Integrating Archer and Foucault

Abstract

This paper compares Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic critical realism and Michel Foucault’s implicit discursive realism. It argues that there is a surprisingly high degree of correspondence between the two social ontologies. Specifically, both ontologies suggest that there are three largely autonomous domains in operation: cultural, structural, and agentive. Yet, while each of these domains have a level of independence, yet they are also partially constituted by the content and form of the others. This paper discusses the potential to integrate the two approaches in such a way as to overcome their respective short-comings, namely the underdevelopment of culture in Archer’s ontology, and the underdevelopment of social agency in Foucault’s ontology.