It would not be inaccurate to say that Yosef Lapid's piece "The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post- Positivist Era" has given me a terrible headache. I've never had to look up so many isms in my life. We had perspectivism and positivism and paradigmatism and dogmatism and countless others. It takes a minute to understand one line of this article so I can see why we had such a short reading in this session. I will, however, try my best to analyse it.
This piece by Yosef Lapid is a metatheoretical analysis about something new on the IR horizon. This something is called the Third Debate. It talks about the fall of the positivist-empiricist promise that entailed a move for the social sciences to strict empirical methods and aimed to achieve one overarching theory for all the social sciences. Basically, it was a game of philosophy avoidance that soon broke down thanks to strides made in sociology which then spread to other disciplines. Based on a Kuhnian argument that no paradigmatic consensus was the equivalent of no progress, the positivists attempted to achieve ine single conviction for International Relations.
The era of post positivism heralds something entirely different. It talks about how convergence is not necessary for social sciences because diversity of opinion is good. Lapid focuses on the optimistic view to this paradigm shift (Kuhn prevails again). He says that, even though some say that IR is confused because too much debate, there is at least a better ground for theorizing because there is a rigorous ontological, epistemological and axiological effort that is being ushered in by post positivism.
The third debate shows signs of a progression of knowledge itself in IR by providing more meta analysis than the fixed assumptions and premises of positivism. Certain themes in this debate are very promising. There is not as much confusion in post positivism as people might think. There are at least three common themes throughout this new debate that encompasses all the social sciences. These are paradigmatism, perspectivism and relativism.
Paradigmatism says that only long lived, large scale paradigms can be considered as basic units in theory. The rest is all relative. It creates a 3D space for knowledge by bringing in phenomenic, thematic and analytic axes i.e. empirical content, hypotheses and assumptions. The importance of considering new units and tools of appraisal in the shape of whole constructs and paradigms is great. It signifies that IR is attempting to evolve, that it is trying to change its very essence. The discourse is not about achieving paradigmatic consensus, but rather it is about the choice of analytic frameworks.
Perspectivism implies a shift from premises and assumptions to epistemology and context. This is my favourite because it's something I have strongly believed in for many years. It is good to challenge set premises and assumptions because theories cannot be made on shoddy foundations. The ontology and meta-analysis that goes into theories now is a much more accurate framework than what had been prescribed earlier.
Relativism talks about pluralism of both values and methods. The debate between relativism and teleology is a very old one. The earliest instance I can name is the debate between Socrates and the Sophists. The Sophists argued for relative truths in everything we study whereas Socrates was the proponent of one absolute truth to everything. Relativism is an encouragement of healthy debate and criticism that is crucial for an evolving social science.
As for the drawbacks of post positivism, Lapid agrees that the debate may descend into utter anarchy and confusion if applied in the wrong way so great care should be taken in a post positivist paradigm. However, the promise for evolution and self reflection in IR is irresistible since it has been the least self reflexive of the social sciences. This piece by Lapid does make good arguments for being optimistic about post positivism but his writing is too obfuscated to make any sense of it.
This piece by Yosef Lapid is a metatheoretical analysis about something new on the IR horizon. This something is called the Third Debate. It talks about the fall of the positivist-empiricist promise that entailed a move for the social sciences to strict empirical methods and aimed to achieve one overarching theory for all the social sciences. Basically, it was a game of philosophy avoidance that soon broke down thanks to strides made in sociology which then spread to other disciplines. Based on a Kuhnian argument that no paradigmatic consensus was the equivalent of no progress, the positivists attempted to achieve ine single conviction for International Relations.
The era of post positivism heralds something entirely different. It talks about how convergence is not necessary for social sciences because diversity of opinion is good. Lapid focuses on the optimistic view to this paradigm shift (Kuhn prevails again). He says that, even though some say that IR is confused because too much debate, there is at least a better ground for theorizing because there is a rigorous ontological, epistemological and axiological effort that is being ushered in by post positivism.
The third debate shows signs of a progression of knowledge itself in IR by providing more meta analysis than the fixed assumptions and premises of positivism. Certain themes in this debate are very promising. There is not as much confusion in post positivism as people might think. There are at least three common themes throughout this new debate that encompasses all the social sciences. These are paradigmatism, perspectivism and relativism.
Paradigmatism says that only long lived, large scale paradigms can be considered as basic units in theory. The rest is all relative. It creates a 3D space for knowledge by bringing in phenomenic, thematic and analytic axes i.e. empirical content, hypotheses and assumptions. The importance of considering new units and tools of appraisal in the shape of whole constructs and paradigms is great. It signifies that IR is attempting to evolve, that it is trying to change its very essence. The discourse is not about achieving paradigmatic consensus, but rather it is about the choice of analytic frameworks.
Relativism talks about pluralism of both values and methods. The debate between relativism and teleology is a very old one. The earliest instance I can name is the debate between Socrates and the Sophists. The Sophists argued for relative truths in everything we study whereas Socrates was the proponent of one absolute truth to everything. Relativism is an encouragement of healthy debate and criticism that is crucial for an evolving social science.
As for the drawbacks of post positivism, Lapid agrees that the debate may descend into utter anarchy and confusion if applied in the wrong way so great care should be taken in a post positivist paradigm. However, the promise for evolution and self reflection in IR is irresistible since it has been the least self reflexive of the social sciences. This piece by Lapid does make good arguments for being optimistic about post positivism but his writing is too obfuscated to make any sense of it.
Excellent post! I think you may have slayed your white whale through this piece. You're right that post-positivism can be more easily conceptualized through paradigmatism, perspectivism, and relativism. And perspectivism is great in that it grounds arguments in a particular logic.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, good post and I am almost caught up with the blogs :)