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ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃۧۨۦۙ۠ٷڷ۠ٷۡٮ
ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃۣۧۢۨۤۦۗۧۖ۩ۑ
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ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃڷۙۧ۩ڷۣۚڷۧۡۦۙے
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ٱےېۍψېٮٱڷІٲیۆІЂٮψ
ڽҢھڷҒڷҢڿھڷۤۤڷۃھڽڼھڷۺۦٷ۩ۢٷЂڷҖڷڽڼڷۙ۩ۧۧٲڷҖڷہڿڷۙۡ۩ۣ۠۔ڷҖڷۧۙۘ۩ۨۑڷ۠ٷۣۢۨٷۢۦۙۨۢٲڷۣۚڷ۪۫ۙۙې
ھڽڼھڷۺۦٷ۩ۢٷЂڷڼڽڷۃۣۙۢ۠ۢڷۘۙۜۧ۠ۖ۩ێڷۃڼڿڿڼڼڼڽڽҢڼڽھڼڿھڼۑҖۀڽڼڽғڼڽڷۃٲۍө
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ۃۙ۠ۗۨۦٷڷۧۜۨڷۙۨۗڷۣۨڷۣ۫ٱ
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ڼڿڿڼڼڼڽڽҢڼڽھڼڿھڼۑҖۀڽڼڽғڼڽۃۣۘڷڽҢھҢҒڿھڷۤۤڷۃہڿڷۃۧۙۘ۩ۨۑڷ۠ٷۣۢۨٷۢۦۙۨۢٲڷۣۚڷ۪۫ۙۙېڷғۺۨۢٷۨۦۙۗ
ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃڷۣۧۢۧۧۡۦۙێڷۨۧۙ۩ۥۙې
ڿڽڼھڷۦۤۆڷھڽڷۣۢڷڽہڽғۂۀڽҢғھڽғۂھڽڷۃۧۧۙۦۘۘٷڷێٲڷۃۑٲېۛҖۦۣۘۛۙғۦۖۡٷۗ۠ۧғٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞ҖҖۃۤۨۨۜڷۣۡۦۚڷۘۙۘٷۣۣ۠ۢ۫ө
Review of International Studies (2012), 38, 235–251
doi:10.1017/S0260210511000660
6 2012 British International Studies Association
Theorising theorising: Critical Realism and
the quest for certainty
BENJAMIN HERBORTH
Benjamin Herborth is Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations and
International Organization at the University of Groningen. Recent publications include
‘Political Community Formation beyond the Nation-State’, in Gideon Baker and Jens Bartelson
(eds), The Future of Political Community (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 175–203; ‘The Public
Sphere’, in Robert A. Denemark (ed.), The International Studies Encyclopaedia (Oxford: Wiley
& Sons, 2010) with Oliver Kessler; and ‘method enstreit–methodenzwang–method enfetisch’,
Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 18:2 (2011), pp. 137–51.
Why care?
Discussing matters of philosophy of science within the boundaries of an academic
field, which seems to have a fairly well-delineated subject matter, a carefully circumscribed universe of cases to struggle with, is a distinct deviation from normal science.
Yet, meta-theoretical quarrels have been lurking on the boundaries of International
Relations (IR) ever since the field constituted itself as a relatively autonomous academic enterprise.1 Never at the centre of the discipline, philosophy of science debates
have still been among the most tenacious ones, so there doesn’t seem to be a need
to justify or legitimate such intellectual pursuits. Suffice it to say that among the
many niches of International Relations as a discipline there may also be one dealing with meta-theoretical inquiry.
Such a pluralist take seems laudable at the first glance, yet myopic at the second
one. It is too easy to simply explain away the conspicuous presence of meta-theoretical
interests among students of International Relations by somehow trying to integrate
it into the canon of legitimate scholarly activities. To be sure, any field of study
needs to systematically address its basic theoretical and methodological presumptions. For the most part, however, this is done in textbooks and methodological
primers, which tend to deal with such issues in a self-consciously preliminary way.
‘We need to address this, because it is generally considered to be important, so let’s
get over it and get to work on real issues as quickly as possible.’ A genuine interest
in meta-theoretical affairs as they pertain to a particular, substantive field of study
is typically of a different character. Rather than a routinised activity, which could
easily be integrated into a standardised model of scientific professionalisation, where
an increasingly complex division of labour ultimately devises a corner for metatheoretical reflections, a turn to meta-theory signifies a more fundamental unease
with precisely those patterns of routinised conduct. The enterprise of problematising, unpacking, and reframing fundamental ‘ontological’ and ‘epistemological’
1
See esp. Hans Morgenthau, Scientific Man Versus Power Politics (Chicago, IL: Chicago University
Press, 1946).
235
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Benjamin Herborth
questions thrives on the presumption that there is something wrong with the way in
which these questions are typically dealt with. Debating meta-theory within the context of International Relations is thus a deliberate, critical deviation from practices of
normal science. Meta-theory is, in other words, a symptom of crisis. It becomes an
issue for students of international politics only to the extent that routines of everyday
research practice are considered to be problematic.2
So what precisely is the trouble with normal science? Even among critical and
scientific realists, who have been most outspoken in pressing for the need of metatheoretical inquiry and, in fact, successfully established themselves as the gravitational centre of such debate, there does not seem to be a common denominator.
Rather, positions seem to oscillate between two poles, which allow for a variety of
creative combinations. The quest for ‘better stories on world politics’3 can, on the
one hand, be read as a purely scientific project. Philosophy of science might simply
be a tool to produce better theories of international politics – either by directly exerting some positive influence, or, indirectly, by targeting the hurdles which stand in
the way of better accounts. The latter argument, in particular, has found resonance
in International Relations, most explicitly with Alexander Wendt arguing that ‘in
one sense this [scientific realism] changes nothing, since everyone can go about their
business as before: empiricists looking for behavioral laws, rationalists building
deductive theories, process tracers doing case studies, critical theorists thinking
about deep social structures, postmoderns doing critical theory. But the point is
that everyone gets to do what they do: from a realist stance epistemology cannot
legislate scientific practice.’4 The sole point of meta-theoretical debates, then, is to
establish a vantage point from which a purely method-driven account of social
research (vulgo: positivism) can be effectively criticised. What counts as good, legitimate, valid research should be judged on the basis of criteria internal to the specific
project and its subject matter, that is, a logic of reconstruction – not in terms of
compliance with a set of pre-established rules of scientific method in the singular,
which remain entirely external to the specific subject matters and research questions
at hand, that is, a logic of subsumtion.5 Indeed, when it comes to questions of
research design, it would be unfair to judge a project applying advanced statistics
on the basis of hermeneutic criteria. Similarly, it would be unfair to judge a project
centring on detailed and careful ethnographic observation on the basis of statistical
criteria. A discussion of the relative strengths and weaknesses of competing research
frameworks and theoretical perspectives is no doubt important. Yet, when different
understandings of how theory and empirics relate to each other are at stake (or when
the distinction between theory and empirics is being challenged), such an encounter
can take place only at the level of theoretical discussion. Empirically adjudicating
2
3
4
5
It becomes apparent, then, that meta-theoretical debates are far less abstract and detached from
‘actual research’ than common cliché may have us believe.
Heikki Patomäki, ‘How to Tell Better Stories about World Politics’, European Journal of International
Relations, 2 (1996), pp. 105–33.
Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), p. 99. See also Milja Kurki’s recent attempt to broaden our understanding of the concept of
causality in IR: Causation in International Relations: Reclaiming Causal Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008).
Interestingly, Patrick Jackson, an outspoken critic of Critical Realism arrives at the very same conclusion from a Weberian vantage point. See his plea for a ‘Pluralist Science of IR’, in Patrick Thaddeus
Jackson (ed.), The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of science and its implications for the study of world politics (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 188–212.
Critical Realism and the quest for certainty
237
between competing accounts becomes possible only where a shared set of theoretical
and methodological premises is already in place.
Hence, the method-driven account of theoretical pluralism, which invites researchers to ‘test for alternative explanations’ is inherently imbalanced. It remains
firmly enshrined within the confines of the neo-positivist consensus. For alternative
theoretical perspectives become admissible only to the extent that they are ready to
assume the form of a competing hypothesis. To the extent that this rules out research
strategies, which do not subscribe to the methodology of hypothesis testing, epistemology does indeed legislate scientific practice. If, however, epistemology must not
legislate scientific practice, neither can the philosophy of the social sciences. In fact,
the critique of method-driven research would be self-defeating if it simply repeated
the criticised move of unilaterally extrapolating a particular idea of what constitutes
proper research. The position of a meta-theoretical chair umpire, capable of authoritative adjudications between competing perspectives is just as unavailable as the
positivist-empiricist vision of settling each and every debate through empirical adjudication. The purpose of meta-theoretical debates, then, is to broaden the range of
research possibilities by emphasising the contingency of conceptual choices, not to
delimit them by devising ideal research designs.
On the other hand, better stories can be linked to better outcomes not only in
terms of faculties of scientific explanation, but, more ambitiously, in terms of making a difference ‘in the real world’. For Heikki Patomäki, for instance, ‘overcoming
international relations’ is not only a scholarly, but also a practical-political challenge; and while Colin Wight concedes that ‘we need to be aware of the limits of
our theoretical endeavours if practice is to remain subject to the important process
of political negotiation that remains an essential component of practice itself ’, he
concurs that, ultimately, the question of whether or not to adopt a particular ontological stance depends on ‘whether or not we find the ethico-political consequences
of such a definition desirable’.6
What is at stake here is not only a broad commitment to social research making
a difference, exerting some kind of (hopefully) positive effect. Such commitments
can be articulated in a variety of different ways ranging from mere expressions of
hope to a self-conscious restraint, which imposes limits on the practical usages of
scientific ideas out of respect for the autonomy of praxis. After all, an emancipatory
project that tells people how to properly emancipate themselves runs into devastating contradictions. For if we, as academics, tell people what to do in order to
achieve the desired goal of emancipation, this would in fact be a gross instance of
heteronomy. ‘Emancipate yourself !’ is thus an intricately paradoxical request. To
their credit, critical realists have neither embraced the technocratic alternative of
assuming a general priority of science vis-à-vis practice, nor have they receded into
the complacency of a cynical hands-off approach, which merely covers the problems
of how knowledge of social processes becomes part and parcel of these very social
processes beneath a huge blind spot. Between the scylla of premature activism and
the charybdis of ignorant complacency, critical realists have sought to establish a
6
Heikki Patomäki, After International Relations: Critical Realism and the (Re-)Construction of World
Politics (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 19–95, 143–63; Colin Wight, Agents, Structures, and International Relations: Politics as Ontology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 8, 181;
see also Heikki Patomäki and Colin Wight ‘After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism’,
International Studies Quarterly, 44 (2000), pp. 213–37, at p. 235.
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distinctive position, which links the emancipatory potential of the social sciences to
a particular form of critical inquiry.
While markedly different in scope and ambition, the internal, scientific and the
practical-political rationale for a realist philosophy of science do share a common
target. Positivism, broadly understood as a neo-positivist consensus comprised of
falsificationism, a focus on covering laws, and ‘some form of pragmatism at basement prices’7 when it comes to confronting these two with a prickly object of study,
is the principal target of both the purely academic and the more activist branch of
realist criticism.
What is even more striking is that the often heated exchanges, which have evolved
around the claims of scientific and Critical Realism, have almost exclusively involved
scholars who share an anti-positivist and anti-empiricist position. Positivists can thus
remain in their comfort zone, as they lean back and watch, presumably with some
combination of amusement and befuddlement, how critics such as Colin Wight and
Friedrich Kratochwil end up in an explosive confrontation, which diverts much of
the criticism targeted against positivism into an oddly self-referential debate over
ontological and epistemological commitments.8 In a sadly ironic twist, Chris Brown’s
hope that Critical Realism may help to resurrect the lacking critical voice of Marxism
is thus confirmed.9 Much to the relief of capitalism, one may presume, Marxists
tended to get bogged down in debates over who holds the True Interpretation of
Marx’s writings. In a similar vein, meta-theoretical debates in IR today seem to
develop a tendency to go ballistic over the issue of who is targeting positivism from
the right angle.10
Again, scientific and critical realists have assumed a centre-stage position, fending off post-structuralists, Wittgensteinians, and pragmatists alike. To be sure, such
debates are inherently interesting as fundamentally different accounts of inquiry are
at stake. Yet, they also tend to obscure the fact that realists, Wittgensteinians, pragmatists, and post-structuralists share a common ground in rejecting the neo-positivist
consensus. Even those voices in the debate, which could broadly be considered sympathetic to positivism on philosophical grounds engage in meta-theoretical debates
mainly to pinpoint the deficiencies of the neo-positivist position.11 This creates an
7
8
9
10
11
Friedrich Kratochwil, ‘Of false promises and good bets: a plea for a pragmatic approach to theory
building (the Tartu lecture)’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 10 (2007), pp. 1–15,
at p. 3. Pragmatism at basement prices is typically reduced to a woolly commitment to things that
work – something that, in fairness, the American pragmatists cannot be blamed for.
Kratochwil, Of false promises; Colin Wight, ‘Inside the epistemological cave all bets are off ’, Journal
of International Relations and Development, 10 (2007), pp. 40–56; Friedrich Kratochwil, ‘Of communities, gangs, historicity and the problem of Santa Claus: replies to my critics’, Journal of International
Relations and Development, 10 (2007), pp. 57–78.
Chris Brown, ‘Situating Critical Realism’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 35 (2007),
pp. 409–16.
At least, one may hope that in the process Marx’s second thesis on Feuerbach is uncovered: ‘The
question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but
is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness
[Diesseitigkeit] of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking
which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.’
There certainly are voices present in the debate, which could broadly considered to be positivist. As
distinctive voices in IR’s meta-theoretical debate their positions must not be confused with the neopositivist consensus of which they, too, are critical. See, for instance, David Dessler, ‘Constructivism
within a positivist social science’, Review of International Studies, 25 (1999), pp. 123–37; Fred Chernoff,
‘Conventionalism as an Adequate Basis for Policy-Relevant IR Theory’, European Journal of International Relations, 15 (2009), pp. 157–94.
Critical Realism and the quest for certainty
239
oddly twisted constellation. While we could refute the initial suspicion discarding
meta-theoretical concerns as unhelpfully abstract by pointing to their inherently
problem-driven nature, the charge comes back with a vengeance as soon as philosophy of science debates in IR fall back into patterns of paradigmatic confrontation
all too well known from conventional IR theory debates.
Precisely this, however, has become a core concern in IR’s philosophy of science
debates. Where do you stand on matters of ontology? Where do you stand on matters
of epistemology? Which one is to be given priority? Around High Noon team Critical
Realism and its critics convene for an ISA roundtable to determine the sharpest
shooter. Such an (admittedly stylised) confrontation does have its advantages. It
creates visibility and structures the field, thus providing orientation to the uninitiated. On the downside, however, the ontological fixation of the debate has been
directly counter-productive to achieving both the goal of a establishing a systematic
alternative to the neo-positivist consensus, and the normative aim to link such pursuits to an ‘emancipatory project’. First, a brief discussion of how the distinction
between ontology and epistemology has been used in the field, may help to corroborate the claim that, once again, paradigmatic confrontations are of little help.
Ontology, epistemology, and all that
The distinction between ontology and epistemology, and with it the intellectual
effort to clarify how the two relate to each other, has come to the fore of International Relations on the unusual occasion of a birthday celebration. In a ‘state of
the art’ article, Friedrich Kratochwil and John Ruggie, while spending most of their
time discussing the history of regime theory and research on international organisations through the course of the first forty volumes of International Organization, do
smuggle in the inconspicuous distinction in order to introduce a subversive line of
argument directed not only against regime theory, but against the broader understanding of the social sciences by which it is informed.
Regime theory, they contend, suffers from a fatal misfit between ontology and
epistemology. The intersubjective ontology of regimes remains impossible to grasp
within the confines of a subjectivist epistemology. As ‘social institutions’ regimes
are constituted through ‘convergent expectations’. Categories such as ‘convergent
expectations’, or ‘shared understanding’, however, inevitably conjure up and entail
‘a strong element of intersubjectivity’.12 The ontology of international regimes, in
short, is an intersubjective one. If we take seriously the notion of intersubjectivity
it constitutes a principled alternative to the subject/object distinction. The notion
of intersubjective understandings defies the possibility of cognisant subjects standing
in opposition to an objectively given world. Hence the problem Kratochwil and
Ruggie see with the positivist epistemology of regime theory. If we adopt the category of intersubjective understandings, positivism, which draws a hard and fast line
between the subject and the object becomes untenable; if we adopt a positivist epistemology on the other hand, the intersubjective becomes inconceivable. ‘Here, then,
we have the most debilitating problem of all: ontology fundamentally contradicts
12
Friedrich Kratochwil and John Ruggie, ‘International Organization: A State of the Art on an Art of
the State’, International Organization, 40 (1986), pp. 753–75, at p. 764.
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Benjamin Herborth
epistemology!’13 Even the term ‘regime’ itself can be brought to bear only to the
extent that there is a shared understanding among regime theorists as to what it is
that they are looking for. ‘Ultimately, there exists no external Archimedian point
from which regimes can be viewed as they ‘‘truly’’ are. This is so because regimes
are conceptual creations not concrete entities.’14
The emphasis on regimes being ‘conceptual creations’ is important here, because
it indicates how Kratochwil and Ruggie avoid the slippery slope of ontological
foundationalism. While they do insist on an intersubjective ontology of regimes
necessitating a more interpretive approach, they explicitly circumvent the foundationalist air that inevitably comes with the language of ontology by applying the
category of intersubjectivity onto their own scholarly activity. Kratochwil and Ruggie
thus employ the distinction between ontology and epistemology as an analytical
tool in order to identify and remedy inconsistencies within a particular body of
thought. Much like the concept of regimes itself, ‘ontology’ and ‘epistemology’ are
analytical constructs put to use by the community of scholars. According to the
analytical take, each and every theory quite trivially entails ontological and epistemological commitments, which we can critically tease out and test for internal consistency. It is important to note, in this context, that Kratochwil and Ruggie endorse
an interpretive epistemology on account of a particular understanding of regimes.
There is no all-out attack on positivism, not even an exclusive commitment to intersubjective ontologies. The plain and simple argument is that if we adopt a concept
of regimes, which does entail a commitment to an intersubjective ontology, epistemology should follow course.
This seems to be by and large compatible, if not congruent, with Wendt’s demand that epistemology ought not dictate research practices. A shared critique of
empiricism notwithstanding, scientific realists are, however, more ambitious in the
scope of their claims. They call for a broader ontological reorientation, which is
held to render visible the shared anti-realist presuppositions of positivists and postpositivists. Both protagonist camps of the so-called ‘third debate’, Patomäki and
Wight contend, occupy a single, narrow ‘problem-field’, which prioritises epistemology
over ontology. The ‘third debate’ thus appears to them as an altogether fruitless
enterprise, ‘a sterile and debilitating debate where one side chastises the other for
its naı̈ve belief in a world ‘‘out there’’, while the other berates its mirror image for
making the world ‘‘all in here’’ and all the while a third position claims legitimacy
in terms of its ‘‘middle-groundedness’’.’15 To Patomäki and Wight this is not only a
sorrow deadlock, but also a tragic misconstrual of the overall theoretical landscape,
which curtails the theoretical imagination in the light of shared epistemological
predilections. For both, empiricists who seek knowledge of the world ‘out there’,
and post-positivists, who seek to inquire into our practices of knowledge generation
(as practices of ‘world generation’), adopt an ‘anthropocentric philosophy’.16 The
world comes into play only after we have allowed for it, either in terms of sensory
perception or in terms of linguistic construction. The empiricist epistemology is obviously radically different from the post-positivist one. Yet the point of contestation –
what are the cognitive and/or discursive funnels through which the world becomes
13
14
15
16
Ibid.
Kratochwil and Ruggie, ‘A State of the Art on an Art of the State’, p. 763.
Patomäki and Wight, ‘After Postpositivism’, p. 215.
Patomäki and Wight, ‘After Postpositivism’, p. 217, referring to Bhaskar.
Critical Realism and the quest for certainty
241
knowable – remains firmly within the epistemological square. Inevitably both positivists and post-positivists keep referring to ‘the world’ as it is, prior to and independent from processes of knowledge construction. From the point of view of scientific
realism such references are considered to be illicit as long as we remain incapable to
theoretically account for them. We refer to a mind-independent world all the time,
yet we have no theoretical language that could justify such parlance. This is the
problem the proclaimed focus on ontology is held to solve.
Obviously, the distinction between ontology and epistemology here takes on an
entirely different form. This is duly noted by Patomäki and Wight as they introduce
the distinction between scientific and philosophical ontology.17 Scientific ontologies
are concerned with the existential make-up of particular objects of study. Kratochwil
and Ruggie’s critique of regime theory may serve as an example. To say that regimes
consist of intersubjective expectations is to make a statement about the nature of
regimes, which crucially shapes the epistemological and methodological horizons
of possibilities in the further study of regimes. Similarly, debates as to whether
states constitute real persons, person-like actors, or simply articulated projects pertain to the field of scientific ontology. Philosophical ontology is logically prior to
any such pursuit; it is not concerned with the constitution of particular objects of
study but rather poses a more fundamental set of questions about the ontological
constitution of the world in which the study of such particular objects takes place
and becomes possible.
Realism as a philosophy of science strives for an intervention at the level of
philosophical ontology. Proponents of a realist philosophy of science within IR thus
need to establish if and how such an intervention is of any consequence to social
scientific inquiry. It does, realists argue, because it rehabilitates the study of intransitive objects, which are otherwise dropped from the portfolio of legitimate objects
of study. Intransitive objects are held to exist independently of our knowledge, and
exert causal effects whether or not we are aware of them. ‘Capitalism’ or the ‘Westphalian states system’ constitute showcase examples. Obviously, one needs not to be
aware of the capitalist structures of the global economy in order to be crucially
affected by them. Despite their intangibility, realists claim, broad social forces of
this kind ought to be studied, and it is the epistemological preoccupation of positivists and post-positivists alike, which hinders us from doing so. Hence, the need for
an ontological reorientation.
Apart from the study of particular intransitive objects, such a reorientation
would rehabilitate the kind of ambitious theorising, striving towards a theory of
society, which is notoriously neglected in the midst of epistemological quarrels.
The point is very well taken, yet it remains controversial at best whether or not
philosophical ontology is necessary or even helpful in the process. After all, Niklas
Luhmann’s theory of social systems, which is by any standard the most complex
and most ambitious theory of society presently circulating, would self-consciously
dismiss calls for an ontological reorientation as an atavistic expression of ‘OldEuropean thought’ without accepting any limits to the study of the most complex,
abstract and invisible social configurations. The realist claims to relevance thus
remain controversial. This is neither surprising nor problematic, not even from a
realist stance, which, after all, purports to capitalise on fallibilism. Yet, it easily
17
Patomäki and Wight, ‘After Postpositivism’, p. 215.
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Benjamin Herborth
leads into just another deadlocked debate, the course of which is all too easy to
foresee. Critical realists claim that Critical Realism makes a difference. Critics of
Critical Realism claim that it doesn’t make a difference.
Rather than speculating on the merits of Critical Realism in the abstract, I will
thus focus on the practical consequences of their agenda. While I remain sympathetic
to the stated goals of their project, I find Critical Realism to be ineffective and at
times counter-productive in achieving them. In particular, two distinct yet related
issues come to mind. With regard to the ethical dimension of scholarship, which
critical realists rightfully emphasise, the quest for ontological certainty entails a
problem of hierarchicalisation. The problematic relation between knowledge and
emancipation, which has been at the centre of critical inquiries into the nexus between
theory and praxis tends to be dissolved by introducing a hierarchically superior form
of knowledge. In an admittedly polemical short-cut: there is no tension between
knowledge and emancipation if we just get our knowledge right, and in order to
do so, we should want to adopt Critical Realism. The ethical dilemma inflicted by
the quest for ontological certainty, however, merely illustrates a more fundamental
problem with the way in which Critical Realism falls short of effectively problematising the traditional distinction between subject and object. Though important in
their own right, the following sections can thus be read as an exemplary illustration
of a more general problem.
The problem of hierarchicalisation
Both critical realists and most of their critics typically agree that the neo-positivist
research routines, which are established enough to consider themselves unproblematic,
are deficient for theoretical, methodological, as well as normative reasons. They also
agree that opening up debates for an undogmatic influx of ideas from social and
political theory as well as the philosophy of science is helpful in overcoming these
deficiencies. What they fundamentally disagree on, however, is the role of knowledge thus produced in relation to the theory-praxis problem in the social sciences.
Critical realists articulate their theoretical and normative claims in terms of a Quest
for Certainty, while pragmatists, post-structuralists, interpretivists, relationalists, Wittgensteinians, Heideggerians, process theorists and the like18 consider such a quest to
be an epistemological obstacle that is intricately linked to the problems at hand.
The commitment to ontological certainty is expressed most clearly by Colin Wight,
who contends that ‘getting things right is a practical, a political, and an ethical imperative, and although achieving it may be impossible, or knowing when we have
achieved it extremely difficult, we cannot give up on the aspiration; not least because the issue of status of theoretical terms is at the heart of the theory-practice
issue.’19 Wight’s main concern here is with the ‘status’ of the knowledge we produce, that is, with its recognition as hierarchically superior to alternative, untheoretical forms of knowledge production. Theoretically gained knowledge is of a different
quality than, say, claims which are merely based on political interest or theological
faith. To what extent, however, does such a prioritisation of scientific knowledge
18
19
The somewhat exuberant list is meant to indicate my scepticism vis-à-vis such classifications.
Colin Wight, ‘A Manifesto for Scientific Realism in IR: Assuming the Can-Opener Won’t Work!’,
Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 35 (2007), pp. 379–98, at. p. 381.
Critical Realism and the quest for certainty
243
support a move towards Critical Realism? Wight’s argument is, ultimately, an instrumentalist one. Critical Realism is considered to have the effect of securing the
hierarchical superiority of scientific knowledge production vis-à-vis alternative, contending forms of epistemic activity. While it is certainly possible to defend the epistemic authority of the sciences on different grounds, Critical Realism may just be a
particularly effective tool of doing so. Interestingly, Wight is thus unable to make
an ontological case for ontology. This would, indeed, look like a petitio principii,
presupposing the ontological stance already in the attempt to establish it. Such disturbing paradoxes, Günter Dux has argued, are not uncommon within the scheme
of bivalent logic. On the contrary, they run through the tradition of occidental
thought and define it as systematic inquiry into a world that has become subject
of questioning. Why are things like that, why did they not turn out differently?
The question presupposes the possibility of gaining access to how it really is, it
establishes the distinction between epistéme and doxa and with it the hierarchical
superiority of the former over the latter.20 Before I turn to attempts to dismantle
the ontological project by demonstrating how it is indebted not only to bivalent
logic but also to an obsolescent understanding of how society is organised, I should,
however, address more thoroughly the normative concerns that critical realists place
at the centre of their ontological commitment.
In an exemplary straightforward manner, Heikki Patomäki makes clear that the
key purpose of adopting a Critical Realist ontology lies in its alleged potential to
explicate more clearly the ‘normative logic of emancipation’. He follows Roy Bhaskar
in asserting that ‘the object that renders illusory beliefs necessary comes to be criticized in being explained; so that the point becomes to change it.’ According to
Bhaskar, the ‘logic of explanatory emancipation’, in which a particular discursive
formation (DF) is criticised with the intent of ideology-critique, requires a critical
and an explanatory condition, that is, ‘a superior explanation T1 for the phenomena, and (2) . . . an explanation T2 of the falsity of the beliefs of DF in question
and why they are held’. Patomäki formally summarises the logic of explanatory
emancipation as follows:
(1) T1 is more true (explains and illuminates more) than TDF ; it also covers at least
some of the relevant areas of the range of the TDF , which is an essential part of
DF, a ‘near-total’ system.
(2) T2 explains the (re)production of DF in terms of a causal complex Ki .
(3) Thus, one should evaluate negatively the relevant parts of the causal complex
Ki that are responsible for the (re)production of false beliefs.
(4) Consequently, one should evaluate positively public communicative action directed
at removing of changing the relevant parts of Ki .21
Contra Bhaskar he emphasises, however, that the project of ideology-critique envisioned here is in itself a distinctly normative one. Hence, the normative value of
ideology-critique must itself be accounted for in the justification of the overall project.
Bhaskar’s naturalist solution, which attempts to simply derive its emancipatory
20
21
Günter Dux, Historisch-Genentische Theorie der Kultur. Instabile Welten. Zur prozessualen Logik im
kulturellen Wandel (Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2000), here esp. pp. 405–24; along very similar lines also Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft II (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997),
pp. 893–911.
Patomäki, After international relations, p. 153.
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agenda from the world as it really is, fails to account for its own normativity. Moreover, Patomäki calls Bhaskar to account for neglecting the problem of undecidability
inherent in the practical operations of any such scheme. But does the exercise of
theoretically informed criticism then not constitute what Derrida has described as
an act of violence, that is, fixating a decision under conditions of genuine undecidability? Patomäki concedes the latter point to Derrida, yet he insists on a distinction
between different strategies of public intervention, which may be more or less conducive to ‘preserving or building a sphere for public politics’.22 Hence, he reformulates the logic of explanatory emancipation as follows.
(1) T1 is more true (explains and illuminates more) than TDF ; it also covers at
least some of the relevant areas of the range of the TDF , which is an essential
part of DF, a near-total system.
(2) Truth is a positive value.
(3) Thus, one should evaluate negatively the relevant part of DF, and engage in a
discussion about the merits and problems of theories.
(4) T2 explains the (re)production of DF in terms of a causal complex Ki .
(5) Thus, one should evaluate negatively the relevant parts of the causal complex
Ki that are responsible for the (re)production of false beliefs.
(6) Attempts (3) do not make any difference.
(7) T1 and T2 still hold, even if only in a qualified form.
(8) Consequently, one should evaluate positively public communicative action
directed at removing of changing the relevant parts of Ki.
(9) Either despite the public communicative actions, TDF (and DF ) remains unchanged, or critical communicative actions are not politically possible with
respect to the relevant political situation.
(10) Thus, one should evaluate positively strategic political action directed at absenting or changing relevant parts of the complex Ki on the condition that the
rational persuasion that T1 or T2 or both are false remains politically possible
also with respect to the changed political situation, which is co-caused by that
transformative action and its consequences.23
Patomäki is rightfully attentive not only to the normative undergirding of an emancipatory conception of truth (which he simply states as a premise), but also to the
difficulty of actually succeeding argumentatively against the tenacity of a firmly
established discursive formation. To the extent that Patomäki acknowledges the
normative character of public criticism, however, he replaces the ontological commitment with a reflexive awareness of the politics of publicly expressed criticism.
The ‘normative logic of emancipation’ is, in other words, a political rather than a
purely normative one. What happens, if the ‘force of the better argument’ does not
trump an incrusted set of routinised beliefs? Much like Patomäki, Jürgen Habermas
himself has addressed this problem as a strategic, political one. Acknowledging the
political nature of public criticism, however, leads away from the ontological quest
for certainty and into a problematisation of the potentially technocratic and expertocratic nature of public interventions, which starts off with the self-assertive move
22
23
Patomäki, After international relations, p. 157.
Patomäki, After international relations, p. 156f.
Critical Realism and the quest for certainty
245
of establishing a position of epistemic authority. This becomes particularly obvious
in Habermas’s more recent reflections of the nexus of theory and praxis.
Where communicative action runs into a ‘dead-end’, he contends, actors may
resort to ‘strategic games where necessary’.24 Strategically pushing for the enhancement of argumentative freedoms is thus justified as a genuinely political act aiming
at the removal of practical delimitations of the universe of reasons rather than the
establishment of an epistemic authority capable of steering the argumentative interplay into a particular direction. Despite a commitment to universality and truth,
which self-consciously irritates those acquainted to postmodern parlance, Habermas
is astutely aware of the danger of submerging political processes under putatively
higher concerns for morality or truth. As the factual pluralism of Weltanschauungen
has become legitimate, a knowledgeable, yet unilateral proclamation of what is to
be done becomes untenable. The authoritative identification of false consciousness
inevitably entails technocratic and expertocratic overtones of adjudicating conflicts
from a position, which is in the unique possession of knowledge as to what is right
and wrong. If emancipatory projects of social transformation are introduced from
such an angle, Habermas argues, ‘the pretensions of a criticizing Reason thus become
the very target of criticism’. In the course of such self-criticism ‘it comes to consciousness that the interest in governing/ruling over a contingent history of society, which is
exempt from our command, has replaced the reasonable impulse to emancipate from
the repeating pressures of a suppressed history of suffering.’25 The tacit replacement,
Habermas adds, confounds the ‘pluralist constitution of a praxis’ of ‘societalized individuals’ with the self-asserting steering efforts of an allegedly preconstituted collectivity. The ineradicable possibility of nay-saying is the constitutive feature of a society
which integrates itself through communication. Independent of how a claim is substantiated, scientifically or not, and, even more importantly, independent of the
position from where it is uttered, it may simply fail in the collision of arguments.
Attempting to overwrite the potential of resistance nested in the praxis of everyday
communication by asserting a position of epistemic authority would thus replace
such an intersubjective praxis with the image of technological steering interventions
from the outside. Scientific knowledge production thus needs to undergo a painful
process of disenchantment in situating itself firmly within a democratic process –
otherwise it carries on with technocratic pretensions even if they run diametrically
against better normative intentions. Following Adorno, Habermas thus identifies
‘the totalitarian core of Reason, which has become but instrumental’ in any attempt
to give in to ‘philosophy’s post-Hegelian urge to become practical’.26 Obviously, the
disarmament and disenchantment of practical relevance does not repel intellectual
activity into the merely self-referential fuss of the ivory tower.27 On the contrary,
it challenges philosophers and social scientists to pragmatically explore ways of
24
25
26
27
Jürgen Habermas, ‘Kommunikative Rationalität und grenzüberschreitende Politik. Eine Replik’, in
Peter Niesen and Benjamin Herborth (eds), Anarchie der kommunikativen Freiheit. Jürgen Habermas
und die Theorie der internationalen Politik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2007), pp. 406–59, at p. 417.
Jürgen Habermas, Wahrheit und Rechtfertigung. Philosophische Aufsätze (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp), p. 352.
Ibid.
One should note, however, that the metaphor of the ivory tower entailed much more positive connotations when it originated in the literary context of French symbolism. The autonomy of fields of
cultural production is not inherently a bad thing. See Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and
Structure of the Literary Field (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1992).
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informing public discourse without establishing a priori a quasi-Archimedian position. This is, no doubt, difficult, especially given the problem of the ‘public’s flipflop thinking about science. For many science is about certainty and scientists are
seen as Gods bringing down the sacred truths from the mountains of Nature.
When disillusioned with this view the public switch to the alternative which is to
see science as a political conspiracy where scientific results are fraudulently produced cynically to satisfy political masters.’28 Against such a background, holding
on to strong aspirations of certainty becomes all the more problematic, for it merely
tends to reinforce uncritically obedient predispositions in the audience. Rather than
suggesting a fictitious point from nowhere, a pragmatic strategy of creatively exploring less hierarchical forms of public communication would thus have to turn relative
speaker positions into an explicit focus of reflection. This does not necessarily imply
the adoption of a partisan perspective. On the contrary, the public weight of intellectual intervention might then very well depend on the degree to which arguments are
both crafted into rhetorical punch-lines and carefully balanced. However, impressions
of intellectual independence or even uncorrupted impartiality can only be gained
in the process of argumentative contestation; they cannot be established as a priori
conditions of public communication if the principle of a horizontal encounter of
democratic subjects is not to be violated.
It is, of course, both easy and tempting to mobilise a hands-on empiricism against
such abstract considerations. Are there not brute facts that cannot be challenged on
any serious scholarly ground? And do such facts not have material consequences
that are by no means infinitely malleable in processes of ‘social construction’. To
be sure, the ontological interests of critical realists typically focus on more abstract
entities such as complex, unobservable social structures than pedestrian facts allegedly
lying around on the surface. However, this does not stop Colin Wight from attacking Friedrich Kratochwil’s pragmatic swan song on the epistemological project29 as
politically irresponsible precisely because it gives up on a strictly fact-based form
of criticism. Kratochwil’s linguistic constructionism, Wight holds, renders him incapable of unmasking the US government’s claims about Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction as being untrue. On Wight’s account, Kratochwil forfeits the opportunity
of ‘pointing to the world and saying ‘‘look there really aren’t any weapons there’’.’30
Certainly, Wight is not an empiricist, and this particular argument is evidently not
free of polemical intent. Yet, it helpfully illustrates what is at stake in the controversy. However, Wight’s commitment to fallibilism, while almost commonsensical
at first sight, escalates into a quest for ontological certainty, in which the yardstick
of truth ends up being framed in almost classically empiricist framework of realworld reference. The commitment to ontological certainty gains its thrust only in
combination with the possibility of adjudicating contending validity claims on a
basis other than peer criticism. Wight’s insistence on fallibilism does not presuppose
heavier forms of ontological foundationalism, however it implicitly leads towards
them. He considers the insistence on ontological fixity at some point, be it the factual absence of weapons of mass destruction or some deeper, unobservable dynamic
28
29
30
Trevor Pinch, ‘Conflicts of Science Cultures: How to Avoid the Wrong Sort of Conflict over Science’,
in Jost Halfmann and Johannes Rohbeck (eds), Zwei Kulturen der Wissenschaft revisited (Weilerswist:
Velbrück Wissenschaft 2007), pp. 193–212, at p. 210.
Kratochwil, ‘Of false promises’.
Wight, ‘Inside the epistemological cave’, p. 50.
Critical Realism and the quest for certainty
247
operating beneath, as a necessary precondition for meaningful scholarship and effective criticism. Kratochwil, on the contrary, considers the insistence on such fixities
detrimental to both pursuits. Moving beyond an ontological framework, he contends, is a necessary first step in order to be able to pose the question of how we
ought to conduct inquiry into international politics.31
The example of non-existent weapons of mass destruction is, incidentally, more
intricate than it seems to be at the first glance, because any observation that results
in the claim that there are no such weapons needs to attribute a positive epistemic
value to the negative experience of not seeing anything. The underlying point, however, can be made irrespective of such complexities. Take for example, Charles
Tilly’s discussion of the height of fourteen-year-old entrants to military service in
early nineteenth century England in his Durable Inequality. A comparison of entrants
to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, who ‘represent the healthier portion
of the aristocracy and gentry’ on the one hand, and recruits for naval service from
London, ‘who represent the healthier portion of the city’s jobless poor’ reveals a
difference in height of around 10 inches. While aristocracy averaged around 5 feet
1 inch, the naval recruits were, on average, only 4 feet 3 inches tall. We can easily
imagine, as Tilly points out, ‘how aristocratic officers glowering down half a foot or
more at their plebeian soldiers. Such an image vivifies the phrases ‘‘high and
mighty’’, ‘‘haughty’’, and ‘‘look down on someone’’.’ Tilly goes on to discuss observations of similar effects among non-native speakers of English in New York, or in
‘egalitarian Sweden’ where the weight of newborns of ‘less-educated women’ was
found to be significantly lower. Notably, even in the case of male/female height
differences, explanations in terms of genetic disposition fall short of providing a
complete picture.32 Obviously, what is of interest here is not the sheer facticity of
height differences but rather the way in which they are linked to durable patterns
of inequality. What is of interest are, in other words, the underlying causal mechanisms producing these observable results. The observation of height differences and
even their association with a particular set of social categories are unlikely to stir
up any controversy. Obviously, both can be subjected to methodical criticism.
Measurements may be fraudulent, links between particular categories and measurement results may be spurious, but all of this is likely to be settled in a relatively
straightforward manner; if controversies ensue they are unlikely to revolve around
any of the particular concerns of critical realists. What is it, then, that critical realists
bring to the analysis of such observations? They are likely to agree with pragmatists, relationalists, and interpretivists of various kinds that the observations are the
product of an underlying dynamic that accounts for such durable inequalities. Yet,
they would probably insist that these underlying mechanisms are real not only in
the sense of the pragmatic realism, which Tilly himself defended on account of their
having real effects, but in a more profound ontological sense as fixed, anchoring
points of reference in an externally given world. Do we need to acknowledge the
ontological status of mechanisms of exclusion and inequality production in order
for there to be something that can be criticised and changed? Or is any such concern
with the ontological status already a step towards reifying the historically contingent
31
32
See Friedrich Kratochwil, ‘Constructing a New Orthodoxy? Wendt’s ‘‘Social Theory of International
Politics’’ and the Constructivist Challenge’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29:1 (2000),
pp. 73–101.
Charles Tilly, Durable Inequality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 3f.
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figuration that can be criticised and changed only on account of its historical contingency? This is the alternative in question, even though critical realists would
seem unlikely to accept it as an alternative in the first place. Why should we not
be able to accept both the historical contingency and the reality of exclusionary
classifications? Indeed, we may. Yet, within the ontological framework there always
needs to be some point at which the exercise of historical-genetic reconstruction
comes to an end; otherwise one could not ‘point to the real world’ any longer.
Processualism can be acknowledged, but never ‘all the way down’, it only unfolds
between ‘agents’ and ‘structures’, which are presupposed as ontologically distinct
entities. From a reconstructive point of view, processual openness rather than ontological closure is a necessary precondition for change, and hence it is this very move
of putting a stop to interpretive liquidification, which is considered problematic.
The argument may become more transparent in an additional example, which explicitly tackles the (theological) notion of ultimate justification.
At the outset of a decidedly anti-ontological contribution to legal theory, Gunther
Teubner recalls the story of Rabbi Eliezer, a highly respected scholar, who disagreed
with a group of rabbis over the question of whether or not an oven, which had become impure, could subsequently be repurified. Despite Eliezer’s skilfully presented
plea as to why this should be possible, the others disagreed. In support of his position Eliezer enlisted the help of a nearby carob tree, by predicting that it should
eventually move away from its place in case his plea was correct. And so it did.
However, tree movement was not considered acceptable evidence by his colleagues.
Eliezer amplified his efforts by correctly forecasting that the stream of water be reversed. And so it did. Again, however, the evidence was discarded. Unsurprisingly,
then, Eliezer’s prediction that the walls of the House of Study should bend inward
in support of his position, which again did materialise, failed to persuade the sceptics
as well. In an ultimate attempt to win the argument, Eliezer foresaw that a voice
from heaven would rise and speak out in support of his position. Again, he was
correct. Yet, again, this did not tip the balance, as the rabbis invoked the applicability of majority rule as specified in the Torah. And God was laughing and saying,
‘My children have defeated me, my children have defeated me.’33
From the point of view of Critical Realism this would seem scandalous, because
any firm basis of scientifically informed criticism evaporates. From a pragmatist,
reconstructive point of view it is precisely the contingency built into processes of
argumentative contestation, which preserves the very possibility of social transformation. Ontological commitments of any sort inevitably inhibit the process of
argumentative contestation because they introduce hierarchical relations, which are
considered to remain external to the process of giving and taking reasons, which
constitutes argumentative practice in the first place.
Ontological anxiety and beyond
Apparently, at the core of Critical Realist interventions lies an ontological anxiety,
which runs parallel to what Alexander Wendt has observed as ‘epistemological anxiety’
among positivists.34 While positivists are afraid of losing secure means of accessing
33
34
Gunther Teubner, Recht als autopoietisches System (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1989), p. 7.
Wendt, Social Theory, p. 91; see also Alexander Wendt, ‘Causation and Constitution in International
Relations’, Review of International Studies, 24 (1998), pp. 101–17, at p. 116.
Critical Realism and the quest for certainty
249
the world, critical realists are afraid of losing the world altogether if we give in
to the epistemological predilections of both positivists and post-positivists. Hence,
contrary to the laudable ambition formulated by Patomäki and Wight, Critical
Realism does not succeed in overcoming the ‘problem-field’ shared by positivists
and post-positivists. By reaffirming the distinction between ontology and epistemology
and ‘siding with’ the former, critical realists merely reproduce the ‘problem-field’ of
ontological and epistemological anxiety, which is at the centre of the post-/positivist
divide. Where positivists seek certainty through method, critical realists seek certainty
through ontological commitment. Post-positivists, too, by negatively inverting claims
to certainty on either methodical or ontological grounds tend to remain oriented
towards the problem of certainty. After all, both the statement that the world really
does exist, and the statement that the world really doesn’t exist are caught up in the
same ‘old-European’ semantics of ontology.35
The problem of uncertainty stands at the centre of Dewey’s Quest for Certainty –
and, one may add with Dewey – squarely in the way of a more problem-driven
approach. Drawing hard and fast lines between knowledge and action, theory and
praxis, subject and object, Dewey maintains, is a tribute to obsolescent modes of
thought, which predate the experimental and fallibilistic self-understanding of systematic inquiry. It is only through the artificial separation between knowing and
the known36 that such dichotomies can be retained. Disposing of them does not
mean to give up on ‘the world’, let alone a fallibilistic understanding of inquiry.
On the contrary, Dewey insists that the generation of knowledge occurs only in
response to the practical problems we are confronted with in everyday life. Taking
such everyday problems as a starting point of inquiry, however, is only hindered by
artificial speculations about correspondence or disjunction between knowing and
the known. Dewey pinpoints the problem in an imaginary dialogue between a pragmatist philosopher and a student, who has grown frustrated with the teachings of
his former instructor, a character named Professor Purus Intellectus. The problem
of correspondence, Dewey’s alter ego explicates, dissolves in the practice of corespondence to a problem we are confronted with.37 Hence, the focus shifts from
the question whether or not we are approximating an externally given reality, or
whether or not such an externally given reality comes along with some inherent
meaning to the interpretive practices by means of which the observation of the
problem is being processed. What are the pragmatic consequences of a particular
response? Which alternative possibilities are thereby excluded? How is a particular
response justified vis-à-vis such a range of alternatives? None of these questions can
be meaningfully answered by invoking a plane of existence uncontaminated by the
act of knowing. But how are we to ascertain knowledge if it cannot be separated
from our acts knowing? Dewey ironically addresses this problem of ontological
35
36
37
Obviously, the oddly scholastic question of whether or not there is a world was of no particular concern to any of the patron saints of ‘post-positivism’. It does tend to figure more prominently, however,
in feature pages of the quality press and BA-level textbooks. It seems helpful to distinguish sharply
between the various theoretical innovations, which have responded to the problem of conceptualising
subjectivity in classical structuralism, which defy simplistic paradigmatic classifications, and a vaguely
postmodern attitude, which paradoxically objectifies the abolition of objectivity in order to present
itself as the (objective?) vanguard position.
See Dewey and Bentley, Knowing and the Known.
John Dewey, ‘A Short Catechism Concerning Truth’, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and
Other Essays (New York: Henry Hold and Company, 1910), pp. 154–68, at p. 158.
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Benjamin Herborth
anxiety in the concluding exchange between teacher and pupil, which begins with a
moment of serendipity on the side of the student, thus reverting the questionresponse scheme of the preceding dialogue.
Pupil: What you say calls to mind something of Chesterton’s that I read recently: ‘I agree
with the pragmatists that apparent objective truth is not the whole matter; that there is an
authoritative need to believe the things that are necessary to the human mind. But I say that
one of those necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth. Pragmatism is a matter of
human needs and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist.’ You would say, if I understand you aright, that to fall back upon a supposed necessity
of the ‘human mind’ to believe in certain absolute truths, is to evade a proper demand for
testing the human mind and all its works.
Teacher: My son, I am glad to leave the last word with you. This enfant terrible of intellectualism has revealed that the chief objection of absolutists to the pragmatic doctrine of the
personal (or ‘subjective) factor in belief is that the pragmatist has spilled the personal milk in
the absolutist’s coconut.38
The ‘personal factor’ is, of course, not to be taken in an individualistic, mentalist
sense. Rather the pragmatic act of knowing, of co-respondence operates at the social
level, that is, through communication. In this respect, a surprisingly similar line of
argument is proposed by modern systems theorist Niklas Luhmann.39 Luhmann
radicalises Dewey’s diagnosis of a disjuncture between absolutist conceptions of
knowledge and contemporary practices of knowing by linking absolutist logic not
only to a mode of philosophical inquiry, which has become historical, but also
to a distinctly pre-modern form of social organisation.40 ‘Ontology’ becomes of
systematic interest throughout the seventeenth century, in response to problems of
uncertainty arising on account of the disjuncture between a traditional semantics
and emerging forms of a critical, experimental knowledge generation. The new concept attempts to coherently sum up a set of interpretive routines that had previously
been considered unproblematic. With the distinction between being and non-being
it invokes the perspective of a hierarchical centre capable of authoritatively adjudicating which description of the world is the right one. From such a position of
authority, epistéme can be prioritised over doxa, much like the nobility is prioritised
over the plebs, or the city over its rural surroundings. Given such stable hierarchicalisations of stratificatory or centre/periphery differentiation, it suffices to represent
the world as univalent. Both the temporal problem of origin and the contemplation
of alternative schemes of observation remains excluded. Comfortably, from within
the ontological scheme of observation, which operates through the distinction between being and non-being, whatever is excluded from the realm of being is ‘nothing’.
If ‘nothing’ is excluded, however, one can hardly establish the need to care. The
collision of multiple schemes of observation, which is characteristic of complex
forms of functional differentiation and the multiplicity of hierarchicalisations that
come along with it have no place in the ontological worldview, for it operates precisely as a semantic defence mechanism against the perils of a loss of the kinds
of absolute certainty that used to appear available in the light of more clear-cut
38
39
40
Dewey, ‘A Short Catechism’, p. 167f.
The linkages between pragmatism and modern systems theory remain largely unexplored, even though
Luhmann builds on pragmatist idea, and Ch. S. Peirce in particular, throughout his methodological
remarks.
See esp. Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, 2nd vol., pp. 893–912.
Critical Realism and the quest for certainty
251
stratifications. In response one cannot simply ‘strive to shove the orphaned throne
of the subject on to the object, where it would be nothing but a juggernaut’.41
The distinctions between object and subject, ontology and epistemology, accompanied by the question of which side ought to be prioritised, which have served as the
key point of reference in IR’s excursions into the realm of meta-theory, thus merely
reflect the historical experience of a mode of social organisation characterised by
a single, central, and unchallenged relation of hierarchy. They have, pragmatically
speaking, become unhelpful and can safely be disposed of.
41
Theodor W. Adorno, Ontologie und Dialektik (1960/61) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2008), p. 340.