Bio: (1944-2014) British philosopher of science. Roy Bhaskar got his Ph. D. at Oxford University and lectured at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Sussex. In A Realist Theory of Science (1975), He proposed an ontology that distinguishes three spheres:  the real, the actual, and the empiric. He states that there are structures or hidden mechanisms that we can empirically research in closed and open systems. He contended that the success of laboratory experiments in physical sciences is due to the creation of artificially closed systems that can be freely manipulated and where causal and deterministic relationships could be explored and isolated. Bhaskar argues that closed systems of this type are rare outside the laboratory and that kind of experimentation would not be applicable to social sciences. Critical idealism, in that sense, positions itself between idealism, on one side, and materialist empiricism, on the other side.

Bhaskar states that society consists of an enduring set of structures that are positioned in complex stratified relations. Those structures and their relations are not constant, as they are continually changing, either by being reproduced or inadvertently or consciously changed. The social structures are real and possess causal power, but those powers practically and conceptually function differently than in natural sciences. He introduces the transformational model of social activity. The structure has power because they create relational authority and rules that guide the actions of individuals, and that action creates further consequences and outcomes. In that sense, the actions of individuals are influenced by relational authority and rules that structures create, but those actions are also personalized by individual goals and also depersonalized because they create indiscriminate effects for individuals. That is why both structures and actions of an individual can not be only reduced to actors' perceptions or experiences of events or interactions.

Main works

A Realist Theory of Science (1975);

The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences (1979);

Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation (1987); 

Reclaiming Reality: A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy (1989);

Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom (1990);

Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom (1993);

Reflections on Meta-Reality: Transcendence, Enlightenment, and Everyday Life (2002).