Open AccessScientific Realism as a Meta‐Theory of International Politics
Author(s) -
Chernoff Fred
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
international studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.897
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1468-2478
pISSN - 0020-8833
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2478.00229
Subject(s) - conventionalism , realism , scientific realism , international relations , epistemology , international relations theory , politics , scientific theory , post realism , sociology , critical realism (philosophy of perception) , set (abstract data type) , philosophy of science , metatheory , social science , positive economics , political science , law , philosophy , computer science , economics , programming language
The recent increase in interest in scientific realist foundations for international relations theory, spearheaded by Wendt in various works, most fully articulated in his Social Theory of International Politics , and supported by a number of other authors, has brought to the fore a set of related issues in the philosophy of the social sciences. The advocacy of scientific realism in the international relations literature has largely taken the form of attacks on various nonscientific realist foundational theories. Consequently, the success of the arguments for scientific realism depends in large measure on the accuracy of the characterizations of the competing views. This paper argues that Wendt and others have misrepresented the challengers and have thus overstated the superiority of scientific realism. The paper further considers the aims and purposes of providing meta‐theoretical foundations for IR theories, and argues that when the alternative accounts are properly described, the purposes are better satisfied by the latter and, in particular, by a version of Duhemian conventionalism.