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ACROSS FAMILIES/ Philosophy

Critical realism

Explain mechanisms in their conditions

Critical realism distinguishes an independent reality from fallible knowledge of it and separates experiences, events and underlying generative mechanisms. It asks how structures and agency produce outcomes under particular conditions. Retroduction considers what would need to exist for observed patterns to occur, while empirical work examines the plausibility of those explanations.

WHEN IT FITS

Use for questions about why outcomes vary across contexts, especially where organisational structures, institutions and individual meanings may interact through mechanisms that are not directly observable.

Strengths

  • Connects contextual accounts with explanatory ambition
  • Allows mechanisms to operate differently under different conditions

Limitations

  • Mechanisms can become speculative without discriminating evidence
  • Abstract concepts require careful translation into analysis

Know the boundary

Interview agreement does not prove a mechanism, and critical realism is not simply a synonym for mixed methods.

USED ACROSS
Banking & financeBusiness & MBAPsychologyComputer scienceEducation
CONNECTED METHODS