idealism with justificationist epistemologies,
and the way to avoid this is not to reject epistemology per se but to accept
a fallibilist epistemology.
If one accepts this approach to the epistemic fallacy, then one can emb
race the maximal interpretation of fallibilism and argue that knowledge in
the sciences grows through the critical revision and replacement of substan-
tive knowledge claims, without encountering the charge that this focus on
knowledge committed a fallacy. Taking this view would also free one from
the problem-situation of trying to justify the ontological definitions that
were taken to act as the condition of possibility of the sciences. Consequently
one would not have to seek a surrogate for the ontological assumptions
taken to obtain in the social sciences, and so one would not encounter the
problems critical realists faced in treating lay knowledge as an epistemic
proto-exemplar. Nor would one get into the problem of arguing that the

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 Cruickshank / Knowing Social Reality 23

ontological condition of possibility for the sciences was open to change,

thus making the sciences look precarious as their condition of possibility
was changed through criticism, or philosophy look redundant, as the sci-
ences continued to produce knowledge while the postulated conditions of
possibility for this knowledge production changed.

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Justin Cruickshank is a senior lecturer at the School of Government and Society at the
University of Birmingham. He is interested in pragmatism, Poppers philosophy, and debates
about meta-theory in the social sciences.

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