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The politics of the philosophy of science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2009

Milja Kurki
Milja Kurki*
Affiliation:
Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK
*
E-mail: mlk@aber.ac.uk
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Abstract

Monteiro and Ruby (2009) argue that International Relations (IR) scholars should look to adopt a more ‘tentative attitude’ towards the philosophy of science (PoS) frameworks in IR. This is an attractive and timely call for more open-minded PoS argumentation in the field. Yet, the logic of Monteiro and Ruby’s argument is not (rather characteristically of PoS debates) infallible. As other commentaries in this forum show, it is not self-evident that Monteiro and Ruby’s account is ‘post-foundational’, or that it is premised on an accurate reading of existing PoS positions in IR. However, I do not here wish to elaborate further on the critiques that could be made of the internal coherence of Monteiro and Ruby’s argumentation or their reading of core philosophical schools. Instead, I want to discuss a different kind of an issue raised by Monteiro and Ruby’s intervention: their treatment of the interaction of political forms of argumentation and PoS debates.

Keywords

philosophy of sciencemeta-theoryIR theory
Type
Meeting Report
Information
International Theory , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , November 2009 , pp. 440 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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Footnotes

1

Many thanks to Colin Wight for his comments on an earlier draft and to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their detailed commentaries and suggestions. Thanks also to Tim Dunne, Steve Smith, Hidemi Suganami and Jenny Edkins for useful discussions on the arguments presented here.

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