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Beyond (Post)Positivism: The Missed Promises of Systemic Pragmatism

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Hamati-Ataya, Inanna  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3735-8834

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.

Description

Keywords

4408 Political Science, 44 Human Society

Journal Title

International Studies Quarterly

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0020-8833
1468-2478

Volume Title

56

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)