Justifying Transcultural International Studies

This essay endeavours to justify a transcultural approach to international studies by showing that contemporary Western approaches to the theory of knowledge epistemology demand it. Both sophisticated falsificationism and pragmatic realism or pragmatism require that scientific truth-claims be redeemed discursively in the community of scientific experts. Owing to special features of social science, the claims to be redeemed include claims pertaining to meaning and intention. Because in international studies these claims rely on culturally sensitive interpretations, the discipline itself must assume a multicultural character in its institutions and practises, particularly in its practises of inquiry

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  • Hilary Putnam, “Beyond the Fact/Value Dichotomy”, in Realism with A Human Face, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, pp. 135-141.
  • Imre Lakatos, “Falsificationism and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes”, in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1970, pp. 91-196.
  • Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York, Harper and Row, 1959. For Popper’s response to Kuhn, see Karl Popper, “Normal Science and Its Dangers”, in Lakatos and Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, pp. 51-58. 4 Ibid.
  • Putnam, “Beyond the Fact/Value Dichotomy”, pp. 139-140.
  • Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pp. 78-81.
  • Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970.
  • Paul Feyerabend, “Consolations for the Specialist”, in Lakatos and Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, pp. 197-230.
  • John Vasquez, “The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs: An Appraisal of Neotraditional Research on Waltz's Balancing Proposition”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 899-912.
  • Feyerabend, “Consolations for the Specialist”, p. 215.
  • John Preston, Feyerabend: Philosophy, Science and Society, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1997, p. 5.
  • Hilary Putnam, “Meaning Holism”, in Realism With a Human Face, pp. 278-302.
  • Jonathan Barnes, The Complete Works of Aristotle, Revised Oxford Translation, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 332-333, lines 194b16-195b30. See also, J. M. E. Moravscik, “How Do Words Get Their Meanings”, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 78 (1981), pp. 5-24.
  • Ido Oren, Our Enemies and US: America’s Rivalries and the Making of Political Science, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2003, Chapter 4.
PERCEPTIONS: Journal of International Affairs-Cover
  • ISSN: 1300-8641
  • Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 2 Sayı
  • Başlangıç: 1996
  • Yayıncı: T.C Dışişleri Bakanlığı