From Dr.

Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science

Research Methods

"In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement
like hell." ― Jack Welch

Unit Ten - Research Strategies

Objectives (What you must know and do)

At the end of unit eight, you should be able to;

1) Describe the five types of research strategies that could be used to anchor a
research project.
2) Relate the research strategy to the four philosophical assumptions that guide
research.
3) Describe why starting phrases (what, why and how) are appropriate or
inappropriate for each research strategy.
4) To determine the best research strategy for the type of research question.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
Research Methods

Here is the point of reflection before we look at this sub unit.

Reflection

1) Have you ever thought about research strategies as tools that could underpin the
main logic driving an inquiry?
2) Do you think that each research question requires its own logic or research
strategy?
3) You may have to pose for a while, reflect and write down what you think about
your answers to these questions or positions before you actually get started. You
can now proceed to read this unit and then determine if your position is at variance
with the contents in this unit.

Research Strategies

In this unit, we are going to discuss five research strategies that

researchers use to structure a research project. There are important

heuristics researchers ought to use when developing research proposals
and when doing field work.
We may have to begin with the school of rationalism for us to understand the use of research
strategies in research. The school of rationalism argues that the development of reason is a
basic faculty in the method of inquiry. What we see in this approach is the position of the Greeks
on rationalism and its application in research. The Greek mathematicians had the purpose to
systematize the general properties of space (i.e., geometry). They anchored this on reason. To
the Greeks, reason was a faculty that had two fundamental features: it provides information
concerning the essences of things, and it shows how to go from these essences to other
characteristics of the world. Reason provides "clear and distinct" ideas, and guides to the
conclusions from such ideas. The history of science and philosophy seems to show that it is no
easy matter to identify the clear and distinct ideas relayed to reason (Coccia, 20181). Considering
the philosophies of science discussed above, models of scientific inquiry can be anchored on any
one or a combination of five forms of research strategies or research driven types of reasoning
and these induction, deduction, abduction, retroduction and pragmatism.
When we read books, journal articles and manuals on social science methodology we see writers
presenting a picture of scientific research as a set of procedures that are more or less formalised
steps, or as a set of logical and sequential skills (e.g. Gauthier, 20032; Bonneville et al., 20073).
What we always see when we look at writings on research processes, signal that, in practice,

1
Coccia, M. (2018). An introduction to the methods of inquiry in social sciences Journal of Social and
Administrative Sciences. 5 (2): 117-126.
2
Gauthier, B. (2003), Recherche Sociale: De la Problématique à la Collecte des Données, Presses de
l’Université du Québec, Montréal, Qc.
3
Bonneville, L., Grosjean, S. and Lagacé, M. (2007), Introduction aux Méthodes de Recherche en
Communication, Chenelière Éducation, Montréal, Qc.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
Research Methods

the research process is actually dynamic, recursive and continuous (Mayer and Ouellet, 20004).
Research is done by strategists who take a particular direction to achieve the set goals.
In the field of research, there have been differing views in the use meaning and application of
the term research strategy. There also appears among researchers and authors to be no
agreement on its meaning and its detailed practical application among most authors or
researchers. In this unit, we shall provide a definitive position of what a research strategy is.
We shall later present heuristics of the research strategies to help in understanding how research
is carried out in dealing with research questions in relation with the four strands of theoretical
assumptions implicit in social science.
Before we proceed, let us make some grounding knowledge since we are using the term research
strategy to stand for the term logic whch in essence takes us to what we call tactics. Charles
Sanders Peirce regarded logic as the art of devising research methods. He took logic as a division
of philosophy. Peirce was credited by Dewey (1938: 9) to be ‘the first writer on logic to make
inquiry and its tactical methods the primary and ultimate source of a logical subject-matter’. We
shall be applying the term research strategy to mean the selection and application of correct
reasoning (logic or tactics), especially as it involves the drawing of interpretations, the
appropriateness of actions that involves the matching of situations, roles, and application of
rules and guidelines in a research project. Appropriateness here defines a basis for decision. In
a strategy, there are steps that define how a research project will be done including plans of
actions that give direction to a researcher’s thoughts and efforts, enabling the researcher to
conduct research systematically linked to the philosophical assumptions with a view to produce
quality results and detailed reporting.
In this handbook, we shall extend research strategies to include the researcher’s plans to answer
each research question and tease out arguments in favour of procedures for handling each
research question. Each of the five research strategies has a frame of reasoning that will allow
you as a researcher to be systematic when it comes to answering your research questions. A
research strategy will enable you to stay focused, reduce frustration, enhance quality and most
importantly, save time and resources. We can therefore say that a research strategy is the nuts
and bolts of your application, describing the rationale for your research and the experiments you
will do to accomplish your desired goals. The selection and use of a research strategy involves
a number of decisions in the order in which it makes sense for the researcher to answer a
research question. The overall decision involves which approach should be used to study the
given problem and as demanded by the types of research questions (What, Why and How types
of research questions).

4
Mayer, R. and Ouellet, F. (2000), Méthodes de Recherche en Intervention Sociale, Gaëtan Morin,
Montréal, Qc.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
Research Methods

The need for a research strategy in a research project

Research strategy enables the researcher to answer not only the main research question but
the subsidiary research questions also. What we are saying is that if the researcher has
subsidiary research questions, they do not necessary have to be embraced by the main research
questions strategy. Each research question ought to be matched with an appropriate research
strategy. We need to remember that a research strategy aids in structuring an objective since
the objective ought to indicate the form (form is quantitative or qualitative objective) in which
the facts or data to the question will be presented or pursued. As such, a research strategy will
guide you in planning, executing, and monitoring each search question in the study. Thus, to
reemphasise, a research strategy offers high-level guidance, looking at the appropriate way of
dealing with epistemological issues (how you want to use theories or models or conceptual
frameworks), methods or techniques or tools required for performing a specific task and how
you will present the form in which the facts or data you have collected.
Norman Blaikie (Blaikie, 19935; 20106) is the most renowned writer of research strategies. He
offers unmatched guidance on what they are. He emphasises that the choice of research strategy
ought to be guided by research questions. For instance, here is research question “What is the
extent of online customer satisfaction with timely delivery of purchased items?“ Since the
research question has “What”, as a starting phase, in order for us to estimate the extent of
customer satisfaction, we may be required to apply the inductive research strategy. Induction is
the logic used by researchers who desire to answer quantitative based “What”, questions.
Quantitative research questions actually demand some measurement) refer to the quantifier
“extent” in the research question. A “What”, research question with a quantifier is always linked
with the realist ontology. Inductive driven research questions use objectives whose purposes
border on exploring or describing (not establishing, determining, not evaluating, not assessing
or analysing) social phenomena.
Induction fits very well with survey closed ended questionnaire as one preferred method. Such
a type of a survey would enable us to get to people who shop online, administer the survey tool
and collate responses from a vast amount of such customers (like 100 to 1000 or more
respondents) who are engaged in online shopping and bring out their levels of satisfaction. For
such a survey, we may decide to employ a google form or use a self-administered questionnaire
or telephone-based survey and from any of these, one can personally collect varied perspectives
of e-customers and therefore analyse their degree of satisfaction acquired ending up rendering
an estimate. It therefore follows from this example that a research strategy should be suitable
for its purpose, i.e. it should be able to help the researcher to find an answer to the research
question under consideration. It should help in framing a logic linked type of a term of the
objective (linked with the purpose see unit 19 for more details).
There are a number of different research strategies that exist, and in this handbook, we have
opted to use Norman Blaikie’s conception. We have however added pragmatism as a fifth
research strategy. We advise that you apply the following as guides when selecting a research
strategy if you are to answer a research question:

1) Consider the type of research question (Is it a “What”, “Why”, or “How”?

5
Blaikie, W.H. N. . (1993). Approaches to social enquiry. Oxford: Polity Press.
6
Blaikie,W.H. N. (2010). Designing social research: the logic of anticipation. Cambridge and Malden, MA:
Polity.
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Research Methods

2) Consider the philosophical underpinnings of the type of research question that ought
to correspond with the preferred and yet appropriate ontology, epistemology, human
nature and methodology within which the research question fits.

Now let us examine the five research strategies and we begin with the inductive research
strategy.

The Inductive Research Strategy

This is one strategy that is associated with the positivist ontology and the positivist epistemology.
Its ontology corresponds to a popular conception of research activities, which are seen in the
natural sciences where the matter for investigation using senses are the tangibles or real things
in society which are there for all to experience. Within the permutations of this ontology,
researchers make meticulous observations on real things, conduct experiments, rigorously
measure phenomena, analyse the data obtained, and based on the conceptions, they produce
new discoveries and these may be patterns of regularities, hypotheses or theories (Blaikie, 2000:
102-1037). Personal opinions, beliefs and values are excluded in this process of inquiry in order
to arrive at what is believed to be objective knowledge and these in turn play no influence in
determining events (Manicas and Kruger, 19768; Searl, 19929; Blaikie, 2000).
Its epistemology is that “the fundamental base of inquiry, the source of confirming or
disconfirming instances, is only a set of observation statements that are established
independently of any theory" (Longino, 1990, 2610) but from empiria. In essence, this strategy
presupposes that explanations about the workings of the world should only be based on facts
gained from pure, dispassionate and neutral observations, rather than on preconceived notions,
or theories or values and not even what is presumed to be actual; that the social fact will reveal
itself to a passively receptive mind.
The inductive strategy operates on the following assumptions:
1. The more observations that demonstrate, say, a relationship between phenomena, the
higher the probability that the general statement is true. Verification of derived
generalizations comes through observations about particular phenomena that appear
to support it That there is a reality ‘out there’ with regularities that could be described
and explained and it adopts the epistemological principle that the task of observing this
reality is essentially unproblematic and is derived from the senses.
2. It claims that there is a 1:1 correspondence between sensory observed experiences
and the objects of those experiences – what we see are what exist.
3. That the social world is orderly and it is made up of discrete and observable events.
4. These observations in form of statements are then recorded and if they are regular,
they then become the fulcrum of scientific laws or hypotheses or even theories. These
observations provide a foundation for our conclusions and could be laws, hypotheses
or theories.
5. The conclusion of an inductive argument makes claims that exceed what is contained
in the premises and so promises to extend knowledge by going beyond actual
experience.

7
Blaikie, W.H. N. . (2000). Designing social research. Cambridge: Polity.
8
Manicas, P. T., and Kruger, A. N. (1976). Logic: The essentials. New York: McGraw-Hill.
9
Searle, J. (1995). The construction of social reality. New York: Free Press
10
Longino, H. 1990. Science as Social Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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6. What would count as evidence for a hypothesis is determined by the form of the
hypothesis sentences and evidence sentences not by their content" (Longino, 1990:
48). By construing hypotheses and evidence to be related syntactically, positivists
ensure that "inference to a hypothesis is not mediated by possibly value-laden
assumptions" (Longino, 1990: 48).
In essence, to produce this type of knowledge, the inductive strategy operates on the three
principles ― observation, accumulation of data and instance confirmation by constant
comparison (Barnes, 197411; Honderich, 199512; Blaikie, 199313). There are five stages that
characterise the inductive strategy (Blaikie, 200014).

1) The inductive strategy assumes that all research starts with observations which provide
a secure basis from which knowledge could be derived and claims that reality impinges
directly on the senses, hence there is a correspondence between sensory experiences,
albeit extended by instrumentation, and the objects of those experiences.
2) The researcher begins the observations by either having no concepts or by advancing
sets of concepts upon which to base facts and these may be derived from the observed
regularities in the literature or sensory preliminary observations. Where concepts are
chosen, the choice of the concepts and their definitions predetermine what data will be
collected.
3) Knowledge or all instances of facts are observed and recorded without selection or
guesses as to their relative importance.
4) Knowledge about the facts grows through the accumulation of ‘well-attested’ facts and
knowledge grows proportionally with the number of confirmed instances of phenomena.
5) These facts are analysed, compared by looking for regularities and later on classified
based on typifications without any hypotheses or laws. From this analysis, hypotheses
or generalisations or laws are inductively drawn as to the relations between them.
6) These generalisations are subjected to further testing (i.e., verification and
confirmation). Apart from the necessary observational equipment and skills and the
ability to set aside preconceptions, all the scientist needs is to be able to think logically.
7) The generalisations will follow logically from the data.

It could be seen that the inductive strategy could be used for exploratory and descriptive
objectives and as such, it qualifies to answer some “What” questions (Blaikie, 2000:104). While
the inductive strategy could be used for such purposes, an external view is afforded by the
French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu. His warning regarding the perils of ignoring theory is the
title of this subsection (from Bourdieu, 1988: 774–775).

Critics of this approach claim that: it is essentially descriptive and does not really explain anything
as it fails to uncover the causes of the generalised conjunctions; there is no purely logical
inductive process for establishing the validity of universal statements from a set of singular ones;
it is impossible to make the infinite number of observations required to prove the universal

11
Barnes, B. (1974). Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory.: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
12
Honderich, T. (1995). The Oxford companion to philosophy. Oxford University Press. Oxford .
13
Blaikie N. (1993). Approaches to Social Inquiry, Cambridge: Polity.
14
Blaikie, W.H. N. . (2000). Designing social research. Cambridge: Polity.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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statement true in all cases and; is objectivity possible when observations and their analysis are
made by people who have some view of the world arising out of their particular discipline.

From all this, the aim of the inductive strategy is to develop universal generalisations or laws or
theory or a model from the elicited condensed extensive and varied raw text data or observations
that could be used to characterise /describe patterns of phenomena. This aim is linked to the
“What” question when it is an overarching question in a research project.

Deductive Research Strategy

This is one strategy that is partly associated with positivism but linked to the critical rationalist
ontology. It’s thought deals solely with testing theoretical assumptions. It is associated with
“Why questions” that can best be answered by drawing assumptions from causal designed
theories. These are theories whose assumptions are that A leads to B. Deductivism or rationalism
is characterised by an epistemology that seeks to explain and predict what happens in the social
world using causal or relational models or causal explanatory theories between constituent
elements. In the deductive strategy, models do so by connecting theoretical ideas to observed
facts than experiences (Hughes, 1993; Zuber-Skerritt, 1995). This strategy asserts that life
consists of uniformities that are rooted in cause and effect and holds that testing these
uniformities using theories is the aim of science. Its epistemology is that "Knowledge is tentative
as accounted for by theories and as such, theories must be the subject to ongoing evaluation"
(and)..."sensory experience of induction ought to be discounted as it is not a secure foundation
for scientific theory."
Karl Popper is the godfather of critical rationalism. He rejected induction on account of its
weaknesses as held by the members of the "circle of Vienna" (Popper, 1989: 4). Popper stated
that the only way that could lead us into scientific progress is the reliance on the postulation of
general theories. We ought to do so by criticising them from different sides through vigorous
testing in order to expose those parts of the theory that are vulnerable (Popper, 1981: 313).
Popper claimed that induction was flawed because of its over reliance on universal
generalizations that were made. Essentially, critical rationalists like Karl Popper contend there is
no absolute that could be meaningfully ascertained by inductive observations perse. He argued
that these generalisations were anchored only on limited data and that no theory guided the
claims of all that was observed. By so doing, he claimed that inductivists were naïve. Popper
contested further that inductive observations were prone to be made from biased points of
views, without a frame of reference looking at a set of expectations that were unanchored on
theory. In the place of induction, he conceived what is called Popperian "conjectures-and-
refutations" approach. This is an approach were we have to hang on to conjectures in form of
theories or models until the evidence we collect falsifies them (Popper, 1963, 1974; Ackermann,
1976; Guba, 1990; Guba and Lincoln, 199415; Blaikie, 2000).
It is important to note that a critical rationalist would find very little relative meaning in a model
of reality that proposed, for example, that a pink elephant just flew by the window, unless he/she
was assessing someone psychiatrically. A critical rationalist does not necessarily assert that there
is no 'truth' or 'falsehood'; he/she merely asserts that 'truth' and 'falsehood' are relative values
useful in establishing a meaningful context (Bartley, 1962; Albert, 1685; Blaug, 1992). This
meaningful context must have a point of view and frame of reference (a theory especially) with
a set of expectations or tentative facts supported or rooted in theory (Popper, 1963, 1974).
What we see in this case as a major function of theory is to provide a model or map of why the
world is the way it is (Strauss, 1995) and it helps us to proceed to conduct an inquiry stating

15
Guba, E. G., and Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin
and Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.). The handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105–117). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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that the claims in the theory are not true or not possible. This working assumption is in essence
the refutation of the theory or the null hypothesis. Karl Popper was the promoter of null
hypothesis significance test (NHST).
Let us get back to theory for a while so that we then appreciate the deductive research strategy.
A theory is a statement about what is going on with the phenomena that you want to
understand. It is not simply a “framework,” although it can provide that, but we want to state
that it is like a story about what you think is responsible for the outcome or effect. Popper was
actually trying to promote scientific realism where theory is at the helm of doing research.
According to scientific realism, an ideal scientific theory has the following features:

 Claim 1: The claims the theory makes are either true or false, depending on whether
the entities talked about by the theory exist and are correctly described by the theory.
This is the semantic commitment of scientific realism.
 Claim 2: The entities described by the scientific theory exist objectively and are
independent of the mind since they are out there in the world and every one sees them.
 Claim 3: There are reasons to believe some significant portion of what the theory says.
This is the epistemological commitment to try to explain the link between event A and
event B that is of if A then B.

Combining the first and the second claim entails that an ideal scientific theory says true things
about genuinely existing entities. The third claim says that we have reasons to believe that the
things said about these entities are true. Scientific realism usually holds that science makes
progress, i.e. scientific theories usually get successively better, or, rather, answer more and
more questions. For this reason, many people, scientific realist or otherwise, hold that realism
should make sense of the progress of science in terms of theories being successively more like
the ideal theory that scientific realists describe.

Since theory becomes the root for research, and helps the researcher to organise new
information into a coherent body, the deductive research strategy is sometimes referred to as
the hypothetico-deductive or the falsificationist16 approach, or the method of conjecture and
refutation. The deductive strategy is associated with critical rationalism. Critical rationalism
shares some ontological assumptions of positivism like (i) focus on the outer world (ii) being
deterministic where causes lead to effects but it rejects its epistemological assumptions like all
knowledge is derived from sensory experience and instead it claims that all knowledge comes
from theories and what the researcher constructs from them about the workings of the world.
For instance, whereas inductivists look for evidence to confirm their generalisations (i.e.,
verification), deductivists try to refute their hypotheses, to falsify them based on the evidence
that they collect.
The deductive strategy takes theory as starting point to explain a problem. In this strategy,
research usually relies on theory to justify starting with propositional pre-commitments to
independent variables, background factors, or structural conditions that will explain historically
and geographically varying phenomena, which are treated as dependent, fungible, superficial
upshots, or otherwise outcome (Layder, 199717; 200118; Blaikie, 2000). It then proceeds to

16
Karl Popper argued that scientific theories must be falsifiable. According to Popper, the hallmark of
science is to formulate theories so that they could be exposed to empirical testing and to reject theories
that fail tests (Blaug, 1992).
17
Layder, D. (1997). Modern Social Theory. Key debates and new directions. Routledge. UCL. Press.
18
Layder, C. (2011). The relation of theory and method: causal relatedness, historical contingency and
beyond. Sociological Review 36 (3):441 – 463.
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examine theoretical propositions that would help in investigating some phenomena that is to be
explained. In order to investigate phenomena, we have to cognitively build theoretical models
to derive hypotheses as tools for exploration first and explanations later on. For Popper, a
scientific method is "proposing bold hypotheses, and exposing them to the severest criticism, in
order to detect where we have erred." (Popper, 1974: 68) If the hypothesis can stand "the trial
of fire," then we can confirm its validity. This hypothetic-deductive model of theory testing is
the research tradition that not only Karl Popper advocated but which Lazarsfeld and Rosenberg,
Stinchcombe, Dubin and Blalock promoted (Bryant, 2001: 5319).
Today we can still find the influence of Popperian principle of falsification in statistical
terminology. For instance, in Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), when the resulting equations
fail to specify a unique solution, the model is said to be untestable or unfalsifiable, because it is
capable of perfectly fitting any data i.e. if a model is "always right" and there is no way to
disprove it, this model is useless. A good hypothesis or a good model needs a high degree of
specification. According to Karl Popper (195920, 1981; 197421), the deductive strategy operates
as follows.

1. We ought to begin by advancing a tentative idea of a solution drawn from a thesis and
developing a conjecture, or a hypothesis deducible from a theory. This theory is only
provisionally acceptable. Researchers use a number of theories or theoretical frameworks
to explain the same sets of social facts. Each theory represents a particular way of viewing
the world and pulls our focus to different aspects of society. The use of different
theoretical perspectives to explore society allows us to gain a more universal picture of
social life.
2. Reduction achieves this by identifying those vulnerable parts of the thesis. These are
broken into small discrete sets of ideas cleaved to form the antithesis. The antithesis acts
as opposing ideas to the thesis. The antithesis, which is a conjecture or hypothesis in the
null form, is constructed from concepts that are expressed only in the thesis.
3. Selects concepts from the hypotheses upon which definitions and measurement will be
based. It is the definitions that predetermine what data will be collected.
4. Attempts are made to refute the hypotheses through rigorous criticism and testing. If the
data derived by testing the hypothesis is not consistent with the predicted conclusions,
the theory must be false. Surviving theories are corroborated, but are never proved true
despite withstanding testing and observation. A current theory is superior to its
predecessors only because it has withstood tests which falsified its predecessor.
5. Researchers specify conditions under which the hypotheses are expected to hold,
researchers then make inferences that will lead to a conclusion or formulate a synthesis
from data that is appropriately gathered.
6. If the conclusion passes the test, the 'theory' is temporarily supported; it is not proved to
be true.
7. Note that theories are freely construed as speculative and tentative conjectures by the
human intellect in an attempt to overcome problems encountered by previous theories,
and to give an adequate account of the behaviour of some aspects of the world (e.g.,
differential rates of property crimes in the world). Social science progresses by trial and
error, by conjectures and refutations. Only the fittest theories survive.

19
Bryant, C.G.A. (2001): ‘Theory, meta-theory and discourse: reflections on post-empiricism’: 51-78 in:
Burgess, R.; Murcott, A. (eds). Developments in Sociology, London: Prentice Hall
20
Popper, K. R. (1959). Logic of scientific discovery. London : Hutchinson.
21
Popper, K. R. (1974). Replies to my critics. In P. A. Schilpp (Eds.). The philosophy of Karl Popper
(pp.963-1197). La Salle: Open Court.
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8. Critical rationalists also set out two requirements for this strategy. First, for any theory to
be regarded as scientific, it must be possible, at least in principle, to falsify it. Second, the
more falsifiable a theory is, the better. It is for this reason that researchers do not prove
a hypothesis an instead indicate a failure to reject it.

The deductive strategy’s epistemology is such that theory drives the research from the beginning
to the end. The strategy does operate on a trial and error thesis in its quest to reject theoretical
propositions provisionally subject to further inquiry or testing (Ackerman, 197622; Albert, 198523;
Creswell, 200324; Blaikie, 201025). Critics of this approach claim that: where a theory has not
been falsified, its acceptance relies on data that lend 'inductive support'; Deductivists are
reluctant to deal with the process by which hypotheses come into being; whether Deductivism
provides any rational basis for choosing between all unrefuted alternative theories in order to
make some practical prediction. The Deductivist position claims that while the pursuit of truth is
the goal of science, all scientific theories are tentative.

Abductive Rsearch Strategy

The abductive logic of research was first formulated by Charles Sanders Peirce (Peirce, 1960).
Its origin is from Latin - abduct - adducere - to lead away (Pearsall, 1999). However, the initial
conception has taken a different turn. The usage now follows Norman Blaikie’s position building
on the conceptualisations Peirce. We would like you to take the abductive research strategy as
a research strategy that is concerned with what we could call subtle realism (Hamersley, 1992;
Blaikie, 2007). We are calling it subtle realism because we are not used to real things that are
not seen. This research strategy posits that reality resides in the mind and may be projected on
things external to it. Let us elaborate. Abduction is about understanding the subjective meanings
of persons in studied domains. It is about life worlds and lived experiences. In essence, the
central claim of abduction is rooted in the Verstehen sociology of Max Weber (197826): the
postulate of subjective interpretation as well as Alfred Schutz (197027) the postulate of constructs
involved on common-sense experience of the intersubjective world in daily life.

Let us get back to Peirce in order to understand more about abduction. Peirce claimed that we
could not ignore the process of discovery in science, leaving it to the history of science or
psychology that espouses induction. Abductive discovery is the process that leads us from the
fact to an established scientific explanation of it. Peirce called the logical process of discovery
“abduction” (Burks, 1946; Peirce, 1960), which is suitable in situations where both deduction
and induction fail us to understand phenomena (Levin-Rozalis, 2000; 200328). This is a logic that
sits within the nominalist ontology and based on the anti-positive epistemology. Abduction is
used a process to generate social scientific accounts or meanings of concepts from the social

22
Ackerman, R.J. (1976). The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
23
Albert, H. (1985). Treatise on Critical Reason. Translated by: Mary Varney Rorty. Princeton University
Press.
24
Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches
(2nd ed.). London: Sage Publications Ltd.
25
Blaikie N. (2010). Designing Social Research, 2nd ed. Polity Press
26
WEBER M (1978) Economy and society, University of California Press, Berkeley.
27
SCHUTZ A (1970) On phenomenology and social relations, University of Chicago Press.
28
Levin-Rozalis, M. (2000). Abduction: A logical criterion for program evaluation. Evaluation, the
International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 6(4): 411-428.
Levin-Rozalis, M. (2003). Evaluation and research: Differences and similarities. The Canadian Journal of
Program Evaluation, 18 (2): 1-31
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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actor's perspective to derive intersubjective technical concepts and interpretation of social life
(Blaikie, 199329; 201030; Yu Chong Ho, 199431).
The principles of abduction are based on the notion that there are no a priori hypotheses, no
presuppositions, and no advance theorizing (meaning you do not have to commence an inquiry
based on some theory or hypothesis or personal thoughts). The product of abduction is an
idiographic theory or a qualitative model or a technical account. The logic of abduction operates
on an epistemology that is constructive in nature. We shall consider models as representations
of concepts or system in a two dimensional diagram. Model building is a process of establishing
patterns and relationships; it is a simple representation of a theory or message in the form of a
concept map or diagram; thus, it is ‘‘minessence’’, that is the essence of a message or theory in
minimum form – whether in language and/or graphics (Zuber-Skerritt, 1995: 3)32.
Abduction is the process used to produce social scientific accounts of social life by drawing on
the concepts and meanings used by social actors, and the activities in which they engage
(Blaikie, 1993, 2010). “Meaning” in this context may be of two kinds. The term may refer first
to the actual existing meaning in the given concrete case of a particular social actor, or to the
average or approximate meaning attributable to a given plurality of social actors; or secondly to
the theoretically conceived pure type of subjective meaning attributed to the hypothetical social
actor or actors in a given type of action. In no case does it refer to an objectively “correct”
meaning or one which is “true” in some metaphysical sense.
In order to appreciate meaning, humanists and nominalists take language as paramount. This
is because language is a means of communication among human beings. Language is
fundamental in expressing one’s beliefs and values. “Experience starts to make sense as the
person performs his or her psychological function of translating it into how he or she thinks and
feels” (Krauss, 2005: 76233). Hence, language (or lay language or lay accounts) are an essential
unit of analysis to understand the worldview of the participant. The spoken language is a tool
for constructing reality and can be an important device in the meaning-making process (Sirbu,
201534). Individuals have their own personal styles of communication and their own version of
the shared culture. It is important to understand how participants speak about themselves so
that meaning can be constructed from their narratives
In essence, abduction refers to the instinctual processes by which a thinker (such as a
researcher) uses lay information from personal descriptions to narrow the otherwise infinite
possible causes and explanations to formulate plausible hypotheses (social scientific accounts)
of social life. Such a person dies this by drawing on the concepts and meanings used by social
actors as they interact with each other (Blaikie, 1993: 35 176). Tognetti, 1999:69236) outlines
that: Abduction is defined as a method of constructing knowledge from constituencies in the
evidence from multiple perspectives.

29
Blaikie, W.H. N. . (1993). Approaches to social enquiry. Oxford: Polity Press.
30
Blaikie N. (2010). Designing Social Research, 2nd ed. Polity Press
31
Yu, Chong Ho (1994).Is There a Logic of Exploratory Data Analysis? Annual Meeting of American
Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA, April.
32
Zuber-Skerritt , O. (1995). ``Models for action research’’, in Pinchen, S. and Passfield, R. (Eds). Moving
on: Creative Applications of Action Learning and Action Research, ALARPM Association, Brisbane: 2-29.
33
Krauss, S. (2005). Research paradigms and meaning making: A primer. The Qualitative Report, 10,
758–770.
34
Sirbu, A. (2015). The significance of language as a tool of communication. Naval Academy Scientific
Bulletin, XVIII, 2–3.
35
Blaikie, W.H. N. (1993). Approaches to social enquiry. Oxford: Polity Press.
36
Tognetti, S. 1999. Science in a Double Bind: Gregory Bateson and the Origins of Post Normal Science.
Futures, 31. : 689-703.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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The abductive strategy is appropriate for researchers who want to elicit interpretation37 or
construction of lived experiences as well as social life in their interactions with each other and
with the wider social systems (Guba and Lincoln, 198538; Merriam, 198839; Bogdan and Biklen,
199240; Maxwell, 200641). Lived experience is the ‘breathing of meaning’ (van Manen 1990: 36),
as it assigns ‘meaning to the phenomena of lived life through meditations, conversations,
daydreams, inspirations and other interpretive acts’ (van Manen 1990: 3742). Researchers
employing abduction are naturalistic since they study real-world situations as they unfold
naturally. More specifically, they tend to be non-manipulative, unobtrusive, and non-controlling
(Tuli, 201043).
Interpretivism and constructivism rest upon idealism and its processes as well as its premises in
its quest of knowledge are that it operates in a paradigm that differs from traditional positivist
research in that it operates with different assumptions about knowledge and being. The two
draw their assumptions on a 'phenomenological ontology' that has its sources in philosophers
like Hegel, Heidegger and Ricoeur. Phenomenologists are idealists and idealism which is their
subject matter holds the view that the world is the creation of mind; the world is interpreted
through understanding the mind; e.g., meaning of actions or words spoken, classificatory
schemes (Brown, 198044; Morcol, 200545). Interpretivism takes what all positivism ignores.
Positivism ignores meanings and interpretations, motives and intentions, which people use in
their everyday lives and which direct their behaviour (Blaikie, 1993: 17646).
Interpretivism entails an ontology in which social reality is regarded as the product of processes
by which social actors together negotiate the meanings for actions and situations; it is a complex
of socially constructed meanings. Human experience is characterised as a process of
interpretation rather than sensory, material apprehension of the external physical world, and
human behaviour depends on how individuals interpret the conditions in which they find
themselves. Therefore, social reality is not some ‘thing’ that may be interpreted in different

37
Interpretationism (or based on Phenomenology); restoring (inter-) subjectivity to the dialogue
between researcher and researched and legitimising it as an adequate basis for (human/social) research
and science; could be referred to as anthropo-situationist, drawing on various existentialist,
phenomenological-symbolicist and pragmatist ontological traditions.
38
Guba, E. and Linclon, Y. (1985) Naturalistic Inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Lincoln, Y. S. and Guba, E. G. (2000). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging
influences. In N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds.). Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed.: 163-188).
Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage.
39
Merriam, S. (1998). Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education (2nd ed.). San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
40
Bogdan, R. and Biklen, S.K. (1992) Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theory and
Methods. London: Allwyn and Bacon.
41
Maxwell, J. A. (2006). Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach (2nd ed.) Thousand
Islands: Sage.
42
van Manen, M. (1990) Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy.
Albany, NewYork: The State University of NewYork Press).
43
Tuli, F. (2010). The basis of distinction between qualitative and quantitative research in social science:
Reflection on Ontological, Epistemological and Methodological Perspectives. Ethiop. J. Educ. and Sc., 6
(1): 97 – 108.
44
Brown, S. R. (1980). Political subjectivity: Applications of Q methodology in political science. Westford,
MA: Yale University Press.
45
Morçöl, G. (2005). Phenomenology of complexity theory and cognitive science: Implications for
developing en embodied knowledge of public administration and policy. Administrative Theory and
Praxis, 27, 1-23. Retrieved at http://www.citeulike.org/user/rrbarb/article/2935422.

46
Blaikie, W.H. N. (1993). Approaches to social enquiry. Oxford: Polity Press.
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ways; it is those interpretations. Hence, in contrast to physical reality, social reality is pre-
interpreted.’ (Blaikie, 1993) – that is the abductive strategy has its ontology that views social
reality to rest on these five47 (i) the meanings (ii) interpretations, (iii) constructions (iv) the
motives and (v) intentions, which people use in their everyday situated lives, and which direct
their behaviour.
For interpretivism48, the interpretive research seeks to understand values, beliefs and meanings
of social phenomena and thereby extracts Verstehen or an empathetic understanding (first
discussed by Max Weber) of human social activities and experiences (Smith and Heshsius, 1986)
of the social world. The social world is the world perceived and experiences by its members,
from the inside. Hence, the task of the social scientist is to discover and describe this insider
view, not to impose an outsider view on it. It is the everyday beliefs and practices, the mundane,
tacit and taken for granted that have to be grasped and articulated in order to provide an
understanding of these actions (Blaikie, 199349,2000). Adopting an interpretive approach, means
embracing the belief that "there is no one correct telling [of an] . . . event or a story. Each telling
reflects a different perspective on [an] . . . incident". An interpretive researcher is therefore one
who “understands that research is an interactive process. The researcher may take a Husserlian
interpretation informed by epoché or the Heidegerian interpretation informed by dasein50. In the
latter case, interpretation is shaped by the researcher being alive or reflexive to own personal
history, socio-economic status, cultural background, or political orientation, biography, gender,
social class, race and ethnicity. This is the researcher who cannot divorce oneself from that fact
the researcher is the body of the ‘life world’, has the body that eats, that works, that dies, and
that which is afraid which lives out there in the world (Bynum, 199551).
So what we can say about the abductive interpretive strategy is that the basic access to any
social world are (a) the accounts of the researched in their own language that people can give
of their own actions and the actions of others as and (b) the accounts of the researcher as a
living body. Language is very cardinal for abductivists in the sense that it has four functions and
these are:

1. The expressive or symptomatic function;

2. The descriptive function;
3. The simulative function and
4. The argumentative function.

47
What is constructed is dependent on the social situation. It is these five, which facilitate the structure
of social relations.
48
Human experience is characterised as a process of interpretation rather than sensory,
material apprehension of the external physical world, and human behaviour depends on how individuals
interpret the conditions in which they find themselves. Therefore, social reality is not some ‘thing’ that
may be interpreted in different ways; it is those interpretations. Hence, in contrast to physical reality,
social reality is pre-interpreted and constructed by the mind.’ (Blaikie, 1993)
49
Blaikie, W.H. N. (1993). Approaches to social enquiry. Oxford: Polity Press.
50
Heidegger’s Dasein is an all-inclusive embodied person, which incorporates all social, regional, cultural
and political perspectives on body and not just pure consciousness in the absence of body. ‘The body’ is
so tuned to its surroundings that, like his own embodied part, his homely surround becomes a dwelling
place for the worldly Dasein. That way Dasein is at home with other Beings with whom he has a shared
perspective on his own body. His body has a joint authorship that way; his body is no longer his own
now (see Akoijam, T. (2008). Heidegger on the Notion of Dasein as Habited Body.Indo-Pacific Journal of
Phenomenology. 8. Edition 2: 1-5.
51
Bynum, C. (1995). Why all the fuss about the body? A medievalist’s perspective. Critical Inquiry, 22(1):
1-33.
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These accounts contain the concepts that people use to structure their world, and the 'theories'
that they use to explain or describe what goes on. However, much of the activity of social life is
routine and unreflexive. It is when enquires are made about their behaviour by others (such as
social scientists), or social life is disrupted and/or ceases to be predictable that social actors are
forced consciously to search for or construct meanings and interpretations. Therefore, the social
scientist may have to resort to procedures (e.g., challenging questions and deliberating acting
against the norm) that encourage this reflection in order to discover the meanings from the
social actors' accounts and go on to theorise basing on these meanings accounts (Lyytinen and
Klein, 1985; Lyytinen and Hirschheim, 1988).
For some interpretivists (such as ethno methodologists), reporting social actors' account (say,
of subjective and personal experiences of death and birthing) is all that is possible and necessary
in order to understand social life. Others (such as phenomenologists) are prepared to turn these
accounts into re-descriptions (on social scientific language of social actors’ everyday events or
into typologies or theories) of the way of life of a particular social group, but they would insist
on keeping such re-descriptions tied closely to the language52 that the social actors use.
However, once these re-descriptions are produced, the interpretivist may then wish to
understand them in terms of some existing social theory or perspective (e.g., the theory of black
bourgeoisie and class fractions/divisions, or the social construction of ethnicity and 'flexible'
identity). A different group of interpretivists will generate theories (e.g., like the theory that was
developed by Jason Mwanza (2005) concerning medical communication theory from the
descriptions produced from the social actors' accounts. The relationship between everyday (or
lay) concepts and meanings and social scientific (or technical) concepts and theories is the
central question of method in the social science. This strategy is best suited for exploratory and
descriptive studies and when researchers want to understand social action. It fits well in
answering what and why questions.
The abductive strategy operates on the following principles:
1. If we have to know reality, we need to enter the social world of social actors and derive
inferential accounts given by the people who inhabit it. These accounts contain the
concepts that people use to structure their world - the meanings and interpretations, the
motives and intentions which people use in their everyday lives and which direct their
behaviour.
2. Abductive inference starts from nothing or anomalous or somewhat surprising
phenomena (Hoffmann, 1999, 281).
3. From nothing or what is anomalous, it proceeds to obtain data from social actors’ lay
accounts or observations in a natural setting. In the view of Peircean logical system the
logic of abduction or firstness gives us theories rooted in the social actors’ language in
form of multiple and subjective realities (Langenbach, et al.,1994; Erlandson, et al., 1993;
Blakie, 2000). In this language, the social actors use lay concepts to assign meaning to
what they structure or what goes on in social life.
4. Scientific accounts of social life are then developed by drawing on the concepts and
meanings used by social actors and the activities in which they engage.
5. Abduction may allow the researcher to move from lay accounts of everyday life, to
technical, scientific or expert descriptions of that social life.

52
Karl Buhler appears to have been the first one to propose the doctrine of the three functions of
language (i) the expressive and symptomatic function, (ii) the simulative or signal function and (iii) the
descriptive function.
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6. From the derived concepts patterns in a phenomenon are cleaved into gestalts and these
may suggest a hypothesis or an idiographic theory.

Retroductive Research Strategy

The retroductive strategy as rooted in critical realism was founded in the seminal writings of Roy
Bhaskar in the 1970s (Bhaskar, 197553, 1979 54). We take retroduction is the logic of inference-
making within the philosophy of critical realism (Downward and Mearman, 2007555657). According
to Sayer (1992), “retroduction is the mode of inference in which events are explained by
postulating mechanisms which are capable of producing them” (p. 107). While induction,
deduction, and abduction each refer to a distinct form of logical inference, retroduction describes
an overarching logical method that incorporates abduction, deduction, and induction for its full
performance (Chiasson, 2001). Therefore, retroduction does not offer a formalized logic of
inference as a thought operation that moves between knowledge of one thing to another
(Danermark et al., 200258; Sayer, 200759). Rather, it is an empirical process of devising a theory
about structures that generate events and requires moving from an observation—an inference
made by an observer in response to (or ideas about) an event—of concrete phenomena to
reconstruct the basic conditions for a deeper causal understanding (Lawson, 199760; Meyer and
Lunnay, 201361).
Critical realism as a paradigm and its logic of inquiry retroduction happen to be the brainchild of
the philosopher Roy Bhaskar. This is the logic that is linked with the philosophy critical realism
(McAvoy and Butler, 201862; Frederiksen and Kringelum, 202063). We shall refer much to critical
realism for us to understand the retroductive research strategy. Bhaskar’s starting point of
contribution to the body of scientific knowledge emerged out of the paradigm wars of the 80s
and he argues, specifically against the promotion of knowledge within positivism and
constructivism especially hermeneutics. Bhaskar argued therefore that both positivism and
relativism or nominalism are not the best exploratory and explanatory models of scientific

53
Bhaskar, R. (1975), A Realist Theory of Science, Leeds Books, Leeds.
54
Bhaskar, R. (1979), The Possibility of Naturalism, Routledge, London.
55
Downward, P. M. and Mearman, A. ( 2006) Retroduction as Mixed-Methods Triangulation in Economic
Research: Reorienting Economics into Social Science. Cambridge Journal of Economics. 1-23.
56
Downward, P. M. and Mearman, A. (2002). Critical realism and econometrics: constructive dialogue
with Post Keynesian economics, Metroeconomica, vol. 53, no. 4, 391–415.
57
Downward, P. M. and Mearman, A. ( 2004) On tourism and hospitality management research: a critical
realist proposal, Tourism and Hospitality Planning and Development, vol. 1, no. 2, 107–22.
58
Danermark, B., Ekstrom,M., Jakobsen, L., Karlsson, J., Bhaskar, R., (2002). Explaining Society: An
Introduction to Critical Realism in the Social Sciences. Routledge, London.
59
Sayer, A. (2007). Understanding why anything matters: Needy beings, flourishing, and suffering. In J.
Frauley and F. Pearce (Eds.). Critical realism and the social sciences: Heterodox elaborations (pp. 240-
257). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
60
Lawson T. (1997). Economics and reality. In Economics and Reality (Issue January 1997).
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203195390.
61
Meyer S. B., Lunnay B. (2013). The application of abductive and retroductive inference for the design
and analysis Theory-Driven sociological research. Sociological Research Online, 18(1).
https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.2819.
62
McAvoy, J. and Butler, T. (2018), “A critical realist method for applied business research”, Journal of
Critical Realism, Vol. 17 No. 2, : 160-175.
63
Frederiksen, D.J. and Kringelum, L.B. (2020), “Five potentials for critical realism in management and
organization studies”, working paper, Aalborg University Business School, Aalborg University, Aalborg,
Denmark.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
Research Methods

practice (Archer64 et al., 1998; Denzin and Lincoln, 201165). Bhaskar’s position was that science
should not just record constant conjunctions of observable events (as we see in positivism) and
not even rely on intentionality (as we see in phenomenological nominalism) but it should focus
on in-depth (hidden) generative mechanisms of causal explanations for the outcomes of specific
socio phenomena. What we see arising from this that both constructivists and critical realists
continue to reject logical positivism because of its causal reductionist approach, and both schools
of thought reflect disillusionment with the objectivity and truth positions espoused by positivists
(Firestone, 199066).
In contrast to classic empiricism and transcendental idealism, critical realism represents a
transcendental realism that emphasizes the structures and mechanisms that generate the
phenomenon being studied. Bhaskar was a World Scholar at the UCL Institute of Education,
London, until his death in 2014 (see Realist Theory of Science, 1975). In this text “Realist Theory
of Science, 1975”, Bhaskar lays the foundations of critical realism with his transcendental realism
thesis. Since transcendental things, namely structures and mechanisms, which retroduction is
about, cannot be measured, but rather must be known about through their effects, a different
epistemology is needed to know about them, compared to the epistemology used to know about
non-transcendental, material entities. If we were to examine material entities, we note that
these can often be studied in the context of experimental science, which is associated with the
logics of induction and deduction. However, on the contrary we cannot employ experimental
science when we are looking at transcendental reality of structures and mechanisms. To do so,
we have employ another logic - the logic of retroduction. Retroduction is what happens when a
person surmises what-must-have-been to explain how things happen. We ought to use
retroduction to surmise the existence of the transcendental structures and mechanisms.

Bhaskar argued against empiricism and positivism, that scientific reality is not just constant
conjunctions of observable events but about objects, entities and structures that exist (even
though perhaps unobservable) and generate the events the we observe (Archer, 1998: 2367).
However, he acknowledges that critical realism tends to align with positivism in that “knowledge
should be positively applied, but differs with positivism regarding the approach to doing this,
arguing that causal explanations should not be based on empirical regularities but references to
unobservable structures and mechanisms” (Cruickshank, 2012: 212). The form of the argument
that Bhaskar was advancing is a transcendental one (this follows a broadly Kantian interpretation
of 'transcendental'), that is it begins with some accepted happening or occurrence and asks what
must the world be like for this to occur. In order to establish his ontology, Bhaskar's thesis of
ontological realism begins with a very simple transcendental question: “...what must the
world be like for science to be possible?” (Bhaskar, 1998). 68 In asking what the world must
be like for science to be possible, Bhaskar is actually asking a transcendental question. In
so doing, he is also deploying a transcendental mode of argumentation. Let us get back to
the question for us to dissect this position. The question here is not , “how do we have
access to the world?” or, “how do we know the world?” but rather what must
be presupposed about the nature of the world in order for our scientific practices to be

64
Archer, M., Bhaskar, R., Collier, A., Lawson, T., and Norrie, A. (Eds.). (1998). Critical realism:
Essential readings. London: Routledge.
65
Denzin, N. K., and Lincoln, Y. S. (2011). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks:
Sage.
66
Firestone, W. (1990). Accomodation: Toward a Paradigm-Praxis Dialectic. In E.G. Guba (Ed). Paradigm
Dialog. : 105-124. Thousand Oaks. CA: Sage.
67
Archer M, Bhaskar R, Collier A, Lawson T and Norrie A (eds) (1998). Critical Realisnm: Essential
Readings. Routledge. London.
68
Bhaskar, R. (1998). A Realist Theory of Science. New York. Routledge.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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possible. As Deleuze reminds us, the transcendental is not to be confused with

the transcendent (Deleuze, 199569). He argues that the transcendent refers to that which
is above or beyond something else. For example, God, if it exists, is perhaps transcendent
to the world. The transcendental, by contrast, refers to that which is a condition for some
other practice, form of cognition, or activity.

The ontology and epistemology of critical realism

Let us come to the ontology of critical realism. Critical realism is, first and foremost, a philosophy
that is also concerned with ontology or the nature or being like other philosophies (see Archer
et al., 1998; Bhaskar and Callinicos, 200370; Bhaskar, 2008). The difference with other ontologies
is that it is about that being which is hidden that can only be expressed as a structure or social
structures and often being agents. It is concerned with that which connects X and Y. We would
like you to understand social structures to typically refer to levels of social forces including social
institutions and patterns of institutionalised relationships that exist. In this case, the major social
institutions recognized by sociologists include family, religion, education, media, law, politics,
and economy. These are understood as distinct institutions that are interrelated and
interdependent and together help compose the overarching social structure of a society. Social
structure is often treated together with the concept of social change in that social structures
according to Roy Bhaskar tend to deal with the generative forces that change not only other
social structures but also the organisation of society.
You may be wondering as to why we are bringing in social structures in critical realism. The
explanation is simple. This is the thrust of his ontology of the two other we shall discuss later
on. When Roy Bhaskar addresses social structures, he wants us to not to ignore the already-
existing constituents of it like rules and resources like humans, money technology or institutions
that we tend to employ in all social actions. These social structures pre-exist in our social world
whether we are alive or dead and whether we like them or not. Given this, we want to argue
that social structure comes first and then agency71 follows. When we are looking at social
structures as generative mechanisms, we want to emphasise that agency ought not to be
ignored. We would like you to consider agency as a necessary element in both the transformation
and reproduction of social structures. Agency reflects intentional activities whereby individuals
seek to satisfy their needs and goals. In doing so, individuals tend to independently, purposefully
make their own free choices.

Critical realism replaces the regularity model with one in which objects and social relations have
causal powers which may or may not produce regularities, and which can be explained
independently of them. Bhaskar specifies that social relations “must be conceptualised as holding
between social positions and practices (or better, positioned-practices), not between the
individuals who occupy/engage in them” (Bhaskar, 1979: 52) but positios which are occupied
by individuals like capitalist and worker, MP and constituent, student and teacher, husband and
wife (Bhaskar, 1979: 36, 54). In view of this, less weight is put on quantitative methods for

69
Deleuze, G. (1995) “Immanence: A Life...” trans. Nick Millet, Theory, Culture and Society—
Explorations in Critical Social Science 14.2.
70
Bhaskar, R., and Callinicos, A. (2003). Marxism and Critical Realism: A Debate. Journal of Critical
Realism, 1(2), 89–114.
71
We want you to think about agency in the manner Anthony Giddens conceptulises. Agency includes
human behavior that has the potential to affect social arrangements via its intentional or unforeseen
repercussions. In addition to possessing the potential to change structures, the agency also has the
impact of replicating them.
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discovering and assessing regularities (Bhaskar and Lawson, 1998: 2–3). Weight is also put on
identifying the causes and conditions of one’s findings.

Before delving deeper into retroductive constructivism, let us borrow the thinking from natural
scientists. Those of you who may have done physics are familiar with Michael Faraday (1791 –
1867) and Magnetism. Faraday discusses this “concealed” electromagnetic energy that causes
repulsion and attraction of particular metallic objects. Faraday in postulating the existence of
these forces ‘hidden phenomenon’ or generative mechanisms in our case, he was trying to
answer three questions related to ontology of critical realism which are (i) What are the
structures that bring about repulsion? (ii) Why is there repulsion? and (iii) How does this
repulsion come about? in the sense of a special realism that might appropriately be called:
"metaphysical" or "hidden causes-realism." This kind of realism can be found in Helmholtz
memoir of electrodynamics that embraces Neo Kantian conceptualisation of physical theory. This
is seen in Helmholtzian writings "On the conservation of force". It can be summarised in five
points:

1) Every change in the physical world has a cause.

2) All these changes are caused by unchanging material substances. These substances form
"the hidden and immutable ground of the phenomena" that "lies behind the change of
appearances and acts upon us".
3) The forces with which these substances are furnished, i.e., their capacities of producing
effects, are immutable. A force has to be thought of as an unchanging attribute of
substance.
4) Matter and force are given to us only in an abstract sense but never in direct experience.
"Neither matter nor forces can be the direct object of observation, but always only the
inferred causes of experienced facts."
5) If we knew the causes of the appearances, we could derive all phenomena from them in
a strict and unique way. We would then be in the possession of objective truth (1882,
cf. 1:1772).

We can learn great deal from physics if we are to understand the ontology of retroduction. One
other way for us to appreciate this logic is to rely on Lorentz’s claims concerning the respective
roles of principle and mechanism-theories by us drawing from Lorentz’s broader methodological
and philosophical views on science. Let us divert a little while we are keeping you in the
retroductive loop. We shall come back to retroduction later on. In the lecture in which Lorentz
drew the philosophy of science in relation to physics, he argued the ultimate goal of physics,
pursued by all ‘‘great researchers,’’ is to realise the Faustian dream of discovering the ‘‘deep
under the surface’’ things that is how everything is woven together, how one thing acts and lives
through another (quoted in Lorentz, 1900: 34873) to account for the cause and effects. On
account of this position, Lorentz consequently preferred mechanism-theories (models are the
authors inclusion) that could bring out the ‘‘deep under the surface’’ or those hidden mechanisms
that could be responsible for causes and effects. These theories or models embody the hope of
uncovering hidden, underlying realities in a way principle-theories do not. Here we are
considering principle theories to include theories that critical rationalists use to estimate cause
or predict or explain causes and effects. Broadly, we have in mind theories that begin by
postulating ‘‘general principles” or ‘‘general laws’’. What you will see in this description is

72
Fourier, J.B. (1822). Analytische Theorie der Wärme, Edited by B. Weinstein (Berlin: 1884), 432 (first
French edition Paris).
73
Lorentz,H. A. (1900). Electromagnetische theoriee¨n van natuurkundige verschijnselen. Jaarb.
Rijksuniv. Leiden, Bijlagen 1.
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Lorentz’s characterization of the ultimate aim of science and his preference for mechanism
theories seem to suggest a strong commitment to scientific realism and in our case to critical
realism.74

Bhaskar subordinated epistemology and instead promoted ontology. He argued that his
ontological orientation to reality was the most supreme. He stated that the only true knowledge
that must count in science is that which derives from uncovering the ontology (or being) of
causal mechanisms. The observable events (causes and effects) as critical rationalists posited
were not important. In the course of favouring social structures which we have presented
already above, and recognising that they are drivers of explanations of the social world and the
human condition, Bhaskar endowed critical realism with a “stratified” ontology that could be
discerned in three domains of reality or a tri-partite rendering of reality (Bhaskar and Lawson,
199875; Bhaskar, 197576; 200277; 200878; José López, 200379; 200580). When examine this
position, we notice that the ontology of critical realism is a deviation from all other philosophies
in that it espouses a stratified ontology. We have come this far to understand what retroduction
entails. What we are echoing at the moment is to let you appreciate that retroduction is the
logic of construction or postulating mechanisms (Bhaskar, Bhaskar and Danemark, 200681). We
exhibit this diagrammatically in Figure 10.1. as obtained from Mukumbang and van Wyk (2020:
3). The tripartite is includes:
(a) The empirical, which is about what is there in the world comprising of human
perception or experiences,
(b) The actual, which comprises of the events and experiences and
(c) The real, which comprises of the mechanism responsible for the events or what is
experienced.

74
One might believe that mechanism theories ought to be interpreted instrumentally, but unless they
are intended to uncover real underlying structures it becomes harder to understand what the general
advantage of mechanism theories over principle theories may be.
75
Bhaskar, R. and Lawson, T. (1998). Introduction: basic texts and development, in Archer, M., Bhaskar,
R., Collier, A., Lawson, T. and Norrie, A. (Eds), Critical Realism: Essential Readings, Routledge, London:
3-15.
76
Bhaskar, R. (1975). A Realist Theory of Science. Leeds: Leeds Books.
Bhaskar, R. (1998). The Possibility of Naturalism: A philosophical critique of the contemporary human
sciences. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
77
Bhaskar, R. (2002)From science to emancipation: alienation and the actuality of enlightenment
Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
78
Bhaskar, R. (2008). A Realist Theory of Science, Leeds: Leeds Books. A Realist Theory of Science,
London: Verso.
79
López,J. (2003) Society and its Metaphors: Language, Social Theory and Social Structure. London:
Continuum.
80
López, J., and Potter, G. (2005). After Postmodernism: An Introduction to Critical Realism, Continuum
International. New York.
81
Bhaskar, R. A., and Danermark, B. (2006). Metatheory, Interdisciplinary and Disability Research A
Critical Realist Approach.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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Figure 10.1: Retroductive Stratification of Reality into Three Domains

The three domains are central to Baskhar’s assertion of a non-positivist approach to
understanding and applying his scientific knowledge. Below we discuss each one and we would
like you to pay special attention to each layer of his ontological postulations.

1) The first domain which is the “empirical”. The empirical resides in the realm of our
(observational) experiences. It includes the elements of reality that are tangible experiences
or observable through perception or measurement (Archer et al., 201382) and could also be
intangible experiences of human beings (e.g., sensations, feelings, impressions, hearing to
music and witnessing events like political demonstrations, labour strikes or deforestation).
These events of experiences can happen, and yet not be transferred into the third domain
reality which is the empirical until human agency has identified correctly those events and
transformed them into experience (Bhaskar, 200883); the empirical is in a ‘contingent
relation’ to the domains of the actual and the real.

2) The second domain is the “actual”. The “actual” relates to what to the events or what
happens when structures are activated. The “actual” is comprised by a reality that may or
may not have been observed by researchers, and of which actors may or may not be aware.
Though the actual may go unnoticed they happen in reality when the powers or
mechanisms of the real are activated, and events and experiences are produced (Collier,
199484; Danermark et al., 200285; Sayer, 200786) (e.g., the logging and destruction of the
rainforest in Brazil and the erosion of the Earth’s ozone layer occur whether or not we can
know and observe them). The events in the actual can only be explained with reference to

82
Archer, M., Bhaskar, R., Collier, A., Lawson, T. and Norrie, A. (2013). Critical Realism: Essential
Readings, Routledge.
83
Bhaskar, R. (2008). A Realist Theory of Science. London: Routledge.
84
Collier, A. 1994: Critical realism: an introduction to Roy Bhaskar's philosophy. London: Verso.
85
Danermark, B., Ekstrom,M., Jakobsen, L., Karlsson, J., Bhaskar, R., 2002. Explaining Society: An
Introduction to Critical Realism in the Social Sciences. Routledge, London.
86
Sayer, A. (2007). Understanding why anything matters: Needy beings, flourishing, and suffering. In J.
Frauley and F. Pearce (Eds.). Critical realism and the social sciences: Heterodox elaborations (pp. 240-
257). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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the real level, where the unseen causal powers or generative mechanisms that are
associated with such entities such as class, gender and capitalism are triggered (Leca and
Naccache, 200687) to lead to deforestation (the actual) and eventual global warming (the
empirical). It is the domain of processes and events and is at least in part knowable, as
trained researchers may be able to identify events that have not been otherwise
experienced (Leca and Naccache, 2006). However, the domain of actual is still the surface
of reality (Selboe, 200288). We may have to give an example to elaborate. For example,
human rights may be observable at the empirical level through asking people about their
beliefs and attitudes towards human rights.
3) Finally, the third is the domain of the real. The domain of the real consists of deep structures
of objects or entities that are physical, social and internally related. These structures, which
have properties that give them the causal power to activate mechanisms that can affect
other structures (These are called causal mechanisms). Tsang and Kwan note that ‘to
ascribe a power to a [structure] is to say something about what it will or can do, given the
appropriate conditions, in virtue of its intrinsic nature’ (Tsang and Kwan, 1999: 76289).
Causal powers are trans factual—i.e. they exist whether or not they operate in the specific
context under study.

As for its epistemology, let us embark on this journey together and appreciate what it is like.
Epistemologically, critical realism holds that there is no such thing as “final” truth (Westhorp,
2014). Therefore, we should as researchers be value-aware while adopting and integrating
different methods to collect the experiences and perceptions of social agents (Sobh and Perry,
2006). The epistemology focusses on the transitive only as it is not about the empirical or the
actual but accounting for the real. We see critical realism getting concerned with generative
mechanisms, which represent tendencies. This means that its epistemology will be about
transitive knowledge or dimension of critical realism. The transitive epistemological dimension
concerns present thought, discovery, analysis, and perception. The knowledge claims in this
research strategy are aimed at identifying and explaining those elements of reality that must
exist for the events and experiences being investigated to have taken place (Wynn and Williams,
201290). Therefore, the epistemological objective of critical realism is to describe and clarify the
causal hidden mechanisms and their relationships with the observed experiences and events.
(Bhaskar, 1978).
For critical realists, the main objective of the investigation is to acquire knowledge about
underlying causal mechanisms to achieve an explanation of how things work. Knowledge thus
is obtained by observing and interpreting meaning to explain the elements of reality that must
exist prior to the events and experiences that occurred (Wynn and Williams, 2012; Bhaskar,
199891). Within this aim, researchers ought to build on the building of models of such generative
mechanisms such that, if they were to exist and act in the postulated way, they would account
for the phenomenon being examined. These models (e.g., Marxian or liberal economics)
constitute hypothetical descriptions that, it is hoped, will reveal the underlying mechanisms of

87
Leca, B., and Naccache, P. (2006). A critical realist approach to institutional entrepreneurship.
Organization, 13, 627-651.
88
Selboe, E. (2002) ‘Critical Realism as a Framework for Analysing Political Practices and Identities in
Dakar, Senegal’, paper presented at the Joint PhD Course ‘Philosophy of Science and Methodology in
‘Global/Local’ Analyses’ (online) www.geogr.ku.dk/courses/phd/glob-loc/papers/Selboe.pdf.
89
Tsang, E. W. K. and Kwan Kai, M. (1999) ‘Replication and Theory Development in Organizational
Science: A Critical Realist Perspective’, Academy of Management Review 24(4): 759–80.
90
Wynn, D. Jr and Williams, C.K. (2012). Principles for conducting critical realist case study research in
information systems”, MIS Quarterly. 36 (3): 787-810.
91
Bhaskar, R. (1998) The Possibility of Naturalism (3rd edition). London: Routledge.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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reality (say, division of labour, competition, and surplus value). These underlying generating
mechanisms can only be known by constructing hypothetical models about them. The models
would give rise to actions and events that can be experienced in the empirical domain (Wollin,
1996: 1). At the root of Bhaskarian critical realism is the concept of alethic truth (Bhaskar, 1993;
Groff 200092) or that reality which concerns the discovery of the reason for things happening –
that is, of the underlying generative mechanisms – those real things which yield other real things.
By ‘generative mechanism’, Bhaskar means some process held to account for an observable
event…those structures that give rise to actions and events that can be experienced in the
empirical domain (Wollin, 1996: 193).

We may have to elaborate a bit here. Bhaskar argues that the comprehensibility of science
requires that mechanisms or entities discovered by science must be thought as belonging to a
world without humans. In other words, according to Bhaskar, the existence of objects like the
Holy Spirit (italics mine) are independent of humans. This is a transcendental condition for the
possibility of science. The Holy Spirit has generative mechanisms in that it can be responsible
for healing a person in the event that a person who possesses it can apply it. Bhaskar would
argue that objects (like the Holy Spirit, magnetism, or energy) completely independent of
humans are a necessary condition for the intelligibility of scientific practice (Healy and Perry,
199894; 2000).95

Importantly, we can see that the critical realist’s conception of causality differs from the
positivist’s as the latter emphasises tendencies of things to occur, as opposed to regular patterns
of events. To explain a phenomenon (say, poverty) is not merely to show instances of well-
established regularities like hunger in households were some members are having one meal per
day or adults skipping meals in preference for children to have two or three meals. Researchers
must not just link polices to hunger, instead, researchers must discover the necessary
connections between poverty as phenomena, by acquiring knowledge of the underlying
structures and mechanisms at work (say, market polices generating extreme inequalities). It is
only by doing this that we get beyond the ‘mere appearances’ of things like hunger, to their
nature and essences (Bhaska, 199896; Reed, 200597; Porpora, 201598).
Therefore, the retroductive research strategy in essence involves the process of constructively
creating analogues hypothetical models as a way of uncovering inaccessible real structures99

92
Bhaskar, R., (1993). Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom, London: Verso.
93
Wollin, D (1996). ‘Rigor in theory-building from cases’, presented at ANZAM '96 Conference,
Wollongong, NSW, 6-8 December 1996.
94
Healy, M and Perry, C (1998). Quality criteria for realism research about networks and relationship
marketing’, in Proceeding of the 6th international colloquium on relationship marketing, University of
Auckland, New Zealand, 4-6 December 1998.
95
Healy, M and Perry, C (2000). qualitative research within the realism paradigm’, Qualitative Market
Research – An International Journal, vol.3, no.3:118-126.
96
Bhaskar, R., (1998). The Possibility of Naturalism (3rd edition). London: Routledge.
97
Reed, M. (2005). ‘Doing the loco-motion: response to Contu and Willmott’s Commentary on “The realist
turn in organization and management studies”. Journal of Management Studies, 42: 1663–1673.
98
Porpora, D.V. (2015). Reconstructing Sociology: The critical realist approach. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
99
Structures are conceptualised as sets of institutional rules and resources - including technologies––
that take different forms across action systems and evolve over time (i.e., governance structures, systems
of apprenticeship, language). Social structures act as abstract codes or templates, which guide actors'
behaviour in social settings, and could be both enabling and constraining of human action- they may
empower individuals and collectives, and facilitate their actions. But they can equally impose barriers and
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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and mechanisms, which are assumed to produce empirical phenomena (Blaikie 1993: 168100) in
the world. The discovery of inaccessible mechanisms requires a combination of reason and
imagination and the use of iconic models in which the inaccessible mechanism is represented by
either a real or an imagined thing or process" (Blaikie, 1993; 169). The model, if it were to exist
and act in the postulated way, would therefore account for the phenomena in question. In
constructing these hypothetical models of mechanisms that have usually never been observed,
ideas may be borrowed from known structures and mechanisms in other fields. "

Another competing retroductive explanation is that voting for the opposition is due to social
processes, unrelated to partisan politics. Critical realists would use what they call judgemental
rationality to compare such competing claims, choosing to run with the claim that explains more
of the evidence. We should note that, in terms of the voting pattern debate, neither of the claims
for or against the effect of voting for the opposition by young persons can be checked
experimentally in a laboratory. Since much of what experimental natural scientists are interested
in can be isolated in a laboratory, most of them had not noticed that there was an absence in
their philosophy of science. This absence becomes glaring when scientists try to research things
that cannot be placed into a laboratory. In the case of social science, their subject matter cannot
be placed into laboratories because they are emergent from the individuals that form the
material basis of their existence. That is, ecosystems are emergent from the activities of plants
and animals; and societies are emergent from the activities of people and we cannot test whole
ecosystems or whole societies in a laboratory. We can only figure out what is happening in
societies if we use retroduction to think about the underlying, emergent, structures and
mechanisms that have led to the events and entities that we can witness. When natural scientists
tried to apply positivist scientific principles to situations that could not be closed off in
laboratories, that is, to open systems, things got tricky. Such open-system situations are
unavoidable in the social sciences, leading to the situation in which they cannot be conducted
experimentally, and hence to the claim that they are not scientific at all (Archer, 1998).101

When we look at what we have presented above, we would like you to see that both the empirical
and the actual are a sub-sets of the “real”, which also includes generative mechanisms that
produce “emergent properties” or regularities in our world (Elder-Vass, 2008: 458102). As a
consequent of this, we see Bhaskar positing that scientists to consider explaining observable
events in the world using two ontological objects of knowledge (Bhaskar, 1975103) as one way
of clarifying this human involvement in naming and categorising reality. Bhaskar says that
reality has intransitive and transitive dimensions (Bhaskar, 2013104). We ought to remember
that all knowledge includes both intransitive and transitive aspects of reality, which means
that there is no absolute knowledge, untouched by human understanding. Let us examine
what these two objects of knowledge are.
Intransitive objects of knowledge

limits to social interactions change (Macintosch and Scapens 1994: 1996; Ritzer, 1986:394; Lehoux,
2002: 881-892).
100
Blaikie, W.H. N. (1993). Approaches to social enquiry. Oxford: Polity Press.
101
Archer, M. S. (1998). Critical realism: Essential readings. London; New York: Routledge.
102
Elder-Vass, D. (2008). Searching for realism, structure and agency in actor network theory. The British
Journal of Sociology. 59: 455-473.
103
Bhaskar, R. (1975). A Realist Theory of Science. Leeds: Leeds Books.
Bhaskar, R. (1998). The Possibility of Naturalism: A philosophical critique of the contemporary human
sciences. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
104
Bhaskar, R. (2013). A Realist Theory of Science, Routledge.
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Although Bhaskar initially coined the phrase intransitive objects of knowledge to describe objects
not depending on human activity, which would exist and act in the same ways if there were no
humans (Collier, 1994). What we see in his description of this term are his arguments. He states
that specifically, there are some aspects of reality, known as intransitive reality. These
aspects which exist even when humans are not there to interpret them without regard to
our transitive knowledge of them tend to operate independently of humans and their ability to
understand or perceive it (Singh et al., 2020: 84105). The intransitive entities do not necessarily
change in the social world. These are like Durkheimian social facts and would include inter alias
social institutions such as kinship and marriage, law, culture, currency, language, religion,
political organization, and all that account for in everyday interactions with other members of
our societies. Intransitive objects of knowledge are those structures of the world to which our
theories aim to refer. Intransitive objectives are epistemological in nature and help us to apply
theories so that we could explain cause and effects. These intransitive entities are largely
independent of our senses and experiences as they do not change (Bhaskar, 1997106).
Transitive objects of knowledge
Apart from intransitive knowledge, there are some aspects of reality, known as transitive reality,
that exist because they are in relation to humans and their meaning making. Transitive objects
are semiotic resources constructed by researchers to construe particular aspects of reality. They
are necessarily partial, imperfect, and subject to revision. This an approach to seeing the world
in categories. For instance, whether a tomato should be classified as a fruit or vegetable depends
on who is asking. For a biologist, who is interested in how plants reproduce, a tomato is
technically a fruit because it has internal seeds. For a chef, who is interested in making tasty
food, a tomato is a vegetable because its low sugar levels make it unsuitable for putting into a
fruit salad. Another way of saying this, is that there are no abstract universals (such as some
ideal-typical perfect fruit, which tomatoes either do or not match). Instead, there are concrete
universals (such as a concrete group of things we call fruit because they satisfy an objective for
calling them so). All fruits will have some things in common with all other fruits and yet each
fruit will have a history and a place where it was grown so that there is a way in which each
fruit is unique. This approach to seeing the world of categories has been useful in helping to
make sense of the complexities of gender identity in a way that avoids a simplistic dichotomy
between men and women based on ideal-typical ideas of the perfect man or woman; and thus
it gives a philosophical justification for allowing greater variation in how we label people. It thus
allows for, or gives an ontology to, the intersectional view of people as first described by
Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, so that we can be complicated without contradiction. As Bhaskar
(Enlightened Common Sense: 92) explains, "It is the concrete universal that allows an English
soccer fan to say: ‘Though I was born in Chelsea, I support Arsenal".
The transitive, dimension, is that in which knowledge of them is seen to be produced in the
social activity of science and includes concepts, the established facts, theories, models,
paradigms, and techniques of inquiry available to a particular scientific discipline or individual
(Bhaskar, 1998107). The transitive dimension is multiple and relativist and is associated with
epistemology. The transitive dimension is the aspect of knowledge that involves people and their
beliefs. It is related to how we make sense of the world epistemologically and crucially is situated
within certain socio-historical contexts. The transitive objects are necessarily partial, imperfect,

105
Singh , S., Bhaskar, R., Hartwig, M. (2020). Reality and Its Depths: A Conversation Between Savita
Singh and Roy Bhaskar. Springer.
106
Bhaskar, R. (1997) . A realist theory of science. London. Verso.
107
Bhaskar, R. (1998) The Possibility of Naturalism: A philosophical critique of the contemporary human
sciences. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
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and subject to revision because theories or conceptual frameworks are not permanent since
they are subject to revision.
The real consists of all that exists (natural or social) despite whether we experience it or not or
have knowledge of its disposition the processes, structures, powers and causal mechanisms that
generate events. It is in this domain that mechanisms (what makes something happen in the
world) that are responsible for the events that Bhaskar was concerned with. (e.g., class struggle
generating labour unrest and strikes; competitive industrialisation generating thirst for profits
and avoiding externalities so causing de-forestation and greenhouse effect). Critical realists
regard the empirical and actual as surface phenomena, which sets critical realists apart from
empirical realists. It is for this reason that they focus on generative mechanisms that is to
discover underlying generative mechanisms in order to explain /understand the observed
regularities.
Critical Realist Methodology108
Critical realism employs what we shall call either an intensive or extensive method. The former
focusing on the discovery of causal powers (generative mechanisms) and the latter focusing on
the broader context in which the mechanisms operate (Edwards et al., 2014109). Moreover, the
extensive method has been argued to be associated with quantitative data collection and
statistical analysis (Danemark et al., 2002110).
For critical realists, who wish to use extensive methods, deductive methods (based on testing
specific hypotheses) and inductive methods of enquiry (based on the formation of general
inferences) are necessary but insufficient for theory development without retroductive reasoning
(Lawson,111 1989). Critical realism is noted as the ontologically least restrictive perspective,
insofar as it is maximally inclusive as to causally relevant levels of reality insofar as it can
accommodate the insights of other metatheoretical perspectives. This is the “double
inclusiveness” of critical realism’ (Bhaskar and Danermark, 2006: 294112). Given the philosophical
constraints of positivism and constructivism, critical realism supports a wide range of research
methods (Sayer, 1992113, 2000114).
Within a critical realism framework, both qualitative and quantitative methodologies are deemed
appropriate (Healy and Perry, 2000115) for researching the underlying mechanisms that drive
actions and events. Naturalistic methods, such as case studies and unstructured or semi-
structured depth interviews are acceptable and relevant within the paradigm, as are descriptive

108
Typically, research design is an intensive study with a limited number of cases. It Involves
retroduction: making observations and theorising a mechanism to explain the particular phenomenon
(Bygstad and Munkvold, 2011). The task of the researcher is to provide a rich and reliable explanation
of patterns of events through the development of appropriate accounts of the causal powers, entities
and mechanisms that created them (Edwards et al., 2014).
109
Edwards, P.K., O’Mahoney, J. and Vincent, S. (2014). Studying Organizations Using Critical Realism:
A Practical Guide, OUP, Oxford.
110
Danermark, B., Ekstrom, M. and Jakobsen, L. (2002). Explaining Society: An Introduction to Critical
Realism in the Social Sciences, Routledge.
111
Lawson T. (1989) Abstraction, tendencies and stylised facts: a realist approach to economic analysis.
Cambridge Journal of Economics 13, 59–78.
112
Bhaskar, R. and Danermark, B. (2006) ‘Metatheory, interdisciplinarity and disability research: A critical
realist perspective’. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 8 (4): 278–97.
113
Sayer A. (2000) Realism and Social Science. Sage Publications, London.
114
Sayer A. (1992) Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach, 2nd edn. Routledge, London.
115
Healy, M and Perry, C 2000, ‘Comprehensive criteria to judge validity and reliability of qualitative
research within the realism paradigm’, Qualitative Market Research – An International Journal. 3 (3):
118-126.
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statistics and statistical analyses, such as those derived from structural equation modelling and
other techniques (Perry et al., 1997116). The choice of research methods should depend on the
type and focus of the study and what is hoped to be learned (Sayer, 2000). The methodology
of critical realism bridges the dichotomy associated with the two approaches and allows research
to reach areas that are not possible within traditional approaches (Archer et al., 1998; Sayer,
2000). Similarly, Danermark et al. (2002117) present a mixed model design for research that they
refer to as ‘critical methodological pluralism’, an approach that combines both intensive and
extensive research practices. It is for this reason that the rintroductive research strategy involves
the building of hypothetical models as a way of uncovering the real structures and mechanisms
which are assumed to produce empirical phenomena. The model, if it were to exist and act in
the postulated way, would therefore account for the phenomena in question. In constructing
these models of mechanisms that have usually never been observed, ideas may be borrowed
from known structures and mechanisms in other fields.
It is evident that critical realism is appropriate for interdisciplinary approach in research. Critical
realism as a thought operation allows the researcher to move and obtain knowledge of the
properties that are necessary for a phenomenon to exist. This type of reasoning is about
discovering and explaining events by assuming and identifying mechanisms that are capable of
producing such events (Sayer, 1992).
However, for the critical realist there are many valid ways of exploring social phenomena
(McLennan, 2001). The varied methods that critical realists have used in their attempts to
explore underlying generative mechanisms in social research include ethnography, participant
observation, structured and unstructured interviews, descriptive statistics, participatory action
research (Del Casino et al., 2000), quasi-experimental designs (Pawson and Tilley 1998118), and
some forms of methodological triangulation (Blaikie, 1991, Rogers and Nicolaas, 1998; Olsen,
2002). Triangulation is generally used to develop a more complete understanding of a
phenomenon by mapping its different aspects, rather than to confirm the accuracy of diverse
sets of data (Olsen, 2002).
There are debates within critical realism about the use of respective merits of qualitative and
quantitative approaches, as illustrated by the different standpoints taken by Pawson and Sayer.
Pawson (1989) argues that quantitative measures are vital for identifying variables and making
distinctions between their properties. Sayer (1992), on the other hand, favours more intensive
qualitative methods, such as interactive interviews and ethnographic approaches, which are able
to identify specific contextually-grounded explanatory mechanisms of the type that are difficult
to obtain using quantitative methods. Despite these differences in emphasis, however, there is
still a reasonable degree of consensus within critical realism that it is the way that methods are
used which is important, rather than the methods themselves. In order to obtain knowledge
about the social world, retroductivists apply the following steps: Research begins in the domain
of the actual, with observed connections between phenomena which we shall call the empirical.
The first part of the retroduction arrow is dotted lightly (box 1) to indicate that retroduction in
the true sense of the word starts with the ‘lift’ from empirical information to (box 2) which are
the theoretical patterns and hypothesis formulation denoted by the dark lift. The descending
dark line (box 3) is the inductive phase of exploring and describing the hidden structures to

116
Perry, C, Alizadeh, Y and Riege, A . (1997). Qualitative methods in entrepreneurship research, in
Proceedings of the Small Enterprise Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference, Southern Cross
University, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 21-23 September 1997
117
Danermark B., Ekstrom M., Jakobsen L. and Karlsson J.C. (2002) Explaining Society, Critical Realism
in the Social Sciences, Critical Realism Interventions. Routledge, London.
118
Pawson, R. and Tilley, N. (1998). Caring communities, paradigm polemics, design debates. Evaluation,
vol. 4, no. 1: 79-90.
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postulating the mechanism which are the thick dotted lines (box 4). The task in Figure 10.2 is
to show how such connections or relationships occur.

2 3

1 4

Figure 10.2 Progresses of Research in Retroduction

For social scientists, social theory (boxes 2 and 3) is a major source of ideas (variables), and a
source that is drawn on when conducting research. Social theory acts like an analytic frame and
these are what most social scientists make use of when they have a specific research question
in mind and then approach social theory to gain what to focus on. As such, Bhaskar regarded
retroduction or 'hypothesis formulation' as being the second stage of an enquiry. Postulation
(Box 4) which is the downward dark dotted line and it involves making a hypothesis which
appears to explain what has been observed; it is observing some phenomenon and then claiming
what it was that gave rise to it. During this stage of an enquiry, consequences based on the
hypotheses are explored and patterned using induction. The hypothesis must be tested (Box 3
and 4) using both deduction and induction. After this brief sketch of the ‘deductive’ part of the
retroductive research process, let us turn to the ‘inductive’. After collecting theory-laden data,
the researcher has to make sense of them in one way or another and relate them to ideas and
frameworks that so far have guided research.
You will notice that the use a hypothesis is to eliminate puzzlement as a necessary step. A
phenomena or range of phenomena is identified from explanations based on the postulated
existence of a generative mechanism that are constructed and empirically tested, and this
mechanism then becomes the phenomenon to be explained and the cycle repeats. Abstraction
is a process akin to finding the right key for the lock, although the key may never have been
observed before. Research involves iterative abstraction. Iterative abstraction is probably the
most well-known method in critical realism to discover and to conceptualize generative
mechanisms (Ragin, 1994119; Sayer, 1981).
Abstraction is a central and necessary tool in the realist method for several reasons. Abstraction
is thus extremely useful for the identification of causal structures. In essence this is about
construction of a hypothetical mechanism. The purpose of abstraction is to isolate causal
generative mechanisms (the ‘real’) in relation to a concrete phenomenon and ‘to obtain
knowledge of real structures or mechanisms which give rise to or govern the flux of real
phenomena of social and economic life’ (Lawson, 1989: 69120).
Researchers may look for some mechanisms elsewhere, which may depict the hypothetical
mechanism and this may be reasonably accessible by the use of instruments that provide a
modest extension of the senses; e.g., the dissection of the body to observe the heart pumping

119
Ragin, C. (1994) Constructing Social Research, Pine Forge, Thousand Oaks.
120
Lawson, T. 1989: On abstraction, tendencies and stylised facts: a realist approach to economic
analysis. Cambridge Journal of Economics 13,59-78.
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blood around the body as a possible mechanism of the events in the social world. Therefore,
from other empirical or associated field of studies researchers could use an analogy with a view
to discover quasi-accessible mechanisms; e.g., the behaviour of information flows as analogous
to electricity flows. The model is such that, were it to represent correctly these structures and
mechanisms the phenomena would then be causally explained. In essence, the job of the realist
researcher/scientist is to identify mechanisms and their interplay in actualizing events.
Mechanisms, or generative mechanisms, refer to phenomena operative in the intransitive realm
of the real (in which the objects of knowledge are conceived as existing and acting independently
of men). These objects in critical realism are stratified (Archer et al., 1998: 41121). Intransitive
objects represent the way of acting of a thing and have genuine ontological status (existence).
Mechanisms are possible objects of knowledge though they may remain forever unknown and
they may remain unknown because mechanisms need not cause events to be actualised or
identified in experience because they, or rather their effects, could be blocked, disrupted, or
redirected by the operation of other mechanisms or structures. As can now be seen, critical
realists who employ mixed methods to interrogate the nature of intransitive reality, explicitly
distance themselves from the underpinning ontic and epistemic idealist philosophies that might
be associated with forms of qualitative methodologies as well as empiricist philosophy and its
quantitative associates. In addition, with the ontological base secured, realists are free to indeed
they must use existing epistemological frameworks and their methodological embodiments in
new or different ways.

Research Designs in Critical Realism

The centrality of identifying mechanisms to explain why things happen means that critical realists
put theory first. Thus, the aim of critical realist research design is to produce explanations
(theories) about the essences (properties) and exercise of trans factual, hidden, and often
universal mechanisms. This takes any potential generalisations from the empirical to the
theoretical, in contrast to the positivist approach where generalizations are only concerned with
an empirical population (Danemark, 2022:77)122. This distinction is important because theoretical
generalizations are more enduring and can be applied through time and space. For example, a
theoretical generalization that capitalism tends to commodify should not only be applicable in all
forms of capitalism (including future ones), but when one finds empirical evidence to the
contrary it should prompt the researcher to seek reasons which prevent the mechanism being
actualized. In contrast, a generalization that notes only the empirical instances of capitalist
commodification has limited explanatory value because it simply identifies the empirical event
and says little about why is happens, to what extent, and in which circumstances. Moreover,
evidence to the contrary simply modifies the generalization and does not prompt a pursuit of
counter-mechanisms.

The importance of CR emphasising ontological questions (what is X? how does it work?) over
epistemological questions (how can we know X?) means that CR is methodologically ecumenical.
Indeed, many realists would argue that the emergent stratified nature of social reality means
that a wide range of methodological approaches or ‘extended methods’ is necessary for a richer
conceptualisation of the mechanisms at work in the social world. For this reason, CR scholars
embrace a range of qualitative research techniques. Our own edited collection (Edwards et al.,

121
Archer, M. S. (1998). Critical realism: Essential readings. London; New York: Routledge.
122
Danermark, B. (2002). Explaining Society: Critical Realism in the Social Sciences. Routledge.
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2014123), which looked at the implications of CR for a range of methods within the field of
organisation studies, included chapters on discourse analysis (Sims-Schouten and Riley,
2014)124, grounded theory (Kempester and Perry, 2014125), interviewing (Smith and Elger,
2014)126, ethnography, (Rees and Gatenby, 2014127), case studies (Vincent and Wapshott,
2013128), comparative case methods (Kessler and Batch, 2014129), action research (Ram et al.,
2014130), and documentary methods (Much, 2014131). Thus, critical realists can employ empirical
methods and methodologies to identify those aspects of reality that are amenable to
quantification without accepting Hume's limiting assertion that the only things that could be
known are those things that could be demonstrated (termed by Bhaskar the epistemic fallacy).
Similarly, qualitative methods and tools that explore the meanings and values that people invest
in their world could be utilised without accepting associated idealist notions that limit knowledge
to the identification of such constructs (termed the linguistic fallacy). Further, in accepting a
position of qualified naturalism, critical realists have available to them the means by which these
now redefined quantitative and qualitative methods/methodologies could be successfully
melded.

Criticism of Bhaskarian Retroduction

There are a number of criticisms we could provide relating to critical realism and its logic
retroduction. The first is failure to categorise the term “events”. When we read Bhaskar’s
presentation of the three layered ontology, we see overlaps of his description of what constitutes
reality (see Table 10.1). His use of the term events as "manifest phenomena" makes no
distinctions. These manifest phenomena as events can either be located in the domain of the
real or actual. This is failure to distinguish events that happen what is experienced inwardly or

123
Edwards, P. K., O'Mahoney, J. and Vincent, S. 2014. Studying Organizations Using Critical Realism:
A Practical Guide. OUP Oxford.
124
Sims-Schouten, W. and Riley, S. (2014). 'Employing a forms of Critical Realist Discourse Analysis for
Identity Research: An Example from Women's Talk of Motherhood, Childcare, and Employment.' In P.
Edwards, J. O'Mahoney and S. Vincent (Eds.) Studying Organisations Using Critical Realism: A Practical
Guide, Oxford: 46-65. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
125
Kempster, S. and Perry, K. (2014). 'Critical Realism and Grounded Theory.' In P. Edwards, J.
O'Mahoney and S. Vincent (Eds.) Studying Organisations Using Critical Realism: A Practical Guide: 86-
108. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
126
Smith, C. and Elger, T. 2014. 'Critical Realism and Interviewing Subjects.' In P. Edwards, S. Vincent
and J. O'Mahoney (Eds.) Using critical realism to study organisations: 109-31. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
127
Rees, C. and Gatenby, M. 2014. 'Critical Realism and Ethnography.' In P. Edwards, J. O'Mahoney and
S. Vincent (Eds.) Studying Organisations Using Critical Realism: A Practical Guide: 132-47. Oxford:
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
128
Vincent, S. and Wapshott, R. 2013. 'Critical realism and the organizational case study: A guide to
discovering institutional mechanisms.' In P. Edwards, J. O'Mahoney and S. Vincent (Eds.) Putting Critical
Realism into Practice: A Guide to Research Methods in Organization Studies. Oxford: Oxford University
Press
129
Kessler, I. and Bach, S. 2014. 'Comparing Cases.' In P. Edwards, J. O'Mahoney and S. Vincent (Eds.)
Studying Organisations Using Critical Realism: A Practical Guide: 168-84. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
130
Ram, M., Edwards, P., Jones, T., Kiselinchev, A. and Muchenje, L. 2014. 'Pulling the Leavers of
Agency: Implementing Critical Realist Action Research.' In P. Edwards, J. O'Mahoney and S. Vincent
(Eds.) Studying Organisations Using Critical Realism: A Practical Guide: 205-22. Oxford: Oxford University
Press
131
Mutch, A. 2014. 'History and Documents in Critical Realism.' In P. Edwards, J. O'Mahoney and S.
Vincent (Eds.) Studying Organisations Using Critical Realism: A Practical Guide: 223-40. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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outwardly. Finally, there are overlaps in the use of the term experiences as they cut across the
three domains (see Table 10.1).

Table 10.1. Defining the three domains of reality

Feature of reality Domain of Location
Domain of real Domain of actual Domain of empirical
Causal mechanisms √
Events √ √
Experiences √ √ √

Adapted from Bhaskar (2008: 13)

We note that Bhasakar’s tri-layered ontology is inconsistent and redundant. For instance,
Margaret Archer (1995132) and Elder-Vass et al. (2003)133argue as such. Bhaskar’s arguments
are not compatible as he wanted them to be ontologically separate causally efficacious when
not as they are interacting agents and not in a circuit. He also denies that social structures can
be ontologically separate from the agents when not since he holds both that the social structures
are always dependent on the activities and conceptions of the current agents and that their
causal effects are always mediated via the intentional actions of these agents. Bhaskar is accused
of not entirely avoiding the temptation to make “an over precipitous and quite unnecessary leap
from the truistic proposition ‘No people, no society’ to the highly questionable assertion ‘this
society; because of these people here present’”. We also contend that Bhaskar’s view on the
ontological dependence of social structures from the concepts of agents is open to many
different interpretations; some of which are problematic and others not. For a scientific
researcher that understands the differences between experiences, events and causal
mechanisms we cannot see any extra insights that come from adding the three domains of
reality. They are redundant.

The second criticism is that the three domains of reality are extremely confusing. It is simpler
to talk about experiences, events and causal mechanisms than the approach of comparing with
the three domains of reality. It is not possible to explain the three domains of reality without
firstly introducing experiences, events and causal mechanisms – that is exactly what Table 10.1
tries to do. We have noted that our students tend to find experiences, events and causal
mechanisms reasonably easy to grasp. The idea that there are experiences being the tangible
experiences [realist ontology] as well as lived experiences [nominalist ontology], events (the
things that are being perceived) and causal mechanisms (the things that tend to produce the
events) is often accepted as innate. However, we see this to be the reverse for the three domains
of reality. Our students fail to grasp how the three interact. This conceptual challenge applies to
both the nature of the domains (‘Why are the three domains overlapping?’), as well as how to
apply this in their research. They often ask “How do I know which domain I have to look at? If
I see a rigged election, I can know for sure that that is tangible. It is an actual thing and it is an
event. If I interview a losing Presidential aspirant about their experience of a rigged election, I
do not know if this is this in the empirical, the actual or the real?’). Maybe the people we speak
to are confused because we are not keen on the three domains of reality. We do a do a terrible

132
Archer, M. (1995). Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
133
Dave Elder-Vass, Tom Fryer, Ruth Porter Groff, Cristián Navarrete and Tobin Nellhaus (2023): Does
critical realism need the concept of three domains of reality? A roundtable, Journal of Critical Realism.
DOI: 10.1080/14767430.2023.2180965
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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thing by failing to explaining them or the three domains of reality are too confusing and
ultimately add little to our understanding. If the events can cut across the three domains of
reality and cannot be distinguished taxonomically, then critical realists should stop talking about
the three domains.

The third criticism is that the three domains of reality do not even exist. We think that the case
against the three domains already holds based on our first two points, but we want to make a
third argument as a point of rendering a critique. We believe just like Elder-Vass et al. (2003)
that there is no reason to think that the three domains of reality exist. We do not think there
are three overlapping domains of reality. We appreciate why experiments and positivism
especially rationalism have a special place in knowledge production. They attempt explain the
link between antecedent and the precedent. They do so without mentioning the three domains
and tend to bring in intervening variables instead. Critical rationalism and experiments do this
by creating a closed environment in which only one causal mechanism acts to bring about an
event, thus giving us unique insights into the nature of that causal mechanism. Regrettably
Bhaskar makes this exact argument before he gets around to introducing the three domains of
reality in the main text (Bhaskar, 2008: 56) and likens the events of generative mechanisms to
be the mainstay.

Archer (1995: 143) suggests, as a solution to these problems, that in some cases the causal
powers of social structures might be dependent solely on the actions of former actions possibly
since deceased, agents. Hence, she holds that, in contrast to Bhaskar’s view, society is never
wholly dependent on the actions and conceptions of current agents. Her examples of such social
structures whose causal powers are dependent only on the actions of earlier agents include a
top-heavy demographic structure, people’s unfavourable relations to nature, and distributions
of capital (Archer, 1995: 143-144). There is an alternative to all this. We could simply state:
‘experiences, events and causal mechanisms are all part of reality’. Consider an example where
we are talking about the domains of an orange. We might say that there are three domains of
an orange: the domain of the juicy bit, the domain of the white bitter bit, and the domain of the
zesty peely bit. All together they make an orange. We do not need to define one of the domains
as the ‘domain of the orange’ to understand that the juicy bit, the white bitter bit, and the zesty
peely bit are all part of the orange. It is more than enough to just say ‘these three domains are
all part of the orange’. In the same way, if the counter-argument says that we need the three
domains of reality to help us see that experiences, events and causal mechanisms are all part
of reality then we can achieve this by just saying: ‘Experiences, events and causal mechanisms
are all part of reality’. There is no need for a complex concept like the three overlapping domains
of reality to make this simple point.

Pragmatic Research Strategy

Let us first lay the ground of the concept by stating its origins and providing a biblical position
of its use. [The pragmatic maxim] is only an application of the sole principle of logic, which was
recommended by Jesus; Ye may know them by their fruits…. Every tree that does not bear good
fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. This biblical quotation is very intimately allied with the
ideas of the gospel (Math.7:16; 19) and applied by Charles Peirce (1934).134This quotation
assumes that men ought to be useful by what they do. It emphasises purposive human
behaviour. This quotation sets the gist of the matters that follow in this unit. It is about the need
to embrace pragmatism.

134
From How to Make Our Ideas Clear (1878). in Charles Harteshorne and Paul Weiss (eds). Collected
Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1934, 5): Vol. 5.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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The term pragmatism is derived from the same Greek word pragma, meaning action, from which
our words 'practice' and 'practical' come. Pragmatism is a distinctive American philosophy (Aune,
1970135; Blosch, 2001136) traceable to the ‘Metaphysical Club’ – the legendary, short-lived
discussion group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1870s. It brought together many of
the ‘founding fathers’ of American pragmatism – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935),
William James (1842–1910), Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), Chauncey Wright (1850–75),
Nicholas St. John Green (Stuhr, 2000137; Purcell Jr. and Erlanger, 2002138) and it is also linked
to the writings of Mead (1863–1931) (Laughlin, 1995). It is now supported by contemporary
theorists including W. V. O. Quine, Richard Rorty, Donald Davidson, Rom Harré, Putnam,
Murphy, Patton, Cherlyholmes, Jane Addams and Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Murphy and Ricard,
1990; Fisch, 1997139; Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998140; Creswell, 2003141). The recent thinkers
include: (Antler, 1981142; Rorty, 1991; 143Duran, 1993144; Adams, 2003145) inter alias. Their ideas
are essentially are premised on the reflections of the Kantean/Fichte/Dilthy philosophical thought
of the ‘projection of our minds’ (Laughlin, 1995: 72146).
Pragmatism has not been treated very well in scientific publications even though it is frequently
referred to as pragmatic philosophy. It is treated synonymously with mixed methods by many
writers on the concept. We take this with a pinch of salt in that three other assumptions are
ignored and these are ontological, epistemological as well as human nature or axiological
assumptions inherent of the two paradigms (positivism and anti-positivism). In order for you to
understand this strategy, we have decided to provide back ground information about
pragmatism.
There are key areas we desire you took note of. In any research setting, you will observe that
pragmatists place the research question above such considerations as methodology or
epistemology or the underlying worldview (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998). We implore you to
read the unit on philosophical assumptions and connect to what we are about to explain. This
is due to the fact that a fuller understanding of this concept may be facilitated by a comparison
of some fundamental assumptions of pragmatism to those of positivism and anti-positivism.

135
Aune, B. (1970) Rationalism, Empiricism, and Pragmatism: An Introduction (New York: Random
House). Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2000) Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite
Account: 1997–1998.
136
Blosch, M. (2001) Pragmatism and organizational knowledge management, Knowledge and Process
Management, 8(1): 39–47
137
Stuhr, J. J. (2000) Classical American philosophy, in: J. J. Stuhr, (Ed.) Pragmatism and the Classical
American Philosophy: Essential Readings and Interpretive Essays, 2nd edn: 1–9 (New York: Oxford
University Press).
138
Purcell Jr, E. A. and Erlanger, H. S. (2002) On the complexity of ‘ideas in America’: origins and
achievements of the classical age of pragmatism, Law and Social Inquiry, 27(4): : 967–99.
139
Wright, J. (2015). 2nd edition. International Encyclopaedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences.
18. Oxford: Elsevier: 803–807.
140
Tashakkori, A. and Teddlie, C. (1998) Mixed Methodology: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
141
Creswell, J. W. (2003) Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Method Approaches
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
142
Antler, J. (1981). Feminism as a Life Process: The Life and Career of Lucy Sprague Mitchell. Feminist
Studies. 7: 134–157.
143
Rorty, R. (1991) Title Essays on Heidegger and others. Cambridge: New York: Cambridge University
Press.
144
Duran, J. (2003). A holistically Deweyan feminism. Metaphilosophy. 32. 279–292.
145
Adams, C.J. (2003). The Pornography of Meat . New York: Continuum.
146
Laughlin, R. (1995) Methodological themes: empirical research in accounting alternative approaches
and a case for ‘middle-range’ thinking, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 8(1): 63–87.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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First, we have come to learn from grounding research methods lectures that assumptions
concerning what forms the basis for “legitimate'' research tend to help us create the conceptual
framework within which you as scholar will operate. In order for us to differentiate pragmatism
from positivism and anti-positivism, we shall focus on three of these assumptions: ontology (the
nature of reality); epistemology (the justification acquisition of knowledge); and human nature
or axiology (the role of values, freedom and determinism in research).
We have come to understand in Unit 9 that positivists argue on one hand that there is an
external, objective reality that exists independent of the individual. Anti-positivists on the other
hand counter that reality is relative or equivocal, that each individual uniquely interprets or
constructs it. As for the pragmatists, they take the position that there is an objective reality,
existing externally to the individual. However, this external reality is grounded in the
environment and internal experience of each individual, and as such can only be imperfectly
understood. The choice of one version of reality (realist) over another (nominalist) by a
researcher is governed by how well that choice results in anticipated or desired outcomes
(Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998147). We may have offer example to appreciate what we are trying
to advance and Goles and Hirschheim (2000: 261) offer contrasting applications of use of
something paradigmatically when trying to stress what the aim of pragmatism is. They posit that
upon observing an object consisting of a flat surface supported by four legs, a positivist would
define it as a table, no matter how it was being used. An anti-positivist would define the object
based on his or her individual perspective: if he were eating off it, it would be a table; if he were
sitting on it, it would be a bench; if he were standing on it, it would be a platform, and so forth.
A pragmatist would define the object based on what use it was to him. If he intended to eat, it
would be a table. If he intended to sit on it, it would be a bench. If he intended to stand on it,
it would be a platform. The crucial difference is that the object is not defined in terms of what
it is or how it was or is being used, but rather by how it helps the pragmatist achieve his purpose.
We can see from descriptions above that the pragmatic research strategy ought to be
understood in terms of what the researcher desires to use this logic for in a research project as
its aim. Since pragmatism has two types of uses in research, we shall examine two of its aims.
These aims in essence delineate two categories of inquiry that employ the concept pragmatism
as a research strategy. Pragmatists generally argue that good science is that which has use.
Pragmatists contend that knowledge generation and its management should be undertaken to
pursue instrumental aims. There two types of instrumental aims as described below.

The first aim is associated variant we shall classical pragmatic research strategy. This is a
research strategy whose aim is resolving concrete real-world problems real life problems befits
applied research. Applied research focuses on addressing and generating practical solutions to
improve various aspects of society like structures, systems or processes, technology, health, and
the environment. What we see when this research strategy is applied is that its primary criterion
of success is quest by researchers towards the contribution to the solution of specific practical
problems. As such, we notice that practical technical success is the superior yardstick for this
research strategy both in advance as projects and retrospectively in terms of results. The
scientific competence of researchers is an essential condition for the application of the classical
pragmatic research strategy.

The second aim we shall call neo-pragmatic research strategy. This research strategy’s aim is
to integrate in a basic research project, qualitative and quantitative elements of research at

147
Tashakkori A, Teddlie C. (1998). Mixed Methodology: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches. London. Sage.
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several ‘levels’ (Biesta 2010: 99148) – including the levels of framing research questions, use of
theories and approaches, use of methods and techniques and presentation of findings. With this
type of research strategy, the researcher is an ‘artful craftsperson’ (Greene 2007: 16149) or as a
‘connoisseur of methods’ (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2010: 8150), who creates the most appropriate
research design in a basic inquiry to resolve a research design based problem or research
questions requiring a multiplicity city . We may have to elaborate what we desire you may have
to appreciate regarding basic research. Basic research is successful when it discovers new
phenomena or new ideas of general interest. The general scientific interest is judged in the first
instance by the discipline in question where the research project is anchored like psychology,
sociology or economics. In the long run the promotion of other scientific disciplines may be
essential, and in the last instance the improvement of our general world picture is decisive. The
aim of basic research is theoretical, to improve general understanding. It has no specific aim
outside of this. But it is, of course, not accidental that improved understanding of the world
increases our ability to act rationally and efficiently. It improves our grasp of what the world is
like and is thus also a basis for developing efficient technologies.

The application of neoclassical pragmatism is emergent when the logics of enquiry in a research
project embrace the abductive research strategy on one hand for anchoring the qualitative part
of the inquiry and either or both the inductive and deductive research strategy on the other
hand for anchoring the quantitative part (mixed method techniques). In some research designs,
the retroductive strategy is employed in combination with the three research strategies. When
the neo-pragmatic research strategy is used, it is due to the fact that research problem may
have been shaped both by the discipline or ‘intellectual traditions’ in which the researcher is
working and by the researcher’s own conceptualization of the research problem, which is shaped
by the researcher’s types of research questions experiences, values and beliefs.

What we want to emphasise to you is that it is not completely possible to articulate the actual
ontology, epistemology, human nature and methodological assumptions of any pragmatic
research strategy. This is due to the fact pragmatism employs the tenets of dialectical, dialogical
pluralism. Pragmatism may call for blending of the four strands of theoretical assumptions
implicit in social science. Blending is a term we have opted you may consider to use in a
pragmatic design. It is not different its usage as methodological pluralism which is an application
of “a diversity of methods and theories (see Galliers, 1991: 329151). This neo pragmatic
viewpoint, is grounded in the classical philosophical school known as pragmatism, is based on
the proposition that researchers should use “whatever philosophical and/or methodological
approach” (that) works best for the particular research program under study'' (Tashakkori and
Teddlie, 1998; 5). Datta (1994)152 while contributing to resolving the paradigm wars while

148
Biesta, G. (2012), ‘Mixed Methods’ in J. Arthur, M. Waring, R. Coe & L. Hedges (eds), Research
Methods and Methodologies in Education, 147-52, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
149
Greene, J.C. and V.J. Caracelli (1997), ‘Defining and Describing the Paradigm Issue in Mixed-Method
Evaluation’, New Directions for Evaluation, 74: 5-17.
150
Teddlie, C. and A. Tashakkori (2010), ‘Overview of Contemporary Issues in Mixed Methods Research’
in A.Tashakkori & C.Teddlie (eds) SAGE Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioural Research,
2nd edn, 1-41, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
151
Galliers R. (1991). Choosing appropriate information systems research approaches: A revised
taxonomy. In: Nissen H-K, Klein H, Hirschheim R, editors. Information Systems Research: Contemporary
Approaches and Emergent Themes. Amsterdam: North-Holland: 327-346.
152
Datta L. Paradigm wars: A basis for peaceful coexistence and beyond. In: Reichardt CS, Rallis SF,
editors.
The Qualitative-Quantitative Debate: New Perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass: 53-70
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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providing the basis of co-existence of the paradigm wars presented five compelling arguments
in support of paradigm interplay and we implore you to take note of the following:

1) Both paradigms (positivist and positivist paradigms) have been in use for a number of
years.
2) There are a considerable (and growing) number of scholars arguing for the use of
multiple paradigms and methods.
3) Funding agencies support research in both paradigms.
4) Both paradigms have had an influence on various policies.
5) Much has been learned via each paradigm.
We advise that for a full understanding of pragmatism, you read unit 9. We have come to the
end of the unit. We can now proceed to look at the activities or things you need to do what you
ought to take away from the unit.
From Dr. Jason Mwanza’s Chronicles - Practical Handbook for Social Science
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Key takeaways 10

According to the approach of applying research strategies, each research question

ought to be assessed to determine how it will be approached. In the same way,
the inquiry ought to have an overriding research strategy. In order to determine
which overriding research strategy is, we suggest that you employ the font size
heuristic.
We have seen that ideas on research strategies have great influence on the practice
of research. We have a duty to identify and apply for each research question, the
most preferred logic for a proper delineation of any research question. It is
important for research practitioners to make explicit from the beginning the use the
research strategies in answering research questions.

Activity 10

1) What are the roles of research strategies in dealing with research strategies
in research?
2) Out of the five types of research strategies, which one is superior and
explain your position?