A Critique of Positivism: Human Nature and Anarchy

Unity journal Pub Date : 2024-03-17 DOI:10.3126/unityj.v5i1.63161

Sunny Lama

{"title":"A Critique of Positivism: Human Nature and Anarchy","authors":"Sunny Lama","doi":"10.3126/unityj.v5i1.63161","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Positivism and post positivism are two paradigms within the field of international relations (IR) that differ in their approaches to ontology (the nature of reality) and epistemology (how knowledge is acquired) in the study of international politics. Ontologically, positivists are objectivists, meaning that they believe there are objective facts (for example, selfish human nature) and laws (for example, anarchy leads to chaos) in international politics. Positivists apply common rationality and value-neutrality as epistemological tools to discover and analyze such claims regarding external and objective social reality. In this paper, I make two points. First, positivism (realism and liberalism) has a natural propensity to reify social concepts into trans historical essence to generate causal theories. However, in reality, human nature is complex and the meaning of social realities such as human nature and anarchy is conceptual and constitutive. Second, the adoption of common rationality and value-neutrality as epistemological building blocks lead positivism to a rigid and ahistorical view of human nature and anarchy. In contrast, post positivism (critical theory and constructivism) can generate a relatively nuanced and complete picture of international politics.","PeriodicalId":498142,"journal":{"name":"Unity journal","volume":" 29","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Unity journal","FirstCategoryId":"0","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3126/unityj.v5i1.63161","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Positivism and post positivism are two paradigms within the field of international relations (IR) that differ in their approaches to ontology (the nature of reality) and epistemology (how knowledge is acquired) in the study of international politics. Ontologically, positivists are objectivists, meaning that they believe there are objective facts (for example, selfish human nature) and laws (for example, anarchy leads to chaos) in international politics. Positivists apply common rationality and value-neutrality as epistemological tools to discover and analyze such claims regarding external and objective social reality. In this paper, I make two points. First, positivism (realism and liberalism) has a natural propensity to reify social concepts into trans historical essence to generate causal theories. However, in reality, human nature is complex and the meaning of social realities such as human nature and anarchy is conceptual and constitutive. Second, the adoption of common rationality and value-neutrality as epistemological building blocks lead positivism to a rigid and ahistorical view of human nature and anarchy. In contrast, post positivism (critical theory and constructivism) can generate a relatively nuanced and complete picture of international politics.

查看原文本刊更多论文

实证主义批判：人性与无政府状态

实证主义和后实证主义是国际关系（IR）领域的两种范式，它们在国际政治研究中对本体论（现实的本质）和认识论（如何获取知识）的处理方法有所不同。在本体论上，实证主义者是客观主义者，即他们认为国际政治中存在客观事实（例如，自私的人性）和规律（例如，无政府状态导致混乱）。实证主义者运用共同理性和价值中立作为认识论工具，来发现和分析这些关于外部客观社会现实的主张。在本文中，我将提出两个观点。首先，实证主义（现实主义和自由主义）有一种天然的倾向，即把社会概念重新归结为反历史的本质，从而产生因果理论。然而，在现实中，人性是复杂的，人性和无政府状态等社会现实的意义是概念性和构成性的。其次，将共同理性和价值中立作为认识论的基石，导致实证主义对人性和无政府状态的看法僵化和非历史。与此相反，后实证主义（批判理论和建构主义）却能为国际政治勾勒出一幅相对细致和完整的图景。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Unity journal

自引率

0.00%

发文量