Introduction

The idea for this book came initially as a response to a challenge issued by Hank Starn, the editor of the leading theoretical journal in psychology, Theory & Psychology. In a special edition of that journal (2001) devoted to social constructionism and its critics, Starn echoed calls for a "psychology of practical significance", and remarked that, amongst the various candidates, realism did not appear to be a strong competitor. Starn complained that "the lack of a large, explicitly realist body of work in psychology" meant that "once one argues for a psychology that is explicitly realist (as opposed to constructionist, phenomenalist, instrumentalist, etc.), we are suddenly left with very little to go on" (p. 295).