Critical realism is a philosophical approach to social science based on philosophy of science, ontology, and epistemology. It focuses on developing theoretical explanations for observable phenomena in the social world. Critical realism believes there is an unobservable real world that causes observable events. It views reality as having four modes: material, ideal, social, and artifact. Critical realism holds that our knowledge is fallible but there is an objective reality we can know, even if imperfectly. It can be applied to both social science and natural science to analyze how social structures and human actions continuously change over time.

1. Critical Realism
(philosophy of the social science)
A philosophical approach associated with roybhaskar (1944-2014)
Critical realismis a meta-theory for social science based on the philosophy of science, ontology,
epistemology along with the concept of what constitutes an explanation. CR researchers
provide phenomena for developing a theory in the world because CR principle focused on
development of theoretical explanation. The basic idea of critical realismis that natural and
social reality should be understood as casual as it is seems.
The theory based on two philosophes transcendental realismand critical naturalism. The two
terms were combined under one umbrella term critical realism.
Before understand CR, we need to understand the basic philosophy of Ontological Realism.
Realismresearchers believes on one Truth for them the truth cannot be changed. Realistic
believe that truth can be achieve by objectives measurement and when you find the truth is
you can generalized it on other situations. They discussed four modes of reality as under.
CR ONTOLOGY: 4 MODES OF REALITY
 Materially reality
Oceans, weather system, mountain, planets,sky
 Ideally reality
Language, signs, symbols, ideas, beliefs, explanation, concepts, models
 Socially reality
Market, organizations, class or gender structures, norms, rules
 Artefactually reality
Building, tools, cosmetics, computers, gadgets, mobiles etc.
CR believes there is a reality which is unobservable can be the cause of observable realities,
“if I believe it is raining outside I will take an umbrella”. The social world can be understood
by the structure of these unobservant events with the experimental context. By this method
we can understand any event and the cause it held.
Critic views:
Many critics questioned on the critical realismapproach such as what is a human life? What
kind of social relation can be defined? Does social science actually revel something about the
world? Can we adjust between counter realities, is our knowledge is warranted? Our
explanations justified?

2. Critical realismholed that the theory of knowledge is different from a theory of being,
(ontology).
The critical realismtheory can be applied to social science as well as natural science. Culture
and society are generated by human activities. So society continually changes due to the
dynamic nature of human actions.
The concept of One truth can be changed and flexible in CR, society can be continuously
changed as well as human action changed by the psychologically or influential relationship.
Therefor critical theory doesn’t have any prediction power the review reality and analysis the
truth and make a decision.
Furthermore social structure isopen and cannot be artificially controlled in a laboratory type
setting.
Judgmental rationality:
This is an ability to evaluate different positions of any problems. CRITICAL REALISMrelay under
the judgmental realism. Once we reject realismand have to relay between multipule realities
which can be better or worst. That is true that in both social scince and natural science there is
no facts are nutral objects. Knowledge based solely on experience or empirical data is a myth-
facts are theory. In other words there is no neutral position to assess world.
Judging between multipulerealites is not an easy task, how do we assess which criteria we
should use in any given situation. Some situations can be more tricky or tense that the result
can be difficult in same set of problems in different situations its can be too much to too little.
According to bhaskar the knowledge produce by human and it can be contain human error. In
our social life we produce knowledge which can be subjective and objective aspect. For bhaskar
there is no 1-1 correspondance between our models and reality. Our knowledge can be more or
less there is no perfact or same phenomina to create the same knowledge and thinking.
Knowledge is not pure and it is not easy to find the ultimate truth on the base of different
aspects of knowledge.