- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Sage Publications (Feb 11 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0761961240
- ISBN-13: 978-0761961246
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.5 x 1.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #358,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
'Sayer makes a direct contribution to the glaring academic divide between law finding, positivists and relativist post-modernist researchers, providing a middle pathway via critical realism (CR) to scientific explanation. He offers a clear definition of CR and successfully tackles various misunderstandings and critisims of this alternative approach. While this is not cutting edge CR, the arguments contained are well worth repeating to a discipline that is a little hard of hearing... a number of Sayer's provocative arguments have stayed with me, long after setting his book "to rest" on the shelf, challenging my own research agenda' -Journal of Economic and Social Geography 'This is a most welcome addition to the growing literature on critical realism and its implications for social science. For some time now a book has been needed that is inter-disciplinary in its content and lucid in its exposition of critical realism. The author is to be congratulated in aiming to fill this gap' - Tim May, Dept of Sociology, University of Durham
Product Description
Realism and Social Science offers the reader an authoritative and compelling guide to critical realism and its implications for social theory and for the practice of social science. It offers an alternative both to approaches which are overly confident about the possibility of a successful social science and those which are defeatist about any possibility of progress in understanding the social world. Written by one of the leading social theorists in the field, it demonstrates the virtues of critical realism for theory and empirical research in social science, and provides a critical engagement with leading non-realist approaches.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Realism-or at least the 'critical realism' that I want to defend-is not what many people think it is. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Realism-or at least the 'critical realism' that I want to defend-is not what many people think it is. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Work on Critical Realism, Nov 22 2010
By Christian Smith - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Realism and Social Science (Paperback)
The other review giving this book one star is ridiculous. Sayer is an important theorist of critical realism and this book makes a serious contribution, particularly on the matter of critical realism, postmodernism, and space in social theory. The Introduction itself is the best starting point for beginners learning critical realism in print now, in my view. So, right, it's not perfect and, yes, it is overpriced by the publisher. But no way is this a one-star book. I give it five stars and recommend it as good reading for those interested in learning more about critical realism by one of its leading thinkers.
0 of 11 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Confused Academic Drivel, Nov 9 2010
By Tyro - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Realism and Social Science (Paperback)
The author engages in loose, impressionistic musing about problems in the highly politicized field of social science. On page 56, for instance, during a discussion of the use of the term "gendered," Sayer writes, "On the whole, I find it hard to think of much that is good about masculinity." Sayer is arguing, however, that we shouldn't assume that everything masculine is bad, as some in the field tend to do. And why not? Well, it's difficult to say what is masculine and what is not (56-58); these are rather general rubrics. Why, then, does Sayer express disdain for most things that are masculine? Probably to avoid getting into trouble by appearing to be pro-masculine in spite of his attempt to argue that masculinity is not always bad. Books like this will occupy the landfills of the near future, and rightly so.
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