critical realism, rationality and tourism knowledge：批判现实主义，理性与旅游知识.pdf

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 41, pp. 110–129, 2013 0160-7383/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain /locate/atoures /10.1016/j.annals.2012.12.006 CRITICAL REALISM, RATIONALITY AND TOURISM KNOWLEDGE Vincent Platenkamp University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands David Botterill James Cook University, Australia University of Wales, UK University of Westminster, UK NHTV University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands Abstract: Positivism has been criticized on legitimate grounds for its absolutist and universal- ist claims. The tightening methodological binds that accompanied Positivism have been adequately criticized in the tourism academy. However, since the fruitful and enriching reaction of the interpretive, linguistic and critical turns another imbalance seems to penetrate tourism knowledge production, the disappearance of reality and the concomitant spread of a paralyzing relativism. Critical realism will be proposed as the route to regain ontological aware- ness within tourism scholarship, with the mild reservation that reality is not completely rational. Hegel’s equation of reality with rationality will be rejected through an analysis of the irrational in the social world and by reference to the Dionysian impulse. Keywords: constructionism, crit- ical realism, reality, irrationality, ontology, epistemology. 2012 Elsevie