Emotions & emergence: The critical-realist alternative + What is critical realism?

[C C]

Emotions and Emergence in Sociology: The Critical-Realist Alternative
http://criticalrealismnetwork.org/2017/0...ternative/

EXCERPT: “…emotions are in themselves generative mechanisms with special tendencies toward action, inaction, and communication. In their most immediate effects, emotions motivate approaching or avoiding behavior.”

* This is a guest blog post by Dr. Benjamin Lamb-Books. Benjamin is the author of Angry Abolitionists and the Rhetoric of Slavery: Moral Emotions in Social Movements (New York: Palgrave Macmillan). He obtained his PhD from the University of Colorado in 2015. He lives in Boulder with his wife Danielle.

The subjectivity of emotions has been grounds for their dismissal by social science in the past. Emotions are nothing if not experienced, so how one views the nature of experience matters greatly for this topic as well as how one assumes ‘mind’ and ‘body’ are related. Human emotions exist in a (microsociological) life-world domain of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. They are felt, and without this element of feeling-towards objects, they do not exist. Because of their ontological status as unobservable inner-worlds, positivists have used the label ‘emotivism’ to repudiate them as unreal (along with values, moral beliefs, and anything else based on ‘desires’; Foot 2001; cf. Gorski 2013).

Although subjective in nature, emotion is as real as consciousness or as any other social phenomena that is concept-dependent. [...] What’s wrong with the positivist approach to emotion in making such generalizations and predictions (or even ‘postdictions’)? Critical realism would identify at least three major fallacies...

MORE: http://criticalrealismnetwork.org/2017/0...ternative/

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What is critical realism?
http://www.asatheory.org/current-newslet...al-realism

EXCERPT: Critical realism is a series of philosophical positions on a range of matters including ontology, causation, structure, persons, and forms of explanation. Emerging in the context of the post-positivist crises in the natural and social sciences in the 1970s and 1980s, critical realism represents a broad alliance of social theorists and researchers trying to develop a properly post-positivist social science. Critical realism situates itself as an alternative paradigm both to scientistic forms of positivism concerned with regularities, regression-based variables models, and the quest for law-like forms; and also to the strong interpretivist or postmodern turn which denied explanation in favor of interpretation, with a focus on hermeneutics and description at the cost of causation.
​Defining critical realism is not an easy task. While there is a pool of scholars that critical realists often draw upon (e.g. Archer 1982, 1995; Bhaskar 1975, 1979; Elder-Vass 2010; Gorski 2008, 2013a; Lawson 1997; Little 2016; Porpora 2015; Sayer 2000; Steinmetz 1998, 2003, 2014; Vandenberghe 2015) there is not one unitary framework, set of beliefs, methodology, or dogma that unites critical realists as a whole. Instead, critical realism is much more like a series of family resemblances in which there are various commonalities that exist between the members of a family, but these commonalities overlap and crisscross in different ways. There is not one common feature that defines a family, instead, it is a heterogeneous assemblage of elements drawn from a relatively common “genetic” pool. Critical realism is a philosophical well from which Marxists, Bourdieusians, Habermasians, Latourians, and even poststructuralists have drawn. The reason for this is simple. Critical realism is not an empirical program; it is not a methodology; it is not even truly a theory, because it explains nothing. It is, rather, a meta-theoretical position: a reflexive philosophical stance concerned with providing a philosophically informed account of science and social science which can in turn inform our empirical investigations. We might think of this in terms of three layers: our empirical data, the theories that we draw upon to explain our empirical data, and our metatheories—the theory and the philosophy behind our theories.

While critical realism may be a heterogeneous series of positions, there is one loose genetic feature which unites it as a metatheory: a commitment to formulating a properly post-positivist philosophy. This commitment is often cast in the terms of a normative agenda for science and social science: ontological realism, epistemic relativism, judgmental rationality, and a cautious ethical naturalism....

MORE: http://www.asatheory.org/current-newslet...al-realism

[RainbowUnicorn]

Emotions and Emergence in Sociology: The Critical-Realist Alternative
http://criticalrealismnetwork.org/2017/0...ternative/

EXCERPT:   “…emotions are in themselves generative mechanisms with special tendencies toward action, inaction, and communication. In their most immediate effects, emotions motivate approaching or avoiding behavior.”

* This is a guest blog post by Dr. Benjamin Lamb-Books. Benjamin is the author of Angry Abolitionists and the Rhetoric of Slavery: Moral Emotions in Social Movements (New York: Palgrave Macmillan). He obtained his PhD from the University of Colorado in 2015. He lives in Boulder with his wife Danielle.

The subjectivity of emotions has been grounds for their dismissal by social science in the past. Emotions are nothing if not experienced, so how one views the nature of experience matters greatly for this topic as well as how one assumes ‘mind’ and ‘body’ are related. Human emotions exist in a (microsociological) life-world domain of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. They are felt, and without this element of feeling-towards objects, they do not exist. Because of their ontological status as unobservable inner-worlds, positivists have used the label ‘emotivism’ to repudiate them as unreal (along with values, moral beliefs, and anything else based on ‘desires’; Foot 2001; cf. Gorski 2013).

Although subjective in nature, emotion is as real as consciousness or as any other social phenomena that is concept-dependent. [...] What’s wrong with the positivist approach to emotion in making such generalizations and predictions (or even ‘postdictions’)? Critical realism would identify at least three major fallacies...

MORE: http://criticalrealismnetwork.org/2017/0...ternative/

---

What is critical realism?
http://www.asatheory.org/current-newslet...al-realism

EXCERPT: Critical realism is a series of philosophical positions on a range of matters including ontology, causation, structure, persons, and forms of explanation. Emerging in the context of the post-positivist crises in the natural and social sciences in the 1970s and 1980s, critical realism represents a broad alliance of social theorists and researchers trying to develop a properly post-positivist social science. Critical realism situates itself as an alternative paradigm both to scientistic forms of positivism concerned with regularities, regression-based variables models, and the quest for law-like forms; and also to the strong interpretivist or postmodern turn which denied explanation in favor of interpretation, with a focus on hermeneutics and description at the cost of causation.
Defining critical realism is not an easy task. While there is a pool of scholars that critical realists often draw upon (e.g. Archer 1982, 1995; Bhaskar 1975, 1979; Elder-Vass 2010; Gorski 2008, 2013a; Lawson 1997; Little 2016; Porpora 2015; Sayer 2000; Steinmetz 1998, 2003, 2014; Vandenberghe 2015) there is not one unitary framework, set of beliefs, methodology, or dogma that unites critical realists as a whole. Instead, critical realism is much more like a series of family resemblances in which there are various commonalities that exist between the members of a family, but these commonalities overlap and crisscross in different ways. There is not one common feature that defines a family, instead, it is a heterogeneous assemblage of elements drawn from a relatively common “genetic” pool. Critical realism is a philosophical well from which Marxists, Bourdieusians, Habermasians, Latourians, and even poststructuralists have drawn. The reason for this is simple. Critical realism is not an empirical program; it is not a methodology; it is not even truly a theory, because it explains nothing. It is, rather, a meta-theoretical position: a reflexive philosophical stance concerned with providing a philosophically informed account of science and social science which can in turn inform our empirical investigations. We might think of this in terms of three layers: our empirical data, the theories that we draw upon to explain our empirical data, and our metatheories—the theory and the philosophy behind our theories.

While critical realism may be a heterogeneous series of positions, there is one loose genetic feature which unites it as a metatheory: a commitment to formulating a properly post-positivist philosophy. This commitment is often cast in the terms of a normative agenda for science and social science: ontological realism, epistemic relativism, judgmental rationality, and a cautious ethical naturalism....

MORE: http://www.asatheory.org/current-newslet...al-realism

Critical realism would identify at least three major fallacies...

prejudicial pre-qualifier to engender a bias by the innitiation of the process to uncover premis of subjective idiom ?

[Carol]

Does this research compliment the OP?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-na...-88972191/
According to a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the answer is grandmothers. “Grandmothering was the initial step toward making us who we are,” says senior author Kristen Hawkes, an anthropologist at the University of Utah. In 1997 Hawkes proposed the “grandmother hypothesis,” a theory that explains menopause by citing the under-appreciated evolutionary value of grandmothering. Hawkes says that grandmothering helped us to develop “a whole array of social capacities that are then the foundation for the evolution of other distinctly human traits, including pair bonding, bigger brains, learning new skills and our tendency for cooperation.”
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-na...GILO1Rq.99

[C C]

Does this research compliment the OP?

Perhaps, if it's intended as a potential example of a rival view (likewise arguable in terms of qualifying for that).

The emphasis of the critical realist guest-blog is on emotions as experience or feeling toward objects (being "real" in that respect), rather than just emotion treated as outward body behavior, relations or interactions (minus the personal states).

Interpretivism frequently confuses emotion talk, displays, and labels for the emotional experience. [...] But emotions are not social relationships, nor transpersonal field states, nor ligamental attachments between people, nor forcefields of power and energy. A general rule of thumb would help here: no minds, no emotions.

That so-called "interpretivism" view is crouched in sociology rather than biology. But still, to whatever extent the "grandmother hypothesis" depends upon any emotional compulsions, it would be a similar view of "something being done" in public space instead of the inner space of "something felt".

The origins are actually what the science articles dwells in regard to its "grandmother hypothesis". Of a genetic basis and natural selection for those tendencies of women living beyond menopause and serving a societal function of improving offspring survival rates. That biological provenance would produce any emotional-driven behavior directed at children, which again empirical science would only measure and utilize the outward characteristics / relational dynamics. With any subjective experience aspect to it simply being the verbal reports uttered (maybe facial expressions, too). The biological components and mechanisms are what are deemed effective, with the personal experiences of "feelings" making no causal contribution in that approach to explanation.

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[Syne]

What is critical realism?
http://www.asatheory.org/current-newslet...al-realism

EXCERPT: Critical realism is a series of philosophical positions on a range of matters including ontology, causation, structure, persons, and forms of explanation. Emerging in the context of the post-positivist crises in the natural and social sciences in the 1970s and 1980s, critical realism represents a broad alliance of social theorists and researchers trying to develop a properly post-positivist social science. Critical realism situates itself as an alternative paradigm both to scientistic forms of positivism concerned with regularities, regression-based variables models, and the quest for law-like forms; and also to the strong interpretivist or postmodern turn which denied explanation in favor of interpretation, with a focus on hermeneutics and description at the cost of causation.
Defining critical realism is not an easy task. While there is a pool of scholars that critical realists often draw upon (e.g. Archer 1982, 1995; Bhaskar 1975, 1979; Elder-Vass 2010; Gorski 2008, 2013a; Lawson 1997; Little 2016; Porpora 2015; Sayer 2000; Steinmetz 1998, 2003, 2014; Vandenberghe 2015) there is not one unitary framework, set of beliefs, methodology, or dogma that unites critical realists as a whole. Instead, critical realism is much more like a series of family resemblances in which there are various commonalities that exist between the members of a family, but these commonalities overlap and crisscross in different ways. There is not one common feature that defines a family, instead, it is a heterogeneous assemblage of elements drawn from a relatively common “genetic” pool. Critical realism is a philosophical well from which Marxists, Bourdieusians, Habermasians, Latourians, and even poststructuralists have drawn. The reason for this is simple. Critical realism is not an empirical program; it is not a methodology; it is not even truly a theory, because it explains nothing. It is, rather, a meta-theoretical position: a reflexive philosophical stance concerned with providing a philosophically informed account of science and social science which can in turn inform our empirical investigations. We might think of this in terms of three layers: our empirical data, the theories that we draw upon to explain our empirical data, and our metatheories—the theory and the philosophy behind our theories.

While critical realism may be a heterogeneous series of positions, there is one loose genetic feature which unites it as a metatheory: a commitment to formulating a properly post-positivist philosophy. This commitment is often cast in the terms of a normative agenda for science and social science: ontological realism, epistemic relativism, judgmental rationality, and a cautious ethical naturalism....

MORE: http://www.asatheory.org/current-newslet...al-realism

Just the latest guise of critical theory.

[Carol]

I do not understand what these words mean.

"The biological components and mechanisms are what are deemed effective, with the personal experiences of "feelings" making no causal contribution in that approach to explanation."

Those words are amusing as I contemplate the possibility of being dead in 4 years, and notice how believing I have ALS has changed everything. Only a few weeks ago my biggest concern was what I was going to do about a rent increase. Moving would disrupt my life, but not nearly as much as ALS would disrupt my life. It is doubtful if primitive people would have such concrete notions of their own death. I did not until now. It is one thing to know we age and die, and another to know a disease like ALS will radically change our lives, making our bodies unless and making us completely dependent on others, and making death an angel of mercy. It seems to me our dying is a very personal experience. The grandmother who was focused on caring for the children sits on the side of the path and says good bye to all those who cross the river on their journey back to the winter habitat. This is such a change in thinking and behaving. One to assume we have an important role to play and the other is to be at peace with the fact that we can no longer fulfill our role and that our lives are over. All that is left is to stop breathing.

I am not sure I have ALS, but I am rethinking my plan on living with granddaughter and her children. Yesterday I was thinking how much I could benefit my granddaughter and her children, and today I am thinking I should protect them from being too close to me and experiencing my deterioration. I have shifted from looking for a home for us to exploring my options of getting into assisted living. Is this a biological component and mechanism that can be deemed effective, with the personal experiences of "feelings" making no causal contribution in that approach to explanation? At the moment speaking of the human experience as a biological component and mechanism seems to miss the human experience. I don't think we can understand the human experience like we can understand the mechanics of a car.

[C C]

I do not understand what these words mean.

"The biological components and mechanisms are what are deemed effective, with the personal experiences of "feelings" making no causal contribution in that approach to explanation."

A short way to look at it is that a doctor or scientist can't really do anything with one's reports of "feelings" apart from finding their physical correlates in the brain / body and doing something mechanistic or medicinal (chemical interactions) with the illness or the research project from there. (This excludes psychological treatments that are verbal therapy oriented -- trying to readjust somebody with talk or dialogue or getting touch with their feelings or whatever disciplinary babble is sported therein.)

In a quick and "damn any inconsistencies" context, the whole point of physicalism is that physical items are taken be fundamental and the real causes of mental affairs. The latter are emergent (aren't universal or primal to the world) and can be variously viewed as epiphenomenal (no return effect on anything), denied as impotent illusion, or some kind of dual aspectism where they're just an alternative "appearance" of physical agencies that are the actual causes.

Those words are amusing as I contemplate the possibility of being dead in 4 years, and notice how believing I have ALS has changed everything. Only a few weeks ago my biggest concern was what I was going to do about a rent increase. Moving would disrupt my life, but not nearly as much as ALS would disrupt my life. It is doubtful if primitive people would have such concrete notions of their own death. I did not until now. It is one thing to know we age and die, and another to know a disease like ALS will radically change our lives, making our bodies unless and making us completely dependent on others, and making death an angel of mercy. It seems to me our dying is a very personal experience. The grandmother who was focused on caring for the children sits on the side of the path and says good bye to all those who cross the river on their journey back to the winter habitat. This is such a change in thinking and behaving. One to assume we have an important role to play and the other is to be at peace with the fact that we can no longer fulfill our role and that our lives are over. All that is left is to stop breathing.

I am not sure I have ALS, but I am rethinking my plan on living with granddaughter and her children. Yesterday I was thinking how much I could benefit my granddaughter and her children, and today I am thinking I should protect them from being too close to me and experiencing my deterioration. I have shifted from looking for a home for us to exploring my options of getting into assisted living. Is this a biological component and mechanism that can be deemed effective, with the personal experiences of "feelings" making no causal contribution in that approach to explanation? At the moment speaking of the human experience as a biological component and mechanism seems to miss the human experience. I don't think we can understand the human experience like we can understand the mechanics of a car.

Physicalists or neuro-scientists of one stripe or another (just whoever would specifically walk to the podium to declare one's subjective or experiential side of "feelings" to be impotent, irrelevant to a functional analysis of brain operation, etc)... Would hold that the feelings you're describing in personal terms as still correlating to the external appearance of body components and the scientific properties ascribed to them, and instrument-based measurements of the neural activity and the highlighting of the dynamic relationships between areas of cells. The internal aspect of "feelings" is useless to them apart from the verbal reports about them helping them to diagnose or proceed with their investigations.

They've got physical / objective correlates that the concept of "feelings" can be attached to, but that is not your experience of those "feelings" -- the internal or private nature of them. Also, they will treat with respect your belief in the latter and their importance, but that doesn't mean the philosophy or method of the scientific practice itself values them as wholly useful.

I'm also not saying that as individuals in their personal lives they're all physicalists or naturalists; but refer to the dictates they conform to as voluntary or hired puppets of their professions. It's that overarching "anti-subjective" system they're part of which has us figuratively under the microscope like an insect, not the distinct and varying personalities / beliefs of its members.

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[Carol]

How about groups of humans? Can humans benefit from the qualities of being humans? Are there life experiences that influence the human relationship? Is there something distinctly different from being a chimp and being a human? Something that is associated with feelings/emotions and the wiring of the human brain that gives meaning to those experiences and feelings?

I don't think the limited concepts you have expressed so far are adequate for explaining our reality that is not controlled by nature but has been created by humans. Health care is one example of a life changing force created by humans, not nature.

Tomorrow I will have three blood test that may determine a few choices I have to make regarding human matters. I think our understanding of such human decision making is important to our understanding of the reality we have created.