Philosophical framework
2.4 Dialectical Critical Realism
2.4.1 The MELD schema
Dialectical Critical Realism presents Bhaskar’s second wave where the ontology developed in Basic Critical Realism is deepened and enriched through a focus on absence. As Norrie (2010) explained, an examination of non-being and negativity can deepen our understanding and conceptualisation of being.
The MELD schema provides the framework of Dialectical Critical Realism (Bhaskar 1993) and is a useful conceptualisation of transformation and change (Schudel 2012).
It consists of the following four levels: the first ‘moment’ (1M) examines non-identity, the second ‘edge’ (2E) examines negativity, the third ‘level’ (3L) examines open totality, and the fourth ‘dimension’ (4D) examines agency/ praxis (Bhaskar 2010).
Each level is elaborated below.
The first moment (non-identity)
The first moment, non-identity, builds on the ontological perspective developed in Basic Critical Realism. Non-identity is the hidden difference and differentiation that exists in the world. It includes the idea of a structured world, made up of both natural and social objects, where emergent generative mechanisms, that may not be empirically manifest, exert causal power irrespective of our understanding of them (Mingers 2006; Norrie 2010). Emergence is an important concept in non-identity
because it suggests how things are connected but have real differences, where a structure or mechanism is not reducible to the thing from which it emerged (Mingers 2011).
The second edge (negativity)
The second edge, negativity, explores the role of absence in change and temporality.
Bhaskar (1993) argued that absence/non-being has ontological priority and is of greater consequence than presence/being (Norrie 2010). This is because the presence of something is powerfully shaped by what is lacking: “Absence always exercises its hidden power through shaping what is, and making it move on, become what it is not”
(Norrie 2010: 38).
Absence is a useful concept in understanding change because in a completely compacted space, nothing can move and hence change (Bhaskar 1993). Absence, where a thing becomes something else (“becoming”) and in the process negates what it was before (“begoing”) (Norrie 2010), is therefore strongly linked to causality and lies
“at the heart of causal mechanisms” (Mingers 2011: 15). Mingers (2011) named four categories of absence: i) absence as a noun where something not existing has causal effect on what is present e.g. an unpaid bill; ii) absence as a verb, including absenting a presence (e.g. removing dirt on clothes) or absenting an absence (e.g. putting in recycling bins where there has been nothing); iii) ‘process-in-product’, where a process (e.g. erosion) leads to an absence (e.g. loss of fertile soil), and iv) ‘product-in-process’
where a structure (e.g. an industry) has causal effect in producing an absence (e.g. a lack of a healthy river). When attempting to effect change, it is useful to identify and absent the structures and mechanisms that prevent desirable things from becoming (e.g.
economic structures that prevent eco-justice) as well as identify what is absent (e.g. the lack of effective legislation to bring the culpable to account) (Bhaskar 1993; Norrie 2010). In these cases, processes of absenting are important in bringing about emancipation, which Bhaskar (1989: 6) describes as the move from “unneeded, unwanted, and oppressive to needed, wanted and empowering” purposes.
However, a “primordial failing of western philosophy” has been a denial of absence, which Bhaskar called ‘ontological monovalence’ (Bhaskar 1993). Plato, Parmenides (a pre-Socratic philosopher) and Aristotle promoted this denial and the consequent philosophical tradition embedded “in structured power relations”, which Bhaskar called power2 or “generalised master-slave relations” (Norrie 2010: 46). These are power relations where one gets what one wants to the detriment of others, and which result from “structures of exploitation, domination, subjugation and control” (Bhaskar 1993: 402). This compares to power1 relations where a person affects change according
to his/her needs and/or desires without intentionally harming others. To deny absence is to entrench the status quo because it denies the possibility for real change in a world dominated by power2 relations (Bhaskar 1993).
The third level (open-totality)
The third level, open totality, deepens the understanding of how things are distinct, different and stratified, while also connected to form a totality: it “is the place where different things are seen in their connection, and are viewed as a whole” (Norrie 2010:
86). The aim is to build a more comprehensive totality where being is “bound together”
in an internally related, “real, open, unfinished whole” (Bhaskar 2002: 249). Because of the absenting processes of becoming and begoing, reality is a totality in motion (Norrie 2010). This points to Bhaskar’s nuanced use of totality as open totality, partial totality and sub-totality, which Norrie (2010: 90) explained in some depth:
Sub-totality is the term he uses to denote the splitting, fracturing and broken nature of the whole... Partial totality is the broader term…and includes sub-totality. It indicates both the necessity of thinking totality, and the impossibility of thinking its completeness in an open, diffracted world. In such a world, change and the emergence of the new is always possible, so the totality is incomplete. This means that while we need to think in terms of totality, there is a sense in which we cannot, and the idea of partial totality fills the resulting gap.
Constellationality is an important concept that refers to how distinct things are embedded with and relate to each other on the same or different levels to constitute a totality (Norrie 2010). Emergence helps understand how this embeddedness comes about where in this totality the whole both produces and enables its parts and is only able to operate through its parts (Norrie 2010: 16). Totality is therefore about examining both the parts and how they relate to form a whole, articulates duals in terms of their difference and connection, and shows “how both sides intra-act” in embedded relationships (Norrie 2010: 101). For example, ontology and epistemology are different, yet related where they are two distinctive parts of the same whole:
“knowing is at the same time a subset of being, and the study or theory of being (ontology) is already epistemically committed. So, there is a complex, co-embedded, constellational relationship between the terms, not a clear analytical distinction between epistemology and ontology” (Norrie 2010: 17). This compares to dualisms that are typically presented in philosophical thought as one-sided contradictions that are displaced from their overall context and therefore “detract…from wholeness”
(Norrie 2010: 105). Bhaskar (1993) associated these dualisms with different kinds of exploitative social relations, summarised as power2, or generalised master-slave-type
relations (Norrie 2010). It is these kinds of power2 relations that Bhaskar argued underpin traditional philosophical dichotomies (Norrie 2010).
The fourth dimension (agency)
The fourth dimension explores how people act within the totality and examines the role of agency in bringing about transformation (Norrie 2010). Questions asked are whether transformative praxis can lead to emancipation and if it is possible to achieve an envisaged totality in particular space/time contexts. Agency is viewed as ethical practice and it is argued that knowledge about the world can lead to deeper understanding of moral truth within it (Norrie 2010). It therefore challenges the prevailing view (termed the naturalistic fallacy) that there is an unbridgeable gap between fact and value, and theory and practice (Norrie 2010).
Bhaskar identified three foundational aspects of ethical agency required to transform the world, namely freedom, trust, and relations of solidarity (Norrie 2010). He developed an elaborate, logical argument as to why these are foundational. In simplified form, the argument is as follows: Humans by nature desire the freedom to meet their basic needs. This freedom is the basis for human flourishing. Attainment of this freedom (“self-orientated desire”) is dependent on trust and solidarity with others (“other-orientated solidarity”) as we live in an interdependent world (Norrie 2010:
140). These three ethical foundations of freedom, trust, and solidarity with others, when fully realised through their universalisation (where there is a progression from wanting one’s individual needs met to wanting all people’s needs met) will lead to the
‘eudaimonic society’ (Bhaskar 1993). This is a society expressing the “best of moral worlds” (Norrie 2010: 17) in “a state of fully achieved freedom” (Norrie 2010:138) where “the freedom of each is achieved by the freedom of all” (Norrie 2010: 17) and
“the freedom of each is a condition for the freedom of all” (Norrie 2010: 141).
It is clear that this is an ideal world and raises the question of whether the gap between the actual and the ideal is too huge (Norrie 2010). Bhaskar explored the dialectical relationship between the eudaimonistic society based on an ideal, universalised ethical practice (where we could be), and the reality we experience where power2 relations are entrenched (what we currently are). In this kind of society, the flourishing of the powerful/master often depends on the subjection of the powerless/slave through dominant structures that lead to absences with negative impact, which in turn sustain the dominant structures (Norrie 2010). Ethical agency is therefore aimed at removing absences so as to disrupt power2 relations and enable a society in which the flourishing of each will lead to the flourishing of all in a continually emerging open totality.