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Social scientific inquiry and meta-theoretical fantasy: the case of International Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2011

JOHN G. GUNNELL
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Abstract

The turn to the philosophy of scientific realism as a meta-theory for the study of International Relations manifests a reluctance to confront the basic problem of the relationship between philosophy and social scientific inquiry. Despite the realists' rejection of traditional empiricism, and particularly the instrumentalist account of scientific theory, the enthusiasm for realism neglects many of the same problems that, more than a generation earlier, were involved in the social scientific embrace of positivism. One of these problems was a lack of understanding regarding the character and history of the philosophy of natural science and its relationship and applicability to the study of social phenomena. Proponents of realism have also neither adequately articulated and defended realism as a philosophical position, and distinguished it from other perspectives, nor confronted the fundamental challenge to realism and other foundationalist philosophies which has been mounted by the contemporary critique of traditional representational philosophy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 1447 - 1469
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2011

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