Beyond (Post)Positivism: The Missed Promises of Systemic Pragmatism
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Authors
Publication Date
2012-06Journal Title
International Studies Quarterly
ISSN
0020-8833
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Volume
56
Issue
2
Pages
291-305
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Hamati-Ataya, I. (2012). Beyond (Post)Positivism: The Missed Promises of Systemic Pragmatism. International Studies Quarterly, 56 (2), 291-305. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00710.x
Abstract
This paper explores Pragmatism's potential for transcending the antagonism between positivism and post-positivism, through the work of Morton Kaplan, who combines a Pragmatist theory of knowledge with a systems theory of world politics. A reconstruction of Kaplan's synoptic philosophy shows how Pragmatism can help us move beyond the dual fallacy of truth as correspondence and truth as self-consciousness, to a non-foundationalist epistemology that acknowledges the historicity of knowing without annihilating the realism of the common world we live in. Moving from the realm of knowledge to the realm of judgment, this paper also reconstructs Kaplan's moral analysis, thereby revealing its significance for IR's renewed concern for the problems of values and reflexivity.
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00710.x
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/282784
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