Seeking the new and the critical in critical realism: déjà vu?

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Abstract

Critical realism (CR) is a research philosophy that has beeen proposed with the claim that it could be a way of “⋯ providing a consistent and coherent underpinning philosophy for information systems”. The purpose of this paper is to examine this claim critically in light of the advances made in hermeneutics and critical social theory as alternative research philosphies. CR is found lagging behind these philosophies in epistemology, ontology and action-oriented value formation. It is concluded that critical realism could nevertheless play a useful role as a catalyst in the contemporary methodological debate in the applied social sciences by broadening the frame of reference of positivists beyond the issues already recognized in the post-positivist literature.

Introduction

Critical realism (CR) is a research philosophy that Mingers recently proposed (based on Bhaskar, 1989) with the astonishing claim that it could be a way of “… providing a consistent and coherent underpinning philosophy for information systems” (Mingers, 2002, Mingers, 2003, but also Mingers, 2004b—simply “Mingers-02+” from now on). It thus promises a major contribution, because one of the major issues that IS as a field currently faces is its internal fragmentation. Under the banner of methodological pluralism, the tolerance of diverse and to some extent incompatible research approaches has grown, but also undermined academic debate across the whole spectrum of the discipline. We are split not only by specializing in different parts of the domain of inquiry of interest to IS as a discipline, but also by radically different methodological and philosophical orientations. This also has been noted by Mingers, 1980, Mingers, 1984, Mingers, 2001a, Mingers, 2001b, Mingers, 2001c). The manifold views of the nature of IS and the most adequate research methods have led to a communication breakdown, which manifests itself most obviously in the different languages that we speak. Common terms that usually unite a set of scholars into a community, such as rigor, meaning, practical relevance, information, knowledge and so forth, no longer have shared meanings across the methodological divides. A positive sign is that this issue has become widely recognized and is now being addressed with the recent establishment of new special interest groups in AIS on philosophy and epistemology of IS (cf. http://www.cis.gsu.edu/∼emonod/philosophy). These institutional measures need to be supported with theoretical and intellectual efforts to revitalize the discourse in the house of inquiry such as has been fostered by the editors of MISQ (Applegate, 1999), JAIS1 (Straub, 2003) and now information and organization. Such efforts can revolve around either synthesis (creating new conceptual links) or clarification of genuine differences that cannot and should not be blurred with superficial metaphors and redefinitions.

In this situation, it is very appropriate to advocate an integrative research philosophy that distinguishes itself by the claim that it could be a way of “resolving or dissolving” most of the issues arising from the diversity of philosophical positions, “… particularly positivism and interpretivism” (cf. Mingers, 2003). This claim promises not only to relegate Burrell and Morgan’s classical analysis of incommensurable paradigms to the scrap heap of old ideas, but also to help to establish a new research community structure for IS as a discipline. In due time this new and more integrated research community would challenge Banville and Landry’s (1989) characterization of the IS discipline as a “fragmented adhocracy”. But before accepting any claims to overcoming paradigmatic differences, it is every important to understand these differences. In this paper we need to focus on the differences between CR and the three major research philosophies that have become widely accepted, as a road map to classify the underlying philosophical assumptions (or paradigms) of current IS research practices. They are the positivist, interpretive and critical research philosophies (cf. Fig. 1 in http://www.qual.auckland.ac.nz/; Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991). From this perspective, it is unfortunate that space limitations prevented Mingers (2003) from dealing explicitly with interpretivist and critical research philosophies in order to highlight CR’s differences more clearly. For example, the engagement with some key principles of “The Logic of the Social Sciences” (Habermas, 1967, Habermas, 1988) might have encouraged the reconsideration of the adequacy of CR as a general philosophical underpinning of IS research. Therefore, in the following, it will be necessary to reference interpretivist and critical research philosophies. For that purpose, I will presume familiarity with some of the applied research literature that is easily accessible on interpretivist and critical research, such as Myers’ website, which is linked to ISWORLD (http://www.qual.auckland.ac.nz).2

In light of these important implications, the purpose of this paper is to examine the philosophical basis of CR’s integrative claim and to evaluate its intellectual credibility. It is important to debate this for two reasons, one having to do with the possibility of bridging the methodological divides in the field and the other with the importance of scientific methodology. Regarding the first reason, CR could make an essential contribution to better communication within the discipline. This could help not only to overcome the negative consequences of fragmentation, but also to address the relevancy problem as has been argued elsewhere: “In order for our field to become more relevant to its external stakeholders, IS research must become more relevant for ourselves and we must strengthen the communicative function of IS research” (Hirschheim and Klein, 2003: p. 31). Second, methodology, the body of thought about the nature of methods, is of intrinsic value to any discipline, including but not limited to IS. Science differs from common sense or conventionally accepted professional practice primarily by extensive and critical reflection of its methods. The critical reflection of its methods and their limits in response to the results that their application produces is the primary means by which a research community continually improves the quality of its knowledge. Therefore, any claim to provide an “underpinning philosophy” for information systems research deserves immediate and serious consideration, because the evaluation of such claims promises to increase the sophistication when reflecting on issues related to the scope, legitimacy and limits of research methods.

This essay is organized as follows. Section 2 begins with a brief outline of the larger philosophical background. It provides some historical perspective for interpreting the meaning and implications of CR. In approaching this task, it is also important to introduce my own background perspective briefly in order to reveal the subjectivity behind this essay. Next, in 3 On the ontology of CR, 4 Epistemological implications of CR and the issue of meaning, 5 CR’s ambivalence with regard to social norms and values, I will analyze the assumptions that CR makes about three important domains of research in the cultural and social sciences. The first two domains concern the ontology and epistemology of IS research. They are addressed in 3 On the ontology of CR, 4 Epistemological implications of CR and the issue of meaning. Section 5 addresses the third domain, i.e. the ontological status of social norms and values in CR. Norms and values are an important concern for any applied discipline, because we as human beings could not function without them. They are at the core of human behavior not just in profit and non-profit organizations, but also in the daily lifeworld of each individual. Therefore, norms and values are an important domain for social research in general and IS research in particular (as is further explained in Klein and Hirschheim (2001)). The conclusions in Section 6 summarize my overall assessment of the potential contribution of CR to IS research in the form as Mingers has presented it.

Section snippets

On the evolution of contemporary epistemology and research philosophies

When in the following I speak of science and research or scientists and researchers, I have the continental European usage in mind. In this very broad sense, research or science refers to the organized and institutionalized communities of practice, known as the research establishment, devoted to establishing claims to knowledge with critical regard to proper methods of investigation. University research from mathematics and physics to philosophy and law is an important component of the societal

On the ontology of CR

What is CR? First, it is a type of philosophy of science, which can be most easily grasped as a version of post-positivism (cf. Vasque, 1995). This means CR proposes a positive empiricist ontology and epistemology that takes an explicit account of the critiques of naive empiricism and its reformulations before and after World War II that were advanced by Lakatos, Feyerabend and Kuhn (cf. Kuhn, 1970, Lakatos, 1970, Lakatos and Musgrave, 1970) against Popper’s fallibility version of positivism as

Epistemological implications of CR and the issue of meaning

So far little has been said about CR’s concepts of the nature of knowledge and truth including CR’s approach to establishing the truth or falsehood of our knowledge claims. Here lie major epistemological differences to interpretivism and to the critical social theory of Habermas, 1984, Habermas, 1987).

How does CR define truth and knowledge? Mingers-02+ remains silent about this and he is in good company, because neither Bhaskar (1989) nor Ackroyd and Fleetwood, 2000a, Ackroyd and Fleetwood,

CR’s ambivalence with regard to social norms and values

The explicit consideration of norms and values appears to be conspicuous by their absence in the theoretical foundations from CR at least as presented in Mingers-02+ and Ackroyd and Fleetwood (2000b). Surprisingly, the values of freedom and emancipation are at the core of Chapters 6 and 8 in Bhaskar (1989).6

Conclusions: in what sense is CR “critical”?

The previous analysis leads to two conclusions. First in the form as presented by Bhaskar (1989) and Mingers (2004a), CR does not offer any new conceptual developments in the philosophy of science beyond those of Popper, Lakatos and Kuhn and other post-positivists who reformulated the realist and epistemological assumptions of positivism. Second, it lags conceptual advances that have taken place in the transformation of philosophy outside positivism. This leads to three implications for the

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Andrew Basden, Salford University, for provocative critique of some portions of this manuscript and to Shu Zou from the MIS doctoral program at Temple University, for detailed comments and some fruitful literature hints. Whereas both helped me to improve this article and express myself more clearly, of course, I alone remain responsible for its contents as published here.

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