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My Post-Postmodern Objective Account of Theory and Moral Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Morton A. Kaplan
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Extract

I outline from a non-foundational standpoint why knowledge does not rest on a circular argument and why the nonunivocality of language is compatible with scientific truth and objectivity. The theory sketch is advanced as the form of scientific theory appropriate to homeostatic systems. A rebuttal to the arguments against my theory sketches of international systems permits a concrete and systematic investigation of why the theory sketch—rather than formal theories of the type of physics or historical generalizations - is the appropriate method. I later explore more briefly how theory sketches apply to other types of homeostatic systems. I discuss how the homeostatic control metaphor informs the vicarious test-in-principle that I employ in the area of moral analysis and why other types of moral analysis, including those of Rawls and Nozick, fail. How my position on moral analysis accords with and differs from that of Aristotle is noted.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , Fall 2000 , pp. 675 - 706
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2000

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References

1 Kaplan, Morton A., System and Process in International Politics (New York: Wiley, 1957)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as System and Process in the text). In the summer of 1939, I read the major works of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Dissatisfied with their handling of the problem of knowledge, I wrote a long manuscript in which I developed what I later learned was a form of pragmatism. I wrote my dissertation on the philosophy of Morris R. Cohen. However, I did not understand how to apply pragmatism to moral analysis until I became acquainted with systems theory and cybernetics.

2 Despite my books in the area of philosophy, the reader may wonder what my credentials are for this task insofar as there is a near consensus among my critics that “Kaplan does not know philosophy.” Kenneth Waltz, the most prestigious student of international theory of the present period, wrote “sadly” of errors that “boggled” his mind [italics added]. In some cases, he used exclamation marks with respect to what he evidently regarded as claims so outlandish that simply to repeat them, without comment, made manifest their incoherence (See: Waltz, Kenneth, “Theory of International Relations,” in Handbook of Political Science, ed. Greenstein, Fred and Polsby, Nelson, vol. 8, [Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975], pp. 56–64)Google Scholar. It is, therefore, relevant to note that scholars who have distinguished professional credentials in the philosophy of science and science—and who had had no oral or written communication with me or common organizational connection prior to their comments onScience, Language, and the Human Condition— do not entirely share that judgment of my philosophical understanding. Patrick Heelan, a philosopher of science, with noted books on quantum theory, wrote “Synoptic knowledge⃛is now recovering through the work of critical and integrative philosophers such as⃛Morton Kaplan ⃛[This] is a remarkable and challenging book.” Peter Mitchell, a Nobel laureate in science, wrote “The analytical pragmatic approach so nicely expounded⃛relates philosophy, science, and humanity in a uniquely reasonable way.”

3 Kaplan, Morton A., Justice, Human Nature, and Political Obligation (New York: Free Press, 1976)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Justice); Science, Language, and The Human Condition (New York: Paragon House, 1984, 1989)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Science, Language); and Character and Identity (St. Paul: Professors World Peace Academy, 1998)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Character and Identity).

4 Pepper, Stephen C., World Hypotheses (Berkeley: University of California, 1942), pp. 67–69.Google Scholar

5 Review of New Thinking in International Relations (1997), edited by Doyle, Michael and Ikenberry, John, American Political Science Review 92 (1998): 972–73.Google Scholar

6 Science, Language, pp. 55–56. For the broader discussion, see pp. 49–70. Pages 141–154 of Character and Identity show why seemingly contradictory statements or positions can be treated objectively.

7 Quine's classical demonstration that there are no analytical truths as such— “The Two Dogmas of Empiricism”—is reproduced in simpler form in Justice, pp. 255–61. There are no synthetic truths as such either, for “analytical” and “synthetic” are correlative concepts.

8 SELETED DEFINITIONS (Italicized terms are also defined in the glossary):

“Knowledge. Concepts and reals mediated at least implicitly by signs, a triadic relationship that involves two correlative pairs:concept andsign andsign andreferent.”

“Truth, logical. An axiom, deduction, or inference that satisfies internal criteria.”

“Truth, empirical. The fit between an entity, event, or process or a theory, assessment, or proposition and external criteria. As applied to theories and the theoretical aspects of assessments, it meets internal criteria as well.”

“Relations, external. Relations among concepts or their referents when they are mediated by assessment rather than by a theory.”

“Relations, Internal. The relations among correlatives or among concepts.”

“Objective. The state of being a referent; hence, in the object language.”

“Subjective. The correlative of objective; consciousness.”

“Personal. Not subjective, but related to the individual.”

“Idiosyncratic. Personal; dependent on the history of individuals…and variability in their environment.”

9 Waltz, , “Theory of International Relations,”p. 63Google Scholar. The section of this essay in which Waltz engages the author's theory was reprinted with minor revisions in his Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979), pp. 50–59.Google Scholar

10 Hopf, Ted, “Polarity, the Offense-Defense Balance, and War,” American Political Science Review 85 (1991): 475–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 An account of Waltz's critique of my work can be found in Kaplan, Morton A., Towards Professionalism in International Theory (New York: The Free Press, 1979), especially pages 2,27–33, 37–39,42,47,48, 52,53,60, and 61Google Scholar. Each response contains a page reference to Waltz's article, “Theory of International Relations.” I deal here only with a few of the most central of Waltz's mistakes in understanding the arguments of philosophers or in critiquing my positions.

12 Is this statement false if it is true? Character and Identity, pp. 122–23, explains why such inferences fail to distinguish between thesign and signed aspect of words.

13 Reitzel, William, Kaplan, Morton A. and Coblenz, Constnace G., United States Foreign Policy: 1945–1955 (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1956).Google Scholar

14 Waltz, , “Theory of International Relations,” p. 63Google Scholar; Kaplan, , Professionalism, pp. 36–41.Google Scholar

15 System and Process, pp. 6–8; Kaplan, Morton A., Macropolitics ( Chicago: Aldine, 1969), pp. 57–63.Google Scholar

16 Waltz, , “Theory of International Relations,” p. 57.Google Scholar

17 A readily accessible exposition of the plausible “logic” of this position is provided in Kaplan, Morton A., “The Systems Approach to International Politics,” in New Approaches to International Relations, ed. Kaplan, Morton A. (New York: St. Martin's, 1968), p. 390.Google Scholar

18 Waltz, , “Theory of International Relations,” p. 60.Google Scholar

19 ibid., p. 36.

20 ibid., pp. 36–37.

21 Waltz argues for the irrelevance of rational actor analysis (ibid., p. 39).

22 This procedure can be folded into the test-in-principle, which permits a moderate-confidence, loosely ordered moral evaluation of societies and of actions within them. A very early formulation occurs in Appendix 2 of System and Process. See Justice, pp. 94–106; Science, Language, pp. 259–78; and Character and Identity, pp. 234–35 for better statements. See chapter 8 of System and Process for a discussion of the national interest.

23 Franke, W. in Kaplan, , New Approaches, pp. 426–56.Google Scholar

24 Riker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962).Google Scholar

25 Reinkin, Donald L., “Computer Explorations of the ‘Balance of Power’: A Project Report,” in Kaplan, , New Approaches, pp. 459–81.Google Scholar

26 L. J. Savage developed this concept for games against nature, but it can be used in both game theory and asymmetric bargaining games (in Kaplan, , New Approaches, pp. 490–502Google Scholar).

27 Waltz, , “Theory of International Relations,” p. 26.Google Scholar

28 See the Posterior Analytics, Book 1, chapter 7.

29 In the asymmetric bargaining game—and all bargaining games are really asymmetric—there is a Pareto optimal solution line that includes an extreme range of outcomes. I succeeded in narrowing this line but not in reducing it to a single point (System and Process, pp. 193–99).

30 The best book on the theory of international relations is Dunne, Andrew P., International Theory (Wesrport, CT: Greenwood, 1996).Google Scholar

31 Science, Language, pp. 128–30. Character and Identity, pp. 201–256, provides the sociological analysis of how this kind of comparative evaluation is possible.