This article employs the basic tenets of critical realism to provide a philosophical foundation for understanding and resolving the dualisms of activity theory. Its argument follows in four parts. First I develop an immanent critique that shows the problems within activity theory; it reveals that several dualisms were present from the onset, and further that an implicit ontology allows activity theorists to presuppose critical realism in practice. I claim that the historical development of activity theory is marked by attempts to (...) resolve contradictions, which are signalling devices pointing to the need for theoretical expansion. To shed light on attempts to mend dualisms, I then introduce the notion of a ‘patch’ because it functions as a mechanism that sustains dualisms and gaps in practice. An omissive critique identifies the key omitted element that causes the dualisms; namely, the omission of a critique of Humean philosophy and classical empiricism. Finally,, after effectively isolating and explaining the source of dualisms, I prepare the ground for a protoexplanatory critique to rectify them. (shrink)

This article makes the case for a contemporary philosophy of Islam to help Muslims surmount the challenges of postmodernity and to transcend the hiatuses and obstacles that Muslims face in their interaction and relationships with non-Muslims. It argues that the philosophy of critical realism so fittingly underlabours for the contemporary interpretation, clarification and conceptual deepening of Islamic doctrine and practice as to suggest and necessitate the development of a distinctive Islamic critical realist philosophy, social and educational theory and world-view, specifically (...) suited for this purpose. This approach is called Islamic critical realism. (shrink)

It is a contradictory argument to say on the one hand that social systems are always open and that there is nothing between closed and open systems, and on the other that there are pseudo-closed systems. Further, Petter Næss has shown that multivariate regression analysis can be used to help uncover mechanisms, something that should be impossible if social systems were always open. He has in addition found that the meaningful activity of urban planning requires for its existence the possibility (...) to make crude, qualitative predictions, which should also be impossible for the same reason. Critical realists therefore need to rethink the whole question of closed and open social systems. (shrink)

This paper argues that the warning: mind the gap, is useful in allowing us to think about the nature of the agent, the nature of knowledge, and the nature of reality. To this objective, I bring attention to various gaps: the inherent gap of the agent, the gap between ontology and epistemology, and the gaps between the domains of the real, the actual, and the empirical. In order to shed light on the nature of the agent, I draw upon Žižek’s (...) reading of the inherent gap of the subject or agent as divided from within. Here, I utilize the notion of the fallacy of de-agentification to hypothesize what occurs when such gap is collapsed. In order to shed light on the nature of knowledge and reality, I draw upon the philosophy of critical realism to introduce the gap between ontology and epistemology and the gaps between the domains of the real, the actual, and the empirical, and the fallacies that result when these gaps are collapsed; namely, what in critical realists terms is known as the epistemic fallacy and the fallacy of actualism. Last, I draw upon Jameson’s model of interpretation in literary theory consisting of three interpretative horizons—the political horizon, the horizon of the deadlock, and the horizon of history—to bring attention via various examples from narratives and film to the perspective that sees that, unlike the application of these three horizons in literary texts, the ultimate universalizing horizon of history in reality, as the future, is open. (shrink)