Bhaskar's "Spiritual turn" : logical and conceptual problems -- Meta-reality, critical realism, and Marxism -- Secularism, agnosticism, and theism -- Critical realism, transcendence, and God -- Humanism, spiritualism, and critical theory.

In tackling emergentist Marxism in depth, this well-written volume demonstrates that critical realism and materialist dialectics are indispensable to theorizing the functioning of complex social and physical systems. Author Sean Creaven investigates Marxâes dialectics of being and consciousness, forces and relations of production, base and superstructure, class structure and class conflict, and demonstrates how they allow the social analyst to conceptualize geo-history as embodying a tendential evolutionary directionality, rather than as simply random or indeterminate in terms of its outcomes. For (...) those interested in social and political theory, Marxism and communism and contemporary social theory, this outstanding volume is an in important read and a valuable resource. (shrink)

The ontological and analytical status of Marxian social theory has been a matter of fierce controversy since Marx’s death, both within and without Marxist circles. A particular source of contention has been over whether Marxism should be construed as an objective science of the capitalist mode of production or as an ethico-philosophical critique of bourgeois society. This is paralleled by the dispute over whether Marxism ought to be considered a humanism or a structuralism. This article addresses both sides of this (...) debate. The argument is that, rather than Marx’s own social thought being split into incompatible poles, giving rise to ‘two Marxisms’, it forms a coherent unity. Marx’s social theory is neither humanist philosophy, nor structural science, but is in fact realist science, which synthesizes these apparent antinomies, and thereby transcends both. (shrink)

The longstanding philosophical debate between idealism and materialism has recently entered the ontological terrain of critical realism and dialectical critical realism . This has been initiated by Roy Bhaskar’s most recent book, From East to West, which attempts an ambitious synthesis of philosophy, social theory and theology. On the one hand, Bhaskar’s attempt to root his philosophy and social theory in a ‘realist theory of God’ has found an echo within the CR and DCR research camp, some of whose members (...) would urge us to take seriously the possibility of a ‘religious sociology’. On the other hand, Bhaskar’s abrupt ‘idealist turn’ has left many critical realists flabbergasted and horrified, particularly those working at the interface between realist philosophy and Marxist social science, especially since Bhaskar’s new philosophical trajec-tory is radically at odds with the ‘synchronic emergent powers materialism’ outlined in his The Possibility of Naturalism.In response to this ‘split’ within the CR and DCR camp, the spectre of ‘realist agnosticism’ has been raised and defended by Mervyn Hartwig in this journal. Since neither science nor philosophy can settle the issue of what kind of stuff constitutes ‘rock bottom reality’, it is rational to be agnostic on the ‘ultimate question’, to deny positively affirming the claims of either one side or the other. Now this is the move that is resisted in this paper. My argument is that ontolog-ical idealism is disputable on a number of grounds-philosophical, scientific, ethical and political. In particular, I argue that objective idealism is unsupported by rational knowledge, is riddled with conceptual and logical defects, is contrary to the logic of scientific discovery, and is an obstacle to eudaimonia . Further, since realist agnosticism rests its case on the myth of infallible knowledge, and obviously stands or falls with the defensibility or other-wise of objective idealism, this gives us ‘good enough’ reasons for accepting a thoroughgoing materialism as the ontological foundation of social theory. (shrink)