Politics and Science

Abstract

We cannot begin to deal with the question of whether or not we can have a “science of international politics,” or with such related questions as whether or not history is a science, unless we first make clear the concept of science we have in mind when we ask the question. For the word “science” often means nothing more than systematic knowledge, and in that sense, we must give a positive answer to the question. For I should be hard-pressed to justify why it is I am here giving a series of lectures and why you are spending your time listening to them, unless I felt that something in the way of systematic knowledge could be transmitted. In this very loose sense, then, I should certainly say that a science of international politics is possible and that, indeed, we already have something of one.