Lapid, "The Third Debate"

Conflict, an innate, inseparable part of human nature that is known to have been around since the time of Adam, and is believed in some religions and mythologies to have started as far back as Cain and Abel. Where there is man, there has to be conflict; if there isn’t physical conflict, then there will surely, at least be conflict between ideas and philosophies. After the First World War, there came a flurry of conflicting ideologies, which formed quite a few debates, and found political philosophers taking sides, arguing with great zeal and vigor. Lapid however, while people were still fighting over the realism-idealism debate, or the behaviorism- scientism debate, came forth with yet another debate in, “The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post- Positivist Era” adding a lot of new ‘Isms’ to the mix.

                Lapid essentially argues that in the post-positivist world, the fall of positivist-empiricist methodology, that required limiting the study of IR to strictly empirical methods, might actually not have been a bad thing for the growth in the study of international relations. Diverse philosophies and ideas, believes Lapid, are healthier, essential rather, for the evolution of the field of International Relations, rather than a single theory, unanimous and overarching. Lapid backs his argument by the concepts of, ‘Paradigmatism’, “Perspectivism’, and ‘Relativism’ which form the basis for his Debate. He believes that multi-tiered constructs should be appreciated, and diversity and flexibility only makes ideas healthier, rather a hard theory trying to encompass all.

                This ‘Third Great Debate’ though seemingly advocating for the post-positivist school of thought, still celebrates positivist-empiricist ideas if they aren’t exceedingly rigid, and Lapid, with his debate, has stopped a few older debates, yet, has started a lot of new ones.