The Individual Moments of Dialectic

Abstract

This chapter introduces the reader to Bhaskar’s four moments of dialectic (1993) – the foundation of an ontological dialectic of capital importance for M. Archer’s social ontology (Archer MS, Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach. Cambridge University Press, 1995; Culture and agency. Cambridge University Press, 1998; Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press, 2003; Making our way through the world. Cambridge University Press, 2007) and the social sciences (including management science) more generally. This being so, the chapter can be read as an introduction to Chap. 3 which explicates the four groups of DTF “thought forms” that are the epistemological equivalent of Bhaskar’s moments. Indirectly, this chapter is also an introduction to Chap. 4, a presentation of the methodological tools used in working with DTF empirically for the sake of determining maturity of thought, measured in terms of fluidity of dialectical thinking both in terms of the four moments and their associated epistemological thought forms.