Critical realism advances historical knowledge

The argument

Critical realism is the best research philosophy because of how it advances historical knowledge. This is because critical realism understands that humans are subjective beings who cannot understand the ‘real’ world for what it objectively is. A person will always see the world from their individual point of view which is subjective. Therefore, what they interpret as reality is not universal, and it does not represent the real world. In order for us to study and understand history, we have to understand that there is no one single version of history. Rather, history should be studied from multiple perspectives in order to understand what happened because everyone has a different interpretation of the event. By bringing all the interpretations together, a much more comprehensive version of events is developed. This is what critical realism strives for – to acknowledge that we cannot see the ‘real’ world and therefore should look for multiple perspectives to understand as much as we can. 
 Critical realism is important for the advancement of historical knowledge because it stresses the individual perspective and therefore seeks out multiple perspectives. This ensures that all sides of history are told. In addition, it is reflexive, meaning that it is continuously evolving because it knows that we cannot know the real objective truth of any event.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics note the argument as stated conflates critical realism with a thoroughgoing perspectivism — 'we can never see the real world, only perspectives' is closer to constructivism, whereas critical realism actually holds that a mind-independent reality exists and can be approached through fallible inference. On its own terms, gathering multiple perspectives is not unique to critical realism (interpretivism and pragmatism do the same), and 'best research philosophy' depends on the research question: positivist methods suit measurable causal questions better. So the account both mischaracterises critical realism and overgeneralises from a single virtue.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The claim that we can never perceive the real world describes constructivism or strong interpretivism; critical realism actually affirms a mind-independent reality knowable through fallible inference, so the premise mislabels the philosophy. [Rejecting C] Seeking multiple perspectives is shared by interpretivism and pragmatism, and the 'best' philosophy depends on the research question, so this virtue does not establish critical realism as best overall.