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On the Interpretation of International Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

John J. Weltman
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Extract

Methodological controversy and self-awareness have been endemic in international relations. Yet it is curious how little genuine debate this has engendered, if we understand by “debate” an arena in which arguments are joined rather than one in which assertions are juxtaposed. One has instead the sense of a number of separate guilds, each of which proceeds on the basis of its own indigenous premises, conscious of the work of other groups only as caricature. The various guilds, or intellectual groups, may be distinguished on the basis of their central notions as to the most important data in the field, the appropriate manner of investigating that data, and the character of the knowledge which can result. Occasionally exercises in critique or defense, ostensibly directed outward, are undertaken, but the effect of these sallies remains internal to the group of origin. One finds little evidence of essential change in major premises brought about in response to external criticism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 1982 , pp. 27 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1982

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References

1 For example, Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1970)Google Scholar;Toulmin, Stephen, Foresight and Understanding (New York, 1963)Google Scholar.

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4 Ibid., p. 20.

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15 See Weltman, “On the Obsolescence of War.”

16 Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (Reading, Massachusetts, 1979), pp. 41–59Google Scholar; also see Weltman, John J., Systems Theory in International Relations (Lexington, Massachusetts, 1973)Google Scholar.

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31 Ibid., pp. 129–93.

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