Rediscovering debates in the international studies: Morton Kaplan's system epistemology revisited

Abstract

In this four-part paper I attempt to ‘recover’ the notion of debate as a ‘method’ of philosophical analysis for the international studies. In part one, it is argued that discursive reasoning is indispensable to the task of attempting to say what international relations might consist in. Three reasons are given for this, viz., that there is an important connection between such debates and rationality; that it is a constitutive feature of natural language to want to use it for self-conscious reflections; and that it seems to be the only way of identifying the key concepts in terms of which any theorizing about international relations is to be expressed. Parts two and three are intended to show one of the uses to which discursive reasoning may be put in establishing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the incoherence of Morton Kaplan's systems epistemology for international relations. Establishing the incoherence of one conception of what international relations consists in will go one step closer towards saying more fully what international relations is. Part four suggests, but does not attempt to make compelling, that an Aristotelian conception of the subject matter is a quite defensible one.