This keynote address will be the speaker's personal reflection on his journey with critical realism intertwined with stories from his book Working with Critical Realism. A dominant theme will be the importance of grasping critical realism as a permissive 'full-blown’ philosophy (of science). From his experience, the concept of ‘underlabouring’ is not well-understood amongst those new to CR. This is unfortunate - and especially so in his field of Marxist social theory where unnecessary turf wars against CR are waged.

Another theme that links with turf wars centers on the question ‘can one be a critical realist?’

The keynote presentation will be taking seriously the invitation from the conference’s stated purpose, which is to provide an “opportunity to step back and reflect”.