Basic critical realist concepts

Abstract

Chapter 2 sets out basic critical realism concepts to show how they help to resolve the problems examined in Chapter 1. The concepts or themes include: the need to separate ontology-being from epistemology-thinking; the transitive and intransitive; the semiotic triangle; open and closed systems and demi-regs; the possibility of naturalism; natural necessity or the three levels of reality, the empirical, actual and real; a detailed example of the three levels in Mexican neonatal research; retroduction; creative power1 and coercive power2; time sequencing; political economy; the search for generative mechanisms; dichotomies, and policy.