critical realism meaning in research

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Understanding Causation in Healthcare: An Introduction to Critical Realism

Erica koopmans.

1 School of Health Sciences, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC, Canada

Dr. Catharine Schiller

2 School of Nursing, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC, Canada

Both healthcare providers and researchers in the health sciences are well rehearsed in asking the question ‘What could be causing this’? and examining beyond the surface of observable symptoms or obvious factors to understand what is really occurring with patients and health services. Critical realism is a philosophical framework that can help in this inquiry as we attempt to make sense of the observable world. The aim of this article is to introduce critical realism and explore how it can help both healthcare providers and health science researchers to better understand causation through the mechanisms that generate events, despite those mechanisms often being unseen. The article reviews foundational concepts and examples framed in the healthcare setting to make the key principles, strengths and limitations of critical realism accessible for those who are just beginning their journey with this approach.

Human health and illness are complex areas of study, and our understanding of them is typically constructed from our direct observations and experiences of events ( Alderson, 2021 ). From what we observe, we try to make sense of, and interpret what we see happening; however, the philosophical stance we take as healthcare providers and researchers will influence our ways of thinking about these findings, and the conclusions we draw in understanding our area of study. Critical realism is a philosophical framework that is well suited to the health sciences to help us make sense of the ‘observable’ world and the ‘real’ world ( Alderson, 2021 ). Critical realism suggests that while we may observe and experience events, they are being generated by independent, often unobservable, but still very real, mechanisms ( O’Mahoney & Vincent, 2014 ). As healthcare providers and researchers, we are well rehearsed in looking beyond the surface of observable symptoms or factors to try and understand what is really occurring with the patients with whom we work, or the conditions and interventions which we study. The aim of this article is to introduce readers to the key tenets of critical realism, explore how it can offer healthcare providers and researchers deeper levels of explanation and understanding of causation, and examine some potential limitations of this approach.

The Case for Critical Realism

Critical realism is not a methodology or even a theory but a way of thinking (philosophical stance), which can inform investigations into our reality ( Archer et al., 2016 ; Oltmann & Boughey, 2012 ). In healthcare, critical realism can help us understand health and illness as processes that are affected by interactions between individuals and their contexts, including the agents and structures present, and help us explain what we see but also what we do not see ( Alderson, 2021 ). In recent years, the use of critical realism by health researchers has increased as they recognize the value it provides for effectively framing, identifying and understanding complex phenomena in the healthcare sector ( Schiller, 2016 ; Sturgiss & Clark, 2020 ). This approach has appeal for healthcare providers and researchers because of its recognition of the complexity of many health interventions, and its focus on explaining what works under specific conditions or contexts ( Williams et al., 2016 ). For example, a healthcare provider may question ‘why, after trying multiple interventions that I anticipated would change the disease trajectory for my patient, am I not seeing those desired changes?’ Using critical realism, we can effectively inquire into and understand more about the unseen mechanisms that have causal influence in the situation and their effect on the patient’s health and illness ( Alderson, 2021 ). Understanding generative mechanisms has the potential to be very meaningful when we design and evaluate new programs and services that are then transposed to another context, as it enables us to understand how and why desired change might be generated instead of just believing that it will or should happen (e.g., the effectiveness of programs or interventions).

Critical realism is also appealing given its application to various research designs and methods for data collection and analysis. This approach has been applied across broad areas of health research including in several mental health focused studies ( Bergin et al., 2008 ; Lauzier-Jobin & Houle, 2021 ; Littlejohn, 2003 ; Martin, 2019 ; Sims-Schouten & Riley, 2018 ); rural health ( Reid, 2019 ); as a framework for understanding smoking and tobacco control in South Africa ( Oladele et al., 2013 ); for designing an integrated care initiative for vulnerable families in Australia ( Eastwood et al., 2019 ); and for explaining the relationship between human rights and social determinants of health ( Haigh et al., 2019 ).

Foundational Concepts of Critical Realism

Critical realism emerged as a philosophical approach in the 1970s and 1980s, led by the work of Roy Bhaskar ( Bhaskar, 1998 , 2008 ) and built further by scholars such as Margaret Archer, Dave Elder-Vass, Philip Gorski, Tony Lawson and Andrew Sayer. It was introduced as an alternative philosophical framework to the positivist and interpretivist approaches being used in the natural and social sciences ( Fletcher, 2017 ; Williams, 2003 ). To appreciate the value of critical realism it is important to understand how it compares to other key philosophical positions used in research and consider what it can offer that these other ways of thinking do not.

A Focus on Ontology

Critical realism’s focus on ontology or more simply, what is real and independent of thought, awareness or knowledge of existence by humans, distinguishes it from other metatheoretical positions ( Alderson, 2021 ). Bhaskar critiqued positivist and interpretivist philosophical frameworks because of their tendency to conflate what the world ‘is’ ( ontology ) with our experiences of it ( epistemology ) ( Oltmann & Boughey, 2012 ; Reid, 2019 ). This is referred to as the epistemic fallacy. Positivist research is what you might think of as your ‘typical’ science experiment that uses research methods to test, observe, capture, compare and evaluate data ( Hartwig, 2015 ). Positivism aims to identify universal laws in an objective way ( Fryer, 2020 ). Those who use this approach consider that there is an independent, factual reality that can be discovered ( Alderson, 2021 ). Unlike positivism, which involves searching for laws that can be generalized, interpretivist and constructivist approaches see knowledge production as fallible and theory-dependent and they tend to focus more on discourse, meaning and experiences of people ( Fryer, 2020 ). The focus is on interpreting or constructing people’s experiences rather than discovering the actual reality which they claim is subjective to the individual ( Alderson, 2021 ). Bhaskar argued positivist and interpretivist frameworks either limit ‘reality’ to what can be empirically studied and identified as universal laws (positivism), or view reality as entirely constructed through human discourse or experiences (interpretivism and constructivism) ( Fletcher, 2017 ). Bhaskar criticized that research being pursued from these philosophical stances was based only on what could be observed or experienced ( Clark et al., 2008 ). While observations and experiences might make us more confident about what exists, or what might be ‘real’, critical realists note that existence itself is not dependent on such observations ( Haigh et al., 2019 ). For example, people have the right to health even when they are not aware they hold that right or may not have experienced it ( Haigh et al., 2019 ). Much of the justification for using critical realism rests on the integrity of the epistemic fallacy. Critical realists need to accept this as a limitation of the framework since, when distinguishing between ontological and epistemic claims, they cannot move outside their own experiences to ‘prove’ that those distinguishing features actually exist. Positivist and interpretivist approaches do not attract the same corresponding critique as they argue that all knowledge is either objectively observed through deductive reasoning, where they look for general patterns and rules (positivism), or subjectively experienced and inductively analysed (interpretivism).

Intransitive and Transitive Dimensions of Knowledge

Critical realism assumes the existence of an objective world, where mechanisms and structures function as intransitive objects, meaning they exist and act independently with powers and properties that are independent of humans but are still able to be investigated ( Hartwig, 2015 ; Schiller, 2016 ). In contrast, knowledge is considered socially produced and transitive , meaning it is subjective; because knowledge is subjective, our understanding of phenomena can and will constantly change ( Haigh et al., 2019 ; Vincent & O’Mahoney, 2018 ). Critical realists argue that we cannot just observe the world and produce knowledge about universal laws as positivists claim, without acknowledging that our beliefs, values and understanding are socially produced and changeable, meaning that knowledge is intrinsically fallible and relative. Critical realists are trying to approximate the truth of reality or the world, while remaining cognizant that all knowledge developed is fallible ( Schiller, 2016 ). Critical realism combines observation and interpretation in a search for causation and allows for an understanding of the structural forces or mechanisms that influence our lives and generate outcomes. However, it is noted that the validity of explanation in critical realism rests upon these ontological presuppositions and we once again must assume that those presuppositions are both valid and correct.

Stratified Reality

Critical realism suggests that reality is stratified and consists of three domains: empirical, actual and real ( Fletcher, 2017 ). These strata can be more simply considered as experiences, events and causal mechanisms. The empirical layer captures our experiences, senses, feelings and observations. The actual refers to the events or phenomena that happen but may or may not be observed by humans. Sayer discusses that, while observability can provide confidence about what we think exists, existence itself is not dependent upon it ( Sayer, 2000 ). The final layer is the real . Critical realism claims that real, but typically unseen, forces precede and generate events; these are referred to as causal mechanisms or generative mechanisms ( Alderson, 2021 ; Hartwig, 2015 ) . Both positivism and interpretivism acknowledge the empirical level of trying to understand and analyse reality. Positivism also recognizes the actual level by acknowledging that the world does exist independently of our thoughts about that world. However, critical realism remains unique in adding the third level of real, yet typically unseen causal influences or mechanisms ( Alderson, 2021 ). To explain why events, effects or outcomes occur, critical realists describe that we need to move beyond the surface of experienced and observable factors to understand what is happening underneath, at the real level ( Clark et al., 2008 ).

Alderson (2021) supplies a helpful example, adapted here, using the condition of Type I insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) to demonstrate stratified reality ( Table 1 ). To begin, you are working as a healthcare provider and a patient presents to your office describing frequent occurrences of hyperactivity as well as feelings of being weak or faint. This is experienced by that person at the empirical level. You may ask additional questions to further understand their symptoms and, as a result of this information, decide to conduct a blood glucose test. You observe from the blood test results that they have irregular blood sugar levels. The actual event that is happening is the rise and fall of blood sugar levels, but this does not explain why this is happening or what is generating this event. There could be many reasons why this individual has irregular blood sugar levels. It is not until you examine further and consider what could be causing those irregular levels that you identify that this individual’s pancreas is not secreting insulin, the hormone which converts sugar into energy. While the patient may not be aware of what their pancreas is (or is not) doing, this does not change the fact that the pancreas is indeed present and its failure to secrete insulin is causing changes to the patient’s blood sugar levels. Alderson (2021) ends this simplified life sciences example here to show how outcomes can only be understood if we dive into the context and mechanisms that generate the events we observe. Yet, we can effectively take this inquiry significantly further by using critical realism to explore why the pancreas is not secreting insulin. Existing research informs us that, in such situations, something will be causing the body’s immune system (which under normal conditions fight harmful bacteria and viruses) to mistakenly destroy insulin secreting beta cells of the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas ( Leslie & Elliott, 1994 ; Lernmark & Alshiekh, 2016 ; Moini, 2019 ). Is it genetics? Is it exposure to other viruses? Is it environmental factors? What are the hidden but necessary preconditions for IDDM? Using a critical realist lens of inquiry, we may be able to better understand what is generating this outcome of irregular blood sugar levels and under what conditions this outcome will be the result.

Example of Stratified Reality Using Endocrinology and Diabetes in the Life and Social Sciences. Adapted from P. Alderson (2021) .

We can also apply this stratified reality to a social sciences example where the views and experiences of patients with IDDM, their families and their healthcare providers are observed and understood at the empirical level by asking patients about their experiences receiving health services for their condition. We could also observe their daily lives, document the number of people affected, the services accessed and the cost of care incurred to identify events associated with IDDM. However, to deeply understand events, and the ways that IDDM may be influenced by structures such as class, ethnicity, gender or income, we need to consider the real level, where unseen causal mechanisms associated with structural entities and agency are at work.

Causal Mechanisms

As introduced above, critical realists aim to develop and provide ever-deeper levels of explanation and understanding of causal or generative mechanisms and how they work ( Bergin et al., 2008 ). A key question in critical realism is ‘for this to occur, what does the world (or the body system) need to be like?’ ( Alderson, 2021 ). Questions of inquiry include the following: How is the effect being caused? What triggers them? What inhibits them? ( Connelly, 2001 ). These questions ring true as both healthcare providers and researchers. While it is important to know about a patient’s experience and the actual phenomenon that is happening, we want to find and understand the mechanisms that are producing a given effect, event or outcome (or why those mechanisms are interacting in such a way that a given event does not happen). This contrasts the thinking of positivists who look for cause and effect relationships using lawful patterns of thinking and interpretivist approaches who do not view causality as linear but rather as meaning constructed from human activity ( Bergin et al., 2008 ).

Critical realism acknowledges that the relationship between mechanisms and events, despite initial appearances, is not as simple as ‘cause and effect’ ( Oltmann & Boughey, 2012 ) and it is not necessarily linear either (cannot be inferred from a regular sequence of events) ( Oladele et al., 2013 ). Critical realism accepts the possibility of complex causality, meaning that generative mechanisms interact in different ways and will not always play out the same as actual events or previously observed empirical experiences ( Angus & Clark, 2012 ). Sayer (2000) provides a useful description of a critical realist view of causality:

What causes something to happen has nothing to do with the number of times we have observed it happening. Explanation depends instead on identifying causal mechanisms and how they work, and discovering if they have been activated and under what conditions (p. 14)

Therefore, for critical realists it is neither the experience nor the event itself that is the most important to identify and understand, but rather how the mechanisms are coming together in the right number, combination, time and context required to generate an outcome ( Oladele et al., 2013 ; Schiller, 2016 ). Critical realism also critiques the idea that only things that are present exist ( Haigh et al., 2019 ). Consider, for example, access to health care; when access is not present, the lack of access to health care itself may generate unmet health needs as outcomes ( Haigh et al., 2019 ). Critical realists argue that reality, specifically social reality, is produced and changed by these generative mechanisms that are activated or not activated at any given time ( Connelly, 2000 ). It is possible for mechanisms to exist but not generate an effect or to generate a new, different or unexpected effect ( Oltmann & Boughey, 2012 ). Mechanisms can therefore be enabling or constraining depending on the context ( Oltmann & Boughey, 2012 ). As critical realists, we cannot assume that they will have a particular effect but rather that their interactions will result in a tendency for an effect to occur or not occur ( Oltmann & Boughey, 2012 ). When we conduct research using critical realism then, we are looking to identify those relatively enduring tendencies or repetitions (demi regs or demi regularities) ( Hartwig, 2015 ) .

Critics of critical realism may argue that this approach to causality does not avoid the problem of induction at the level of the empirical but instead just transfers it to the level of the real. Critical realists are looking to uncover the foundational unchanging, intransitive, generative mechanisms in which to ground claims about why an event will probably happen in future if these mechanisms are present. Some will question why causal mechanisms (the real) are a better candidate for this than observations or experiences (empirical)? In other words, why is there any more reason to think that these enduring tendencies are more reliable just because they exist ‘beneath’ the empirical where it is experienced. Critiques such as these need to be considered when choosing the critical realism approach over other philosophical frameworks.

An Open System

While we may try to create a closed system in which we can conduct an experiment, control for confounding factors, and yield universal laws about interaction between outcomes and their causes, the ‘real world’ is inevitably an open system. Patients, healthcare providers and the healthcare systems in which they exist and interact are complex and unpredictable, entangled in social contexts, behaviours and relationships which cannot be neatly classified into separate variables ( Alderson, 2021 ). It is challenging to work in the social realm because people cannot easily be placed in the controlled environments considered necessary to truly attribute an effect or event to a cause ( Oltmann & Boughey, 2012 ). For example, if you read in a recent research article that a new behaviour change intervention has been successful in reducing cardiovascular disease risk in a randomized control trial, you may not see the same result when you try to implement this intervention in your practice. Interventions, polices, practice guidelines and programs are frequently transposed to another context and expected to work as effectively as they worked in the context in which they were first developed or tested ( Oladele et al., 2013 ). Critical realism recognizes the difficulties that are inherent in designing social science research and helps us to understand deterministic patterns of activity ( Schiller, 2016 ). It acknowledges that there is a causal network of interacting forces counteracting or reinforcing each other and that outcomes depend upon the conditions in which these mechanisms will operate ( Schiller, 2016 ). There is demonstrable value then, in identifying causal mechanisms and searching for relatively enduring tendencies or repetitions to guide us in explaining how they work, if they have been activated, and under what conditions their interactions might produce outcomes.

Agency and Structure

In using a critical realist framework, we also need to consider agency and structure. Bhaskar (2014) and Archer (1995) explain agency and structure as separate yet interdependent entities in that neither can be ‘reduced to, explained in terms of, or reconstructed from the other. There is an ontological hiatus between society and people, as well as a mode of connection’ ( Bhaskar, 2014 , p. 37). Their writings on agency and structure are the basis for current theorists/practitioners to apply and adapt within a healthcare context. In the context of healthcare, agents are providers and users of health services. This includes (but is not limited to) patients, their family members and support system, healthcare providers and staff, administrators and policy makers. In experimental conditions it is typically implied that each agent involved has free will, choice or agency; in other words, they can act independently and make free choices. However, in the real world, human agency is constrained by structures, other agents and resources ( Alderson, 2015 ). As Fryer (2020) frankly describes it, people do not just wander around, acting freely and doing whatever they want. Alternatively, if they do behave in this way, they do not usually get away with it for long. The world has social structures within which we live and, due to this, we will not often make completely individual decisions that are entirely unaffected by external influence.

Structures are powerful, objective and enduring entities that exist in and through human social relationships ( Alderson, 2021 ). Examples of these social structures include social class, gender and race. While these structures are not typically visible (although manifestations of them might be), nor are they tangible in and of themselves, they are no less real than the law of gravity ( Reid, 2019 ). Agents do not individually construct structures, but they will reproduce, resist, change or work within them, either through direct interaction with these structures or simply via the agent’s movement through the world ( Alderson, 2021 ). Structures would not continue to exist without agents continuing to reproduce and transform them ( Martin, 2019 ). Further, agents will each have their own reasons, motives, decisions, hopes and intentions (conscious and unconscious) brought to bear on the influence they wield and the choices they make; these can then be very real causal influences with effects and outcomes generated through the actions they produce, maintain and transform ( Alderson, 2021 ; Connelly, 2000 ). If we are to think as critical realists, we need to be aware of our own histories and motives and how they might be affecting our experiences and observations, as well as the way in which we are interpreting the experiences and observations of others ( Oltmann & Boughey, 2012 ), such as patients or coworkers. We should also consider how the social histories of patients or coworkers may be affecting their own experiences and observations ( Oltmann & Boughey, 2012 ). If we persist in the belief that everyone has free will or choice, for example the agency to rise above difficult life circumstances such as poverty, abuse or discrimination, then this places the power of agency above the power of structures. It implies that agency is a single overriding power instead of acknowledging the variety and complexity of the multiple powers that will exist in an open system ( Alderson, 2015 ). While the power of social structures is not absolute, it is immense and though some individuals may be able to overcome these powers, others may not for a variety of reasons ( Alderson, 2015 ). It is therefore vital, when conducting social research in the realm of health sciences, to pay attention to and acknowledge these complex agency-structure relationships and interactions as much as possible. If we only look at agency, we fail to consider the impact of structures and what constraints they may have on how and why someone acts in a particular way ( Martin, 2019 ). Conversely, if we only explore structures, we assume individuals are only influenced by these constraints and have no agency or influence ( Martin, 2019 ).

Next Steps for Advancing Your Practice

This article attempted to make the key principles of critical realism accessible for those who are just beginning their journey with this approach. It is a high-level introduction to critical realist concepts and supplied some examples of how critical realism can be helpful in health research, health practice inquiry, and interpretation of findings and observations. There are many more comprehensive resources available to support continued learning on this subject. While readings on philosophy can often feel dense and complex, Fryer’s (2020) A Short Guide to Ontology and Epistemology (Why Everyone Should Be a Critical Realist) , makes it easy to ‘wrap one’s head around’ some difficult concepts. Fryer navigates the basics of ontology and epistemology and reviews different philosophical positions through entertaining and easy to understand examples. For a user-friendly and detailed expansion on critical realism and its application for health research, Alderson’s (2021) book Critical Realism for Health and Illness Research: A Practical Introduction is a particularly excellent guide . Those interested in clarifying concepts and connecting critical realist theory and methodology may wish to read Danermark, Ekstrom and Karlsson’s (2019) recently revised Explaining Society: Critical Realism in the Social Sciences which includes illustrative examples of recent research, and Edwards et al. (2014) Studying organizations using critical realism: A practical guide. Lastly, if you are interested to dive into more complex reading in this area, Critical Realism: Essential Readings contains key works of many thought leaders in the field, including Archer, Bhaskar and Collier ( Archer et al., 2013 ).

Health and illness affect every aspect of our lives and are influenced by many factors, including the context, policies, behaviours and beliefs that surround us ( Alderson, 2021 ). Patients with the same diagnosis can differ in their presentation of symptoms and how they respond to interventions. Interventions developed and studied with demonstrated efficacy in one context may fail to result in the same outcomes in another context. This article provided an overview of foundational critical realist concepts using examples from the healthcare setting. The aim was to support healthcare providers and health science researchers to consider how critical realism can help them understand causation at a deeper level and thus support more effective change, while also noting the assumptions and critiques they may encounter when using this approach. Critical realism offers many opportunities as described, including an affinity with the way many of us in healthcare see the world fitting together ( O’Mahoney & Vincent, 2014 ). While we may observe what we think are universal laws, and experience actual events which shape our stories and guide our thinking, critical realism helps us avoid conflating what is real with our experiences. It can assist us in understanding the open system of our social world where relationship between mechanisms and events is not as simple as ‘cause and effect’, and where context, structures, and agents can interact in diverse ways to generate or constrain effects, events or outcomes. This way of thinking can help us examine beyond the surface of observable symptoms or obvious factors to understand what is really happening with patients and health services. As we attempt to make sense of the ‘real’ world and the ‘observable’ world, critical realism is a way of approaching healthcare issues that can allow us to be more successful in this endeavour.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethical Statement: Our study did not require a research ethics board approval because it did not contain human or animal trials.

Erica Koopmans https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2001-7128

Catharine Schiller https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3656-2171

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, critical realism: what you should know and how to apply it.

Qualitative Research Journal

ISSN : 1443-9883

Article publication date: 15 December 2020

Issue publication date: 2 August 2021

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the critical realism (CR) philosophical viewpoint and how it can be applied in qualitative research. CR is a relatively new and viable philosophical paradigm proposed as an alternative to the more predominant paradigms of positivism, interpretivism and pragmatism. This paper reviews the concept, its benefits and limitation. It goes further to provide an example of how CR is used as a philosophical and methodological framework with the systems thinking theory to applied qualitative research.

Design/methodology/approach

A study of project management challenges in a Nigerian government organisation is used to demonstrate a qualitative research approach, which includes a coding process and data analysis that is consistent with CR ontology and epistemology.

CR focuses primarily on closed systems. However, a more accurate explanation of reality is obtained in addition to the identification of contextual causal mechanisms in the context of study when a general systems theory is applied.

Research limitations/implications

The knowledge about the nature of relationships obtained in the context of study may not necessarily be replicated in another context. However, this paper elucidates a CR process that is generalisable by demonstrating how a theory is applied in a different context.

Originality/value

The paper demonstrates how systems theory is used to understand interactions in a CR paradigm. It engages with CR approach critically and illustrates a clear example of how CR can be applied in social research.

• Critical realism
• Systems thinking
• Data analysis

Acknowledgements

No funding nor potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Lawani, A. (2021), "Critical realism: what you should know and how to apply it", Qualitative Research Journal , Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 320-333. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-08-2020-0101

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Education Studies

Critical realism.

Critical realism is difficult to describe as it captures a variety of stances, but its key ideas, and probably the reason for the interest it generates, is that it sits between positivism and interpretivism . As Archer et al (2016) put it, critical realism offers an alternative to:

scientistic forms of positivism concerned with regularities, regression-based variables models, and the quest for law-like forms; and also the strong interpretivist or postmodern turn which denied explanation in favor of interpretation, with a focus on hermeneutics and description at the cost of causation.

Like positivism, critical realists accept there are objective realities, and agreements about those realities, but they argue that we cannot rely on positivist reasoning to understand the world. As such critical realism is sometimes offered as an example of post positivist positioning or even post post-postivism.

Archer at al (2016) reads as a manifesto for critical realism. First, they make the point that critical realists want to bring ontology back into social theory as they feat that social scientists have forgotten to talk about it. This is a noteworthy failing as in practice social researchers have plenty of implicit ideas about the nature of the world but tend not to articulate what those ideas are. Critical realism in contrast is very interested in ontology and a typical critical realist position is to accept that much of reality exists and operates independently of our awareness or knowledge of it. It follows that it does indeed makes sense to address the traditional concerns of social science (e.g. ‘causation, agency, structure, and relations’). However, critical realism is critical and any of these traditional concerns need to be justified, nothing should be taken for granted.

Archer et al’s second point is that, notwithstanding a belief in an objective reality, we have to accept that our knowledge of the world is always relative to who we are and what we are doing to acquire understandings (an 'epistemic relativism'). Knowledge of the world is always 'historically, socially, and culturally situated’. This means that our accounts are fallible, and while realism entails a commitment to truth as an idea, our notions of truth and rationality are historically located too. This, as I read it, is not a cause of pessimism it simply is the way of the world.

Archer et al (2016) introduce a third principle underling critical realism: judgmental rationality. Even if the judgements we make in research are relative, Archer and colleagues believe that, following from their realist stance in respect to ontology, there are criteria for judging which accounts about the world are better - better in the sense of providing more plausible models for an inquiry - and we can put forward relatively objective reasons for our judgement. This offers the possibility that, over time, we are able to ‘improve knowledge about the real world’, even if we recognise the contingent nature of that knowledge.

​Finally, Archer and colleagues more tentatively suggest that social research might be able to reconcile values and objectivity. This they offer as a cautious 'ethical naturalism'. In particular while it is easily accepted that facts are seen through values (facts are subjectively perceived), it is less often noted that our values are shaped by facts. This means that, in practice social science can contribute to debates over how life should be lived as well as how it is lived.

Reflections

In favour of critical realism:

• it gives a name to a stance which in practice is held by a lot of social scientists, i.e. there is an objective reality, some accounts are ‘better’ than others; values can be integrated.
• it highlights the importance of ontology and the consequences that flow from ontological positions. It helps us to see that debates over a third way (a space between interpretivism and positivism) should not be restricted to the level of method (mixed methods v quantitative / qualitative division) but ontology (critical realism v objectivism / constructionism).
• it is an open flexible term that encourages creativity and flexibility in application and a rejection of methodological boxes.

Criticism of critical realism

• critical realism could be attacked by both hard core interpretivists (as too realist) and positivists (not realist enough)
• critical realist writers (though Archer et al (2016) is an exception) are often difficult to follow, Bhaskar below is particularly criticised on these grounds
• critical realism is a meta theory and does not offer a procedure for the conduct of social research. As such it can mean many things in practice and some of the most interesting theoretical work which seeks to bridge structure and agency has taken place without the help of critical realist theory or under the looser banner of post positivism.

Archer et al. (2016) What Is Critical Realism? American Sociology Association, [online] http://www.asatheory.org/current-newsletter-online/what-is-critical-realism

Brant, J. and Panjwani, F. (2015) School economics and the aims of education: Critique and possibilities, Journal of Critical Realism , 14, 3, 306–324. (An interesting attempt to apply critical realist principles in education).

Scott, D. (2005) Critical realism and empirical research methods in education, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 39, 4, 633-646.

Roy Bhaskar was very much associated with the idea of critical realism. As you can see from the video clip below critical realism is concerned with ontology, the study of being. For Bhaskar critical realism was derived from two connected philosophical ideas: transcendental realism (an assumption at least that objects of investigation exist independently of human beings) and critical naturalism (a rejection of a positivist account of science). This chimes with the comments by Archer et al above.

Critical Realism

• Routledge Studies in Critical Realism
• Writing a Proposal
• IACR Conferences
• Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize
• Webinar Recordings

Critical Realism is a diverse and developing movement, and there is no single universally agreed definition of what critical realists stand for. This page introduces some of the founding texts and ideas, but there is considerable debate within critical realism about many of them. Different critical realists tend to advocate different but overlapping sets of ideas drawn from these texts and developed in dialogue with them.

Classic texts and key ideas

An introductory overview by Tim Rutzou.

Roy Bhaskar – Transcendental Realism

In A Realist Theory of Science (1975), Bhaskar argues that the revindication of ontology (that is the study of being) is necessary, not only for providing a realist account of science, but for science itself to understand and sustain the grounds of its own intelligibility and practice. It does so through an inverted Kantian transcendental argument which asks, what must the world be like for knowledge of the world to be possible? In this question we can already begin to see the emphasis of critical realism; prioritising ‘the world’ (the real) over any system of understanding or practice.

So, in order to maintain the intelligibility of scientific understanding, particularly the fallibility and transformation of human knowledge, it holds we must separate epistemology (knowledge, systems, thoughts, ideas, theories, language…) from ontology (being, things, ontics, existents, reality, objects of investigation). This distinction between what critical realism calls the transitive (the changing knowledge of things) and the intransitive (the relatively unchanging things which we attempt to know) is a critical distinction which runs throughout critical realism.

In particular this distinction targets the widely held belief that to speak or desire to speak about “the real world” is either naive or meaningless, and we must only speak of the way in which we understand or arrange the real world, be it through forms of thought, habits or customs, models, or language. This tends to  collapse “mind-independent” being into our knowledge or experience of being (which Bhaskar labels the epistemic fallacy ), and is the basis of providing an anthropomorphic account of the world.

Against this, Bhaskar not only argues for the need to do ontology, but for a structured and differentiated ontology which is necessarily presupposed by scientific practice, and in particular, the practice of scientific experimentation. The basic tenets and logic of this argument are simple enough, but the implications extend to a radical revision of the nature of causal laws as expressing the transfactual tendencies of things, and science as investigating mechanisms and not events in an open, and not closed world.

Real structures exists independently of, and are out of phase with, actual patterns of events necessitating the need to perform experimentation so that scientists might make sense of their operation in a controlled and non-complex environment (that is a relatively closed environment). David Hume famously argued that  causation was simply constant conjunction, we see one thing following another and believed them to be connected. This is true of closed systems in which event 2 always follows from event 1. But this is not universally true, and occurs only in certain situations, such as in a laboratory or similarly controlled environment. Most of reality is not a closed system, it is what we call an open-system.

In the open system, constant conjunctions are not always forthcoming. Event 2 does not always follow event 1: we simply need to consider history and social situations to realise this, however it is also true in science. Reality does not conform to the constant conjunction of events. Similarly reality does not conform to our experience of events. What is happening now, has happened, or will happen, is not exhausted by our knowledge or experience, nor does it exhaust the categories and possibilities of reality. Reality is complex, temporal, and changing. This critical distinction frames the differentiation of mechanisms from their exercise, and the occurrence of events apart from our experience (or knowledge) of them.

                        Domain of Real            Domain of Actual            Domain of Empirical        

Mechanisms                      X

Events                                 X                                    X

Experiences                        X                                    X                                    X

It is only if we make the assumption of the real independence of natural mechanisms and structures from the events by which they are known, that we can understand the nature of causality. Causality is thereby understood as operating transfactually, that is the ongoing operation of, and endurance of, these mechanisms apart from the experimentally closed conditions in which they are observed and identified.

The basis of causal law lay in the generative mechanisms of nature, of which we do not have direct, only mediated, experience. These mechanisms can be understood as the way things act, that is the structures, powers, and liabilities which frame an object’s tendencies as they operate and interact. These mechanisms are said to operate in both open and closed systems (but are of course more identifiable in closed systems) and may also be exercised without being manifest (RTS:14). It is thus the powers and potentials of objects (i.e. the operation of mechanisms), which outline the conditions of possibility for nomothetic and normic (i.e. universal) statements.

Margaret Archer et. al., Critical Realism:   Essential Readings

Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science

Roy Bhaskar – Critical Naturalism

In the field of social science Bhaskar applies these principles to the prevailing problems in sociology by asking

‘What properties do societies possess that might make them possible objects of knowledge for us? My strategy in developing an answer to this question will be effectively based on a pincer movement. But in deploying the pincer I shall concentrate first on the ontological question of the properties that societies possess, before shifting to the epistemological question of how these properties make them possible objects of knowledge for us. This is not an arbitrary order of development. It reflects the condition that, for transcendental realism, it is the nature of objects that determines their cognitive possibilities for us; that, in nature, it is humanity that is contingent and knowledge, so to speak, accidental. Thus it is because sticks and stones are solid that they can be picked up and thrown, not because they can be picked up and thrown that they are solid (though that they can be handled in this sort of way may be a contingently necessary condition for our knowledge of their solidity) ‘. (PON 25)

In particular, critical naturalism seeks to resolve the dualisms prevalent in social science, namely, structure and agency, collectivism and individualism, reification and voluntarism, causes and reason, body and mind, facts and values.

Regarding structure and agency, and following Durkheim, critical realism holds structure precedes human agency in so far as it provides the material causes of human action. We are always thrown into a socio-linguistic-epistemic context in which we must act. But following Weber, the structures of society must not be reified, but operate through the mediation of human agency and social activity. ‘Society is both the ever present condition (material cause) and the continually reproduced outcome of human agency. And praxis is both work, that is, conscious production, and (normally unconscious) reproduction of the conditions of production, that is society. One could refer to the former as the duality of structure, and the later as the duality of praxis (PN 44).’ This dynamic relationship between structure and agency forms the transformational model of social activity (TMSA) and the basis of social scientific investigation in the relationships which constitute ‘society’.  People do not simply create society, for it pre-exists them and is the necessary condition for their activity. Rather, society is instead to be regarded as an ensemble of structures, practices, and relationships, which individuals both reproduce and transform, without which society would not exist. 

Roy Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism

Margaret Archer – Morphogenesis

Beginning with her work on Social Origins of Educational Systems (1979) and her famous critique of Anthony Giddens and structuration theory in 1982 in the British Journal of Sociology Archer’s work has been consistently committed to resolving the tensions in social theory between structure, agency and culture. Indeed, Archer would suggest “The fundamental problem of linking human agency and social structure stalks through the history of sociological theory” with the result that “theoretical developments have tilted either towards structure or towards action, a slippage which has gathered in momentum over time”.

The champion of the day, structuration theory, sought to unite certain functionalist and interactive traditions without derogating the lay actor. However as Archer was to highlight this attempt at duality resulted in an uncontrolled oscillation between moments of structural determinism in which the agent appeared as powerless and passive, and moments of extreme voluntarism in which the agent appeared as completely self-created. At the heart of this was a collapse of analytic dualism which can be represented as an immediacy or a lack of distance and differentiation between moments in which structures are reproduced and moments in which structures are transformed. Notably, in Giddens this meant structures were by and large atemporal and synchronic without much thought given to how the transformation of social structures by agents is possible. Archer argued that the morphogenetic approach coupled with an analytic dualism was a much better footing for social theory.

The morphogenetic argument was that structure and action operate over different time periods such that: • structure logically predates the action(s) which transform it (t1), •  structural elaboration logically postdates those actions, which can be represented as shown in (t4)

In truth, all three lines are always continuous, and the element of analytical dualism only operates to break up the flows into intervals critical to understanding the problem in hand and preventing to collapse into indeterminacy or duality. Given any particular problem, understood temporally , the three lines all extend equally backwards and forwards, connecting up with other morphogenetic cycles. This approach represents the bedrock of  understanding of social and systemic properties, of structuring over time, and enables explanations of specific forms of structural elaboration.

This approach has been refined and further developed by Archer in her many works, elaborating the mechanisms of social transformation, the vital role of the internal conversation, and the analytic necessity of understand the social world as consisting of structure, agency, and culture (SAC), and most recently, the role of reflexivity in the modern world.

Margaret Archer, Realis t Social Theory

Dialectical Critical Realism

‘ My project is normative ‘. Roy Bhaskar

The work of Roy Bhaskar has taken different turns. The first of which was a renewed focus on the question of the dialectic. While dialectical thinking is arguably present throughout critical realism (one might think on the manner in which binaries or dualisms are overcome in works like The Possibility of Naturalism ) in Dialectic: the Pulse of Freedom, Bhaskar attempts to elaborate the nature of dialectical thinking. First published in 1993, sets itself three main aims: the development of a general theory of dialectic, of which Hegelian dialectic can be seen to be a special case; the dialectical enrichment and deepening of critical realism, viz. into the system of dialectical critical realism; and the outline of the elements of a totalizing critique of Western philosophy.

Following  this, dialectical critical realism (DCR), can be understood as a preservative generalisation and enrichment of the implicit dialectic within critical realism. DCR develops on the general logic and ontology of critical realism to encompass on one hand, negativity and the resources of critique, and on the other, the concept of totality including causation, space, temporality and ethics.

To theoretically situate it within other traditions, we might say DCR follows a ‘non-preservative sublation’ (i.e. it develops but also changes and discards aspects) of the Hegelian (and Marxian) dialectic realised upon a stratified and differentiated ontology in which change is central. Being is understood not only being open, differentiated and stratified (Basic Critical Realism) but permeated by negativity (notably absences), and temporality including change (being is spacio-temporal-causal). To Hegel’s dialectics of identity, negativity and totality, Bhaskar offers four categorical moments of dialectic as non-identity, negativity, totality, and transformative agency (praxis).

In pursuing totality, DCR pushes the dialectic device towards alethic truth (the undisclosed realisation of natural necessity as the power and liabilities of things), encompassing universality and totality as concrete (and not abstract), and, following this,  the possibility of moral realism and ethical naturalism proceeding from metacritical, theoretical, and practical critique coupled with a holisitic understanding (an open totality) of human society.

Central to the revindication of the dialectic is the re -conception of absence as primary, with the process of dialectic itself defined as the absenting of absences, constraints, or ills. This re-vindication of absence proceeds from a critique of the entire philosophical tradition beginning with Parmenides and the philosophy of the unchanging One, centring upon the characteristic error of philosophy, which Bhaskar calls  ontological monovalence ; the reliance on a ‘purely positive, complementing a purely actual, notion of reality’ (DPF: 4-5).

The first chapter of Dialectic: the Pulse of Freedom , clarifies the rational core of Hegelian dialectic. Chapter two then proceeds to develop a general theory of dialectic. Isolating the fallacy of ‘ontological monovalence’,  Bhaskar then shows how absence and other negating concepts such as contradiction have a legitimate and necessary ontological employment. He then goes on to give a synoptic account of key dialectical concepts such as the concrete universal; to sketch the further dialectical development of critical naturalism through an account of what he calls four-planar social being; and following consideration of the dialectical critique of analytical reason, he moves on to the real definition of dialectic as absenting absence and in the human sphere, the axiology of freedom.

Chapter three extends and deepens critical realism’s characteristic concerns with ontology, science, social science and emancipation not only into the realms of negativity and totality, but also into the fields of reference and truth, spatio-temporality, tense and process, the logic of dialectical universalizability and on to the plane of ethics, where it articulates a combination of moral realism and ethical naturalism, whereby consideration of elemental desire involves commitment to the eudaimonistic society. This is then followed by a sublime discussion of key moments in the trajectory of Western philosophy, the tradition of which can now be seen to be based on what the author calls the unholy trinity of the epistemic fallacy or the reduction of being to knowledge, primal squeeze or the collapse of structure and alethic truth, and ontological monovalence.

Roy Bhaskar, Dialectic: the pulse of freedom

Roy Bhaskar, Plato etc .

Alan Norrie, Dialectic and Difference  (a good starting place)

The Philosophy of MetaReality

The second and more controversial turn in Roy Bhaskar’s work was a turn toward metaReality. Building on a radical new analysis of the self, human agency and society, metaReality shows how the world of alienation and crisis we currently inhabit is sustained by the ground-state qualities of intelligence, creativity, love, a capacity for right-action and a potential for human self realisation or fulfilment.

MetaReality moves the logic of DCR in sustaining non-identity and the priority of the negative over the positive, towards realising identity and the priority of the non-dual as sustaining the world of duality. It moves from thinking being , to being being including (in its ethical form) becoming our being (realising the potential of being of emancipation).

MetaReality deepens the critical realist schema to encompass re-enchantment in which being is understood as intrinsically meaningful and valuable where the distinction between the sacred and the profane is shown to (in the end) breakdown with the deepest level of being understood as characterised by peace, love, freedom and creativity and therefore as meaningful and valuable (value-impregnated and value-impregnating).

Furthermore, being is understood as non-dual and consisting of non-dual moments. This paves the way for revindicating spirituality as basic to human life, arguing that one can be spiritual without ‘religious frameworks’, and indeed, given the non-dual nature of reality, such a ‘spirituality’ is unavoidable.

MetaReality situates identity and non-duality as a more basic level upon which the world of duality operates. The relationship between non-duality (identity) and duality (non-identity) can be represented as, non-duality < duality, or as identity < non-identity < (false) identity.

Once a realm of duality is constituted, you then have the possibility of that kind of duality which sharpens into a dualism, as in the move from a dialectical connection to an antagonistic contradiction. The realm of duality (or relative reality, with non-duality as absolute reality) thereby gives way to binary oppositions, and in doing so ‘reality’ becomes characterised by dualism, split, alienation, reification, commodification, and the ensuing TINA formations and master-slave relations which arise. Relative reality, when characterised by these dualisms is called ‘demi-reality’, and is a world of causally efficacious illusions; falsities which presuppose a truth, but act to mask and mystify the underlying reality and connection. Relative reality is the world of becoming, encompassing change, process, evolution and development, structured by difference and grounded in non-identity. Demi-reality radicalises the duality of non-identity and difference into alienations, repulsions, and indeed divisiveness, hate, and fear in the social world. Thus, metaReality < relative reality < demi-reality. From this basis, metaReality theorises, love, creativity, action, learning and education, perception and consciousness, the self, the discursive intellect, and the sociology of the everyday , from the categories of non-duality and transcendence to the thematisation of thinking being to being being . Of particular interest to us is the re-vindication of re-enchantment and creativity at the deepest level of being.

Re-enchantment is thematised in chapter 3 and chapter 5 of The Philosophy of metaReality (PMR), and proceeds from the collapse of subject-object duality, and with it the collapse of the semiotic triangle. Here we have immediate unmediated identity of being and meaning, that is reality is seen as meaningful in itself, entailing, among other things, that we can learn from it. The world, as it were, becomes (or more correctly, is seen to have been) a meaningful text which speaks to us. Likewise, values are no longer seen as subjective classifications of the mind, but rather, they are already constitutive of reality itself (peace, love, creativity etc…).

Creativity, thematised in PMR chapter 3, develops from the DCR categories of emergence, holisitic causality, and totality, which in DPF were already considered in terms of autopoeisis and creativity. In metaReality this is deepened, and creativity becomes central to being itself, as the production of something new but something already implicitly or potentially in what was there before. Creativity, is therefore not only characteristic of human thought and action, but of being itself as being is punctuated by emergence (the flaring and fuming of primary matter), transformation, objectification, reflection, etc… The understanding of creativity thereby opens the door to an understanding of the world of becoming, of time and change and of process, and in metaReality this becomes one of the keys to accessing the deep interior of being.

Roy Bhaskar, Reflections on metaReality

Roy Bhaskar, The Philosophy of metaReality

Roy Bhaskar, From Science to Emancipation

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2 Critical Realism, Research Techniques, and Research Designs

• Published: March 2014
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After an introduction which suggests the purpose of CR research is to discover the operation of social mechanisms and for this reason researchers are eclectic when it comes to research techniques, it is argued that, nonetheless, a small number of research designs are favoured for CR research. To clarify these the chapter distinguishes two dimensions: one between intensive and extensive research and the other between detachment from and involvement with research subjects. From this a typology of eight usable realist research designs is constructed. To develop these propositions the chapter makes distinctions between four logically distinct research strategies. Preferred detached research designs presented and discussed are: case studies, comparative case analyses, generative institutional analyses, and research using survey and census data. Amongst these, few of which have so far been extensively used by CR researchers, the following are discussed: action research, intensive realist evaluation, barefoot historical research, and extensive realist evaluation.

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Critical Realism and Qualitative Research: An Introductory Overview

• S. Vincent , J. O’Mahoney
• Published 1 June 2016
• Business, Sociology

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45 Citations

Reflections on how to apply norbert elias’ philosophy of figurations to problems of marketing, putting philosophy to work: developing the conceptual architecture of research projects, realist approach to qualitative data analysis, how to phrase critical realist interview questions in applied social science research, fine companions: critical realism and framework analysis, skilled migrant workplace integration: the choice between pragmatism and critical realism approaches, mixing qualitative methods versus methodologies: a critical reflection on communication and power in inpatient care, how can qualitative methods be applied to behavior analytic research: a discussion and suggestions for implementation, beyond codifying common sense: from an historical to critical institutionalism, what is a disease for doctors a realist thematic qualitative analysis of the interpretation of clinical vignettes, 60 references, studying organizations using critical realism: a practical guide, critical realism and grounded theory, there is nothing so theoretical as good action research, realistic evaluation, critical realism : the difference it makes, ontology in organization and management studies: a critical realist perspective, essentialism, social constructionism, and beyond, defining objectivity in realist terms objectivity as a second-order ‘ bridging ’ concept part ii : bridging to praxis, action research: explaining the diversity, embracing essentialism: a realist critique of resistance to discursive power, related papers.

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Scientific Realism vs. Evolutionary Epistemology: A Critical Rationalist Approach

• Published: 27 August 2024

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• Alireza Mansouri   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1488-5754 1  

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The compatibility of scientific realism and evolutionary epistemology is a controversial issue in contemporary philosophy of science. Scientific realism is the view that scientific theories aim to describe the true nature of reality, while evolutionary epistemology is the view that scientific knowledge is the product of natural selection and adaptation. Some philosophers argue that evolutionary epistemology undermines the epistemic status of scientific theories and thus poses a serious challenge to scientific realism. This paper examines this problem and explores whether scientific realism can be reconciled with evolutionary epistemology. The paper argues that critical rationalism (CR), a philosophical approach that rejects justificationism and emphasizes the role of criticism , rationality , and objectivity in science, can provide a viable framework for integrating scientific realism and evolutionary epistemology. The paper shows that by adopting a non-justificationist fallibilist stance toward scientific theories, CR can reconcile the realist and the evolutionary views on scientific knowledge.

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An Evolutionary Sceptical Challenge to Scientific Realism

Problems with using evolutionary theory in philosophy.

Evolutionary Theory and the Epistemology of Science

Data availability.

This study does not involve any data collection.

Wuketits ( 2001 , 179) contrasts Campbell’s position, which embraces evolutionary skepticism, with the classical realist versions of evolutionary epistemology, which assume that perception reveals some aspects of reality.

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While evolutionary pressures may prioritize survival over truth-conduciveness, as Boulter ( 2004 ) argues, this does not refute metaphysical realism as a precondition of visual perception. The independent existence of a prepackaged world remains essential for visual perception, and the complexities of evolutionary processes do not diminish the significance of this metaphysical foundation for understanding perception.

Popper uses the term “genetically a priori” to indicate knowledge that exists before any perception, aligning with his view that all knowledge is hypothetical and conjectural, and that our sensory experiences are interpreted through this pre-existing framework. This differs from Kant’s concept of a priori, which refers to pure forms of experience and judgment necessary for any possible experience and cognition (ibid.).

The incorporation of “decision” and “agreement” elements within some of Popper’s works has raised concerns about a whiff of irrationalism or conventionalism within Popper’s philosophy (Miller 1994 , 29–30). For instance, in his discussion of “the problem of the empirical basis,” he suggests that basic statements are ultimately the result of a decision, agreement, and convention (Popper 1934 /2002, ch. 28–30). Nonetheless, it is untenable to ascribe to Popper a variant of conventionalism that stands in opposition to his realist stance. As Miller points out, firstly, the decision to accept basic statements is based on experience, not as a replacement for it. Secondly, basic statements are objectively true , not just consistent with other statements or conventionally true. However, they are fallible and are provisionally agreed upon only because continuous criticism is not practically possible in scientific activity (Miller 1994 , 29–30).

Kuhn argues that accepting Darwinian evolution entails abandoning the concept of truth, because Darwinian evolution lacks a specific direction (Kuhn 1990, 95–96; 1962 /2012). However, this argument is based on a misunderstanding: The absence of a criterion to justify truth does not imply that truth cannot be an aim. This argument overlooks the possibility of a regulative role for truth, and despite the emphasis of critical rationalism, it remains attached to “justification.” Kuhn (1990, 96) assumes that the problem of “justification” is that it is oriented toward an external aim out of paradigm, whereas he claims that justification should be inside the paradigm or framework. However, he fails to recognize that the problem of justification is not inside or outside, but its impossibility and redundancy in science.

As Hull ( 1999 ) says, Popper’s point about the active role of organisms in evolution is not new or controversial among Darwinians, but “Popper is right that organisms as active agents tend to get lost in much of the literature in population genetics with its heavy emphasis on genes and characters.”.

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A historical and critical assessment of parametricism as an architectural style in the 21st century, 1. introduction, 2. research methodology, 2.1. intensive descriptive approach, 2.2. critical review of the literature, 3. what is a style, 3.1. values, definitions, and understanding of the style.

• Style as Language
• Style as a System of Types
• Style as a Theory

3.2. Architectural Style

3.3. twenty-first century reconsiderations of architectural styles, 4. parametricism in architecture, 4.1. parametricism’s definition, 4.2. scholars ‘arguments on parametricism, 4.3. bibliometric analysis, 4.4. architectural styles, 4.5. heuristics in parametricism, 4.5.1. functional heuristics, 4.5.2. formal heuristics, 4.6. critical comparison of parametricism, 5. influence of parametric architecture on architectural sustainability, 5.1. energy efficiency through form optimization, 5.2. material efficiency, 5.3. adaptability and longevity, 5.4. responsive urban design, 5.5. parametric architecture’s varied impact on sustainability, 6. findings and discussion.

• Parametricism reflects a significant evolution in the architectural discourse by incorporating advanced computational tools to create dynamic, responsive, and complex forms that adapt to both environmental and social parameters. This innovative approach demonstrates a clear departure from traditional design methods, suggesting a progressive shift in how architecture is conceptualized and executed;
• While Parametricism introduces new methodologies through the use of algorithms and digital fabrication, its influence extends beyond mere technical advances. It redefines architectural aesthetics, functionality, and the process of design itself, aligning with broader shifts toward sustainability and adaptability in the built environment. This holistic impact suggests that Parametricism is not just a toolset but a transformative movement in architectural thinking;
• The adoption of Parametricism has empowered architects to explore new forms of architectural expression and efficiency, pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved in terms of form and functionality. The style’s adaptability and precision in design execution have set new standards in the industry, influencing contemporary architectural practices and encouraging a re-evaluation of traditional design philosophies;
• Despite its innovative aspects, Parametricism faces critiques regarding its complexity and the potential disconnection from local cultural and environmental contexts. These critiques highlight the need for a balanced approach in its application, ensuring that technological advancements enhance rather than dominate the architectural intent and relevance.

7. Conclusions

Author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest, appendix a. descriptions of styles.

• Gothic is noted for its verticality and light-filled spaces, characterized by features such as pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses. It originated in the High Middle Ages and is particularly associated with cathedral architecture, reflecting an aspiration towards the heavens and the divine;
• Renaissance is characterized by a rebirth of classical antiquity, emphasizing symmetry, proportion, and geometry in architecture, alongside a focus on humanism and realism in the visual arts. This period marked a departure from the more formulaic structures of the medieval period, favoring a return to the study of nature and classical forms;
• Mannerism is characterized by its artificial (as opposed to naturalistic) qualities, with an emphasis on elegance, elongated forms, and a lack of clear perspective.
• Baroque emerged after the Renaissance, known for its exuberance, grandeur, and drama, as well as its use of contrast, movement, vivid details, and deep color to achieve a sense of awe. Architecture and art from this period are characterized by their emotional intensity, opulent decorations, and dynamic scenes;
• Rococo is known for its decorative art and architecture that is elaborate, ornamental, and light-hearted, with themes often centered around love, classical myths, and nature;
• Neo-Classicism was a revival of the classical styles and spirit during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, emphasizing clarity, order, and symmetry. It was inspired by the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome, and it was a reaction against the excesses of the Baroque and Rococo styles;
• Historicism represents the use of historical forms and decorative styles from different periods in history, often combined in a single building or artwork. It reflects a romantic fascination with the past and was particularly popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, leading to the creation of eclectic architecture that borrows from various historical periods;
• Neo-Gothic revives medieval Gothic architecture with a romantic emphasis on individualism and detailed craftsmanship;
• Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque represent a return to the principles and styles of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, respectively, emphasizing symmetry, proportion, and grandeur in the case of Neo-Renaissance, and dramatic effect, movement, and detailed ornamentation in Neo-Baroque;
• Eclecticism is an architectural style that combines elements from different historical styles and periods, aiming for harmony in diversity;
• Art Nouveau is distinguished by its use of long, sinuous, organic lines and was applied most notably to architecture, interior design, and decorative arts.
• Expressionism manifests through the depiction of subjective emotions and experiences over objective reality, often using bold colors and dynamic compositions;
• Modernism is a broad movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, advocating for new approaches to art, architecture, and literature. It rejects historical precedents and traditional styles, emphasizing innovation, functionality, and simplicity instead. In architecture, it is characterized by minimalism, the use of industrial materials, and the idea that form should follow function;
• Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) refers to a German movement in art, literature, and music of the 1920s that was characterized by a realistic style combined with a cynical, socially critical philosophical stance;
• Organicism celebrates harmony between human habitation and the natural world through design principles inspired by nature and organic forms;
• Rationalism in architecture emphasizes reason and order, favoring a reductionist approach and often employing geometric forms and the repetition of modular elements;
• Brutalism is known for its straightforward, honest approach to form and material, often using raw concrete or other materials in their natural, unfinished state;
• Metabolism is a post-war Japanese architectural movement that explores ideas of megastructures and prefabricated modular elements to accommodate growing populations and changing urban needs;
• High-tech architecture incorporates technology and industrial systems into building design, often showcasing structural elements, mechanical systems, and innovative materials;
• Postmodernism breaks away from modernist principles by embracing complexity and contradiction, often incorporating elements of historical styles in a new context or with a sense of irony;
• Parametricism represents a style within contemporary architecture and design characterized by the use of computer-aided design software to generate geometries based on algorithmic rules that relate to various parameters. This approach allows for complex, fluid forms and patterns that can adapt dynamically to their context and programmatic requirements;
• Blobism (also known as Blob architecture) is identified by its organic, amoeba-shaped forms that appear to be blob-like or droplet-like in shape. These forms are often created through digital design techniques, allowing for smooth, seamless surfaces and curvilinear shapes that challenge traditional architectural geometry and structure;
• Flodism could potentially refer to a design philosophy influenced by fluid dynamics and the aesthetics of fluid movement. If this is an intended style, it would likely emphasize seamless, flowing forms that mimic the properties and behavior of liquids. However, without more context or standard recognition of the term, it is difficult to provide a detailed description;
• Swarmism might involve design principles inspired by swarm intelligence observed in nature, such as in flocks of birds or schools of fish. This approach could utilize algorithms to simulate the decentralized, self-organized patterns of behavior found in nature, resulting in dynamic, adaptable design systems or structures that mimic these natural processes;
• Tectonism refers to an architectural style or approach that emphasizes the expression and exploration of construction and structure. It focuses on the articulation of tectonic elements and how parts of a building are assembled and connected. Designs in this style show the materials, structural logic, and craftsmanship, often revealing the construction process as an integral part of the aesthetic experience.
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Youns, A.M.; Grchev, K. A Historical and Critical Assessment of Parametricism as an Architectural Style in the 21st Century. Buildings 2024 , 14 , 2656. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14092656

Youns AM, Grchev K. A Historical and Critical Assessment of Parametricism as an Architectural Style in the 21st Century. Buildings . 2024; 14(9):2656. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14092656

Youns, Ameen Mokhles, and Kokan Grchev. 2024. "A Historical and Critical Assessment of Parametricism as an Architectural Style in the 21st Century" Buildings 14, no. 9: 2656. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14092656

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