Reclaiming Reality:A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy

This series of linked essays is an accessible intervention in the current debates about realism which are of increasing significance on both sides of the Atlantic. It is designed to underlabour both for the sciences, especially the human sciences, and for the projects of human emancipation which such sciences may come to inform.

Elaborating his own highly original critical realist perspective on society, nature, science and philosophy itself. Roy Bhaskar shows how this new perspective can be used to undermine currently fashionable ideologies of the right and, at the same time, to clear the ground for a reinvigorated left. Reclaiming Reality contains powerful critiques of some of the most important schools of thought and thinkers of our time — from Bachelard and Feyerabend to Rorty and Habermas. It advances novel and convincing resolutions of many traditional philosophical problems.

Providing a straightforward and stimulating introduction to current debates in the philosophy of science and of social theory, for the interested lay reader and student alike, this book will be of particular value for all those concerned with the socialist emancipatory project and the renaissance of the Marxist theoretical tradition.