IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cambje/v26y2002i6p773-788.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Driven to abstraction? Critical realism and the search for the 'inner connection' of social phenomena

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Brown
  • Gary Slater
  • David A. Spencer

Abstract

This paper examines critically the method of abstraction offered by critical realism. Our main argument is that critical realism fails to articulate the synthetic side to abstraction. For this reason, the critical realist method is unable to capture the 'inner connection' of social phenomena. We argue that critical realism is prone to extend a method (partially) applicable to the local and specific level of analysis to the historical level. The paper develops a method of abstraction, 'systematic abstraction', that is appropriate to this historical level. We argue that systematic abstraction constitutes a radical addition to critical realism, one which challenges the fundamental precepts of the critical realist approach to abstraction. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Brown & Gary Slater & David A. Spencer, 2002. "Driven to abstraction? Critical realism and the search for the 'inner connection' of social phenomena," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 26(6), pages 773-788, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:26:y:2002:i:6:p:773-788
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew Brown, 2013. "Methodological issues in theorising the financial, economic and social system: realistic and systematic abstraction," Working papers wpaper03, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    2. Andrew Mearman, 2006. "Critical realism in economics and open-systems ontology: A critique," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(1), pages 47-75.
    3. Lee, Frederic, 2012. "Critical realism, grounded theory, and theory construction in heterodox economics," MPRA Paper 40341, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Philip Arestis & Andrew Brown & Malcolm Sawyer, 2002. "Critical Realism and the Political Economy of the Euro," Method and Hist of Econ Thought 0209001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Thomas Brenner & Claudia Werker, 2009. "Policy Advice Derived from Simulation Models," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 12(4), pages 1-2.
    6. Modell, Sven, 2017. "Critical realist accounting research: In search of its emancipatory potential," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 20-35.
    7. Thomas Brenner & Claudia Werker, 2007. "A Taxonomy of Inference in Simulation Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 30(3), pages 227-244, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:26:y:2002:i:6:p:773-788. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/cje .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.