The Philosophy of MetaReality
The Philosophy of MetaReality: creativity, love and freedom is the third of three books elaborating Roy Bhaskars philosophy of metaReality, which appeared in rapid succession in 2002. A big, rich book teaming with ideas, The Philosophy of MetaReality is undoubtedly the magnum opus of Bhaskars spiritual turn.
Building on a radical new analysis of the self, human agency and society, Roy Bhaskar shows how the world of alienation and crisis we currently inhabit is sustained by the ground-state qualities of intelligence, creativity, love, a capacity for right-action and a potential for human self-realisation or fulfilment.
A new introduction to this edition by Mervyn Hartwig, founding editor of Journal of Critical Realism and editor of A Dictionary of Critical Realism (Routledge, 2007), describes the context, significance and impact of the philosophy of metaReality, and supplies an expert guide to its content. This book is essential reading for students and practitioners of both philosophy and the human sciences.
Roy Bhaskar is the originator of the philosophy of critical realism, and the author of many acclaimed and influential works including A Realist Theory of Science, The Possibility of Naturalism, Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, Dialectic: the pulse of freedom, Plato Etc., From Science to Emancipation and (with Mervyn Hartwig) The Formation of Critical Realism. He is an editor of Critical Realism: essential readings and Interdisciplinarity and Climate Change and was the founding chair of the Centre for Critical Realism. He is currently a World Scholar at the University of London Institute of Education.
Classical Texts in Critical Realism
Other titles in this series:
Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom
By Roy Bhaskar
Reclaiming Reality
A critical introduction to contemporary philosophy
By Roy Bhaskar
Plato Etc
The problems of philosophy and their resolution By Roy Bhaskar
Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation
By Roy Bhaskar
A Realist Theory of Science
By Roy Bhaskar
Dialectic
The pulse of freedom
By Roy Bhaskar
Reflections on MetaReality
Transcendence, emancipation and everyday life By Roy Bhaskar
From Science to Emancipation
Alienation and the actuality of enlightenment
By Roy Bhaskar
The Philosophy of
MetaReality
Creativity, love and freedom
ROY BHASKAR
First Edition published 2002
By Sage Publications
This edition first published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2012 Roy Bhaskar
The right of Roy Bhaskar to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bhaskar, Roy, 1944
The Philsophy of MetaReality: creativity, love, and freedom / Roy Bhaskar.
p. cm.(Classical texts in critical realism)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-50765-3 (hb : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-415-50766-0
(pb : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-203-12620-2 (eb : alk. paper) 1. Critical realism.
I. Title.
B1618.B473P45 2012 110dc23
2011036167
ISBN: 9780-415507653 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780-415507660 (pbk)
ISBN: 9780-203126202 (ebk)
Contents
Manifesto
m etaReality is a new philosophical position devised by Roy Bhaskar, originator of the influential, international and multidisciplinary philosophy of critical realism. It accepts but goes beyond critical realism, insofar as it pinpoints the reality of non-dual states and phases of being, showing how they underpin and sustain the totality of all forms of human, and indeed all, life. Understanding metaReality is to realise the limitations of the world of duality.
Critical realism already understands reality as structured and differentiated, as in process and changing, as a totality or whole and as containing human, potentially self-conscious, transformative agency. The world that humankind has made and which we currently inhabit is a world of duality: of unhappiness, oppression and strifemore especially, it is a world in which we are alienated from ourselves, each other, the activities in which we engage and the natural world we inhabit, currently hurtling into crisis and self-destruction.
The philosophy of metaReality describes the way in which this very world nevertheless depends upon, that is, is ultimately sustained by and exists only in virtue of the free, loving, creative, intelligent energy and activity of non-dual states of our being and phases of our activity. In becoming aware of this we begin the process of transforming and overthrowing the totality of structures of oppression, alienation, mystification and misery we have produced; and the vision opens up of a balanced world and of a society in which the free development and flourishing of each unique human being is understood to be the condition, as it is also the consequence, of the free development and flourishing of all.
In developing this vision the philosophy of metaReality confirms and re-presents many aspects of the vision of the great philosophical traditions of the past, but does so in a radically new way, apt for contemporary times. We begin this process of becoming free, that is, of expanding the zone of non-duality within our lives, by becoming aware of all the elements that currently constitute them and throwing off all those elements which are inconsistent with our free, creative, loving natures. In this process we come to realise that the very world of misery and destitution we have created itself contains and is sustained by the seeds of a society of abundance, peace and fulfilment, in which we are all free to express and fulfil our essential natures.
Introduction
Acronyms
CM | classical modernism |
CN | critical naturalism |
CR | critical realism |
DCR | dialectical critical realism |
EC | explanatory critique |
HM | high modernism |
M | the theory and practice of modernisation |
|
