The point is to change it….

Professor Andy Pratt has a new article published today, entitled ‘“… the point is to change it” Critical realism and human geography.’

The paper discusses issues of philosophy and explanation, picking up themes discussed in Cox’s (2013) ‘Notes on a brief encounter: critical realism, historical materialism and human geography’. It argues that perhaps the encounter (that is, a debate in the 1990s) was more complex than Cox allows. At core Cox underplays, or marginalises, the discussion of causality and dismisses the significance of ontology stressing instead epistemology. The paper makes a case for another reading of the debate, one that has continuing significance.

Andy has previously written several papers about critical realism and social scientific methodology, causality, particularly in relation to space (or, specifically ‘locality’).

Pratt, A. C. (2013). ““…the point is to change it”: Critical realism and human geography.” Dialogues in Human Geography 3(1): 24-28.

The paper can be downloaded at doi: 10.1177/2043820613485048