The continuing relevance of old debates

Abstract

How carefully my paper was read is in question. Some of the claims made both mystify and dismay. There is also a general bemusement as to why I wanted to reopen this debate but some of the responses suggest that it was indeed needed. Critical realism usefully opened up a number of important methodological issues. These included ones of abstraction, internal relations, emergence and the nature of causation. The Marxist position on these was always quite different and has received very little attention in the geographic literature. The distinctions are reiterated in this response because the critical comments seem to indicate a continuing bafflement. A critique of critical realist research in which the author was involved is then described to demonstrate the difference in approaches to the question of causality. The author rejects the view that these issues should no longer be of interest in human geography.