This is the best article I've come across that dose a nice job explaining cricial realism
International Studies Quarterly
Volume 44 Page 213 - June 2000
doi:10.1111/0020-8833.00156
Volume 44 Issue 2
After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism
Heikki Patomäki & Colin Wight
This article argues that the current self-understanding of IR theory is misconceived and that it is time to move beyond the stagnant positivism/postpositivism debate. We argue that the attempt to occupy a middle ground compromise position between positivism and postpositivism is untenable because these two positions share much in common. In this sense a middle ground position between two problematic positions does not produce a less problematic position. What is needed is a metatheoretical analysis of the two extreme positions. We attempt to show how both positivism and postpositivism are embedded in a discourse of philosophical anti-realism. This anti-realism occurs as a result of what we call the post-Kantian-Humean 'problem-field' of international relations from which most contemporary positivist, constructivist, and post-structuralist IR approaches stem. We then try to overcome this 'problem-field' by means of radically reclaiming reality through a critical realist philosophy. Once outlined we try to show how this critical realist philosophy can help transcend some of the antinomies currently faced by IR scholars.
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