Copy of Lecture 8_International Relations Theory: Theorizing Theory

Comments? Questions? Metaphysical observations?

Theory

(in a nutshell)

"A theory in politics and IR is a set of assumptions about knowledge, human nature, social life, and the conditions and organizing principles of a particular order that guide research questions and investigations into important political dilemmas."

- Prof. Anthony Lang

Components of Theories ...

... The need

for Theories.

Purpose of theories

Explanatory

Explain

• explain why, and under what circumstances, events happen or developments unfold
• Causal propositions, which can be tested against 'hard data'
• 'data' as separate from our perception of it

Constitutive

Explanatory

v.

(Descriptive or Empirical)

'data' as separate from our perception of it

Object of inquiry is not separate from the observer

Constitutive

Understand

(Interpretive)

Diving Deeper

Normative

ought to be...

(Prescriptive or Political)

Ontology

Etymologically Speaking

(From GREEK)

"being"

"discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science"

Prof. Robert O. Keohane

Epistemology

"My chief argument in this essay is that students of international institutions should direct their attention to the relative merits of two approaches, the rationalistic and the reflective. Until we understand the strengths and weaknesses of each, we will be unable to design research strategies that are sufficiently multifaceted to encompass our subject-matter [IR], and our empirical work will suffer accordingly."

This Meta stuff & IR

1988 ISA Presidential address

4th (sometimes 3rd) 'Great Debate'

Epistemological

debate

'Data' as separate from our perception of it

"Realist and neorealist theories are avowedly rationalistic, accepting what Herbert Simon has referred to as a "substantive" conception of rationality, characterizing 'behavior that can be abjudged objectively to be optimally adapted to the situation' (Simon, 1985:294) [...] the principle of substantive rationality generates hypotheses about actual human behavior only when it is combined with auxiliary assumptions about the structure of utility functions and the formation of expectations. Furthermore, rationality is always contextual, so a great deal depends on the situation posited at the beginning of the analysis." - Keohane, 381.

Constitutive

(Aristotle)

Science?!

Ontologically:

Rationalism

Epistemologically:

Reflectivism and Reflexivity - identifying foundations of knowledge and the implications of any findings.

Ontologically:

Distinct from the Natural World, each other and the phenomenon/Events of the world

Epistemologically:

Positivist & Rationalist

We come to know 'reality' through empirical observation ... this reality is the same for everyone.

=

Epistemology

Etymologically Speaking

Reflectivism

A Few Fundamental

questions of Ontology

Explanatory

object of analysis is not, and cannot be, separated from an 'observer'

(from Epistasthai)

"What can be said to exist?"

"What is a thing?"

"What are the meanings of being?"

"What are the various modes of being of entities?"

The Science or study of being

Discuss.

'Tis Metaphysics!

"know how to do, understand"

"Knowledge"

(From GREEK)

"discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science"

okay, but what does all this philosophical mumbo jumbo have to do with

Theory

In small groups, and without your notes, summarize what ontology and epistemology mean.

International Relations

?

and

How we know, as well as how we come to know, what we know...

Summarize the provided document in a single tweet.

basically, try to capture the 4th/3rd Great debate in 240 characters.

Feel free to use #hashtags, pictures, or GIF Files if you so choose.

?

Theorizing the nature of knowledge

Follow @chrispeys

Theorizing Theory:

Explanatory v. Constitutive Theory

Meta

Chris Peys

cjpp@st-andrews.ac.uk

4 March 2019