Podcast on International Relations as Science

Kapitoly

Úvod do IR ako vedy

Veda o mieri a vojne

Pozitivizmus a hľadanie zákonov

Príklad z praxe: Teória demokratického mieru

IR's Scientific Turn

The Reign of Positivism

The Great Debates

The Theory Behind Theory

Science's Starting Point

Three Types of Assumptions

Why It All Matters

The Philosophy of Being

Ideas vs. Atoms

The Universals Controversy

Methodological Individualism

Methodological Holism

What is Reductionism?

Ockham's Razor

The Unity of Science

A Different Way of Knowing

Final Thoughts and Goodbye

Přepis

Emma: Väčšina ľudí si myslí, že medzinárodné vzťahy sú len o tom, ako politici vedú nekonečné diskusie a podpisujú zmluvy.

Ben: Áno, ale v skutočnosti je to len polovica pravdy. Jadrom medzinárodných vzťahov, alebo skrátene IR, je snaha byť vedou. Podobne ako biológia alebo chémia.

Emma: Počkať, ako veda? Takže sa snažia nájsť nejaké... zákony svetovej politiky?

Ben: Presne tak! Je to fascinujúce. A o tom si dnes povieme viac. Počúvate Studyfi Podcast.

Emma: Dobre, Ben, kde sa vzal ten nápad urobiť z politiky vedu? To znie dosť ambiciózne.

Ben: Všetko sa to začalo po prvej svetovej vojne. Ľudia boli zdesení a chceli systematicky pochopiť, prečo vznikajú vojny a ako im zabrániť. Chceli nájsť liek na vojnu, podobne ako vedci hľadajú liek na chorobu.

Emma: A ako to robili? Len tak, že zbierali fakty?

Ben: V podstate áno. Na začiatku bola myšlienka jednoduchá: zhromaždiť fakty, usporiadať ich a potom ich vysvetliť. Napríklad realista E. H. Carr tvrdil, že analýzou príčin a dôsledkov môžeme vytvoriť vedeckú teóriu.

Emma: Takže menej diplomacie a viac... dátových tabuliek?

Ben: Presne tak! Aspoň to bol cieľ. Ale samozrejme, nezhodli sa všetci na tom, čo presne „veda“ v tomto kontexte znamená.

Emma: Takže, aké boli tie nezhody? Ako sa dá študovať ľudské správanie ako atómy?

Ben: Výborná otázka! To je jadro veľkej debaty. Od 50. rokov začal dominovať smer nazývaný pozitivizmus. Jeho hlavná myšlienka je, že spoločenský svet sa riadi zákonmi, podobne ako prírodný svet.

Emma: Zákony? Ako napríklad „akcia vyvolá reakciu“?

Ben: Niečo v tom zmysle. Hľadajú vzťahy príčiny a následku. Napríklad sa pýtajú: Aký typ politického systému s väčšou pravdepodobnosťou začne vojnu? Hľadajú súvislosti, ktorým hovoríme korelácie.

Emma: Dobre, toto začína byť zaujímavé. Máš nejaký konkrétny príklad takejto teórie založenej na dátach?

Ben: Určite. Najznámejším príkladom je teória demokratického mieru. Je založená na pozorovaní, že demokracie proti sebe takmer nikdy nevedú vojnu.

Emma: Naozaj? To je dosť silné tvrdenie.

Ben: Je to jedna z najlepšie empiricky overených teórií v IR. Dá sa sformulovať ako hypotéza v štýle „ak-potom“: AK sú medzinárodné vzťahy medzi dvoma demokraciami, POTOM medzi nimi nevypukne vojna.

Emma: Takže teória v IR nie je len filozofovanie, ale skôr návod na testovanie hypotéz o svete?

Ben: Presne tak! Teória ti dáva mapu a metódy sú tvoj kompas. A s týmito nástrojmi môžeme začať oveľa lepšie chápať zložitý svet okolo nás. O tom si povieme viac v ďalšej časti.

Emma: Okay, Ben, so we've established these huge meta-theoretical frameworks, these 'orders of thought'. But I have to ask... why does this super abstract philosophy stuff matter for the real world of International Relations?

Ben: That's the perfect question, Emma. It matters because these philosophical choices have massive consequences for how we study politics, and even how we practice it. Think about the 1950s.

Emma: Okay... what happened in the 50s?

Ben: The field of IR had a bit of an identity crisis. Scholars wanted to make it more... well, 'scientific'. This was called the 'behavioral revolution'. They wanted legitimacy.

Emma: So they needed a philosophical backbone to justify their work as a real science?

Ben: Exactly. They started referencing major philosophers of science—people like Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn—to build a more rigorous foundation for the discipline. They were trying to establish a proper scientific basis for everything they did.

Emma: So which philosophy won out? What became the go-to 'order of thought' for IR?

Ben: The winner, by a long shot, was positivism. It became so incredibly dominant that for decades, the terms 'science' and 'positivism' were used almost interchangeably in IR.

Emma: Wow. So to be a scientist in international relations, you had to be a positivist?

Ben: That was the general idea, yes. The 'scientific' study of IR came to mean a study based on positivist rules—looking for observable facts, separating them from values, and aiming for law-like explanations. It was all about creating cumulative knowledge.

Emma: It sounds like it tried to turn the study of politics into something more like physics.

Ben: That's a great way to put it. And it led to the discipline breaking into all these little sub-fields... foreign policy analysis, conflict studies, security studies... each trying to scientifically study its own little piece of the puzzle.

Emma: I'm sensing a 'but' coming. Not everyone was happy with this, were they?

Ben: Not at all. Deep debates started almost immediately. As early as the 1960s, you had this big clash between the 'traditionalists' and the 'scientists'—the positivists.

Emma: What was the traditionalists' main complaint?

Ben: They argued that positivism’s strict rules forced researchers to ignore huge, important parts of international politics. Things like diplomacy, history, and judgment... you can't exactly measure those with an instrument.

Emma: You can't put a treaty negotiation in a test tube.

Ben: You really can't. And that debate has never really gone away. It flared up again in a big way in the 1990s with the rise of so-called 'post-positivism'.

Emma: Post-positivism... sounds like a sequel.

Ben: It's a bit of a misleading name. It's not one single philosophy. It's more of an umbrella term for a whole range of approaches that critique positivism—like constructivism, critical realism, and historicism.

Emma: So are these theories 'anti-science'?

Ben: Here's the key takeaway—very few of them are. They aren't against the idea of systematic inquiry. They just have a different idea of what 'science' should look like. They reject the positivist rulebook.

Emma: So the debate is really about the very definition of knowledge in IR.

Ben: Precisely. It’s a debate about what we can know, how we can know it, and what counts as a valid explanation for what happens in the world. And that fundamental disagreement is still at the absolute core of the discipline today.

Emma: So these philosophical debates aren't just academic navel-gazing. They shape everything. What a perfect bridge to start looking at some of these specific theories and the assumptions they're built on.

Emma: Okay, so just to make sure I'm following... different approaches in a field like International Relations aren't just about different opinions. They're based on fundamentally different ideas about what science even *is*.

Ben: Exactly right, Emma. And that brings us to a fascinating area called the philosophy of science. You can think of it as the 'theory behind the theories'. It's often called 'meta-theory'.

Emma: Meta-theory. So it’s like we’re zooming out from the specific theories to look at the rulebook they're all playing by?

Ben: That's a perfect way to put it. It asks the big questions. What makes science different from, say, intuition or speculation? What are the basic rules for building knowledge?

Emma: And I'm guessing there isn't just one rulebook, right? That's why we have these different scientific approaches we were talking about.

Ben: Precisely. The enormous success of the natural sciences in the 20th century—physics, chemistry, biology—made everyone in the social sciences really want to figure out their secret sauce. But that led to a lot of debate about what the recipe for 'good science' actually is.

Emma: Okay, so how does a philosophy of science... work? What are its components?

Ben: Great question. Any philosophy of science is built on a set of assumptions. And this is where it gets a little surprising for people.

Emma: Surprising how?

Ben: Well, these assumptions are propositions that are taken for granted. They are the starting points for all reasoning that follows... but they themselves aren't subject to being proven true or false.

Emma: Wait, hold on. You're telling me that the entire enterprise of science, which is all about proof and evidence, starts with something that can't be proven?

Ben: It sounds like a paradox, doesn't it? But it's true for *all* systems of knowledge, not just science. Think of it like an axiom in geometry. You don't prove that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points; you accept it as a starting point to prove other things.

Emma: So they’re like the fundamental rules of the game. You can't prove the rules *using* the game itself. You just have to agree on them to play.

Ben: You've nailed it. That's the key takeaway here. These assumptions are the intellectual foundation. There's nothing 'below' them from which they logically follow. They are the bedrock.

Emma: Okay, my mind is a little blown, but I'm with you. What kinds of assumptions are we talking about here?

Ben: They generally fall into three big categories. First, you have ontological assumptions.

Emma: Ontology... that sounds heavy.

Ben: It just means 'the study of being'. So, an ontological assumption is a claim about what exists. What is real? What is the fundamental nature of the world we're studying?

Emma: So, like... are we studying material things only, or do ideas and norms count as 'real' things in the world?

Ben: Exactly. The second category is epistemological assumptions. This is about knowledge. What counts as valid knowledge, and how can we justify our claims to know something?

Emma: So, is knowledge only what we can directly observe with our senses? Or can it come from reason and logic, too?

Ben: Yes, that’s the core of it. And that leads directly to the third type: methodological assumptions. These are claims about the *practice* of science. What are the right methods and tools to gain the knowledge we're after?

Emma: Okay, so let me recap. We have ontology—what's real. Epistemology—how we know what's real. And methodology—the tools we use to find out. It's like a three-legged stool.

Ben: A perfect analogy. You need all three for any philosophy of science to stand up. They are completely interconnected.

Emma: And because these are *assumptions*—these starting points we can't prove—it means different groups of scientists can start with different assumptions.

Ben: And that's the big reveal. That's why there can be more than one legitimate way to 'do' science. Different assumptions lead to entirely different views of what counts as a good explanation or a valid theory.

Emma: It seems so abstract, but I'm starting to see how this would cause major disagreements in a field. It’s not about the data; it’s about the very foundation of how you see the world.

Ben: It is. Many theorists don't even explicitly state their assumptions; they're just taken for granted. But they shape everything that follows. They are the invisible architecture of any theory.

Emma: So this helps explain why some researchers focus on statistics and observable behaviors, while others focus on interpreting ideas and historical texts.

Ben: You're one hundred percent right. They are operating from different meta-theories. They've chosen different starting points.

Emma: This is fascinating, but also very abstract. It's hard to grab onto.

Ben: I get that. So, here's what we'll do. To make this really concrete, let's explore one of the most influential philosophies of science out there as a detailed example. It’s a big one you’ve probably heard of: positivism.

Emma: Okay, so we’ve been talking about the foundations of knowledge... but that kind of assumes we know what things *are* in the first place. Which sounds... obvious? But I have a feeling it’s not.

Ben: You're right, it's not obvious at all. And you've just stumbled into one of the oldest branches of philosophy—ontology.

Emma: Ontology. Okay, break that down for me.

Ben: Simply put, ontology is the study of being, existence, or reality. It asks the big questions: What is real? What exists? What is the world ultimately made of?

Emma: Whoa. So, less about 'how we know' and more about 'what *is* there to be known'.

Ben: Exactly. Think about that classic question, “Is the whole more than the sum of its parts?” Answering that is an ontological claim. You’re making a statement about the nature of reality.

Emma: So what are the main camps here? I’m guessing people don’t agree on what’s real.

Ben: Not even close. A great place to start is with the ancient Greeks. On one side, you have Plato and his theory of forms.

Emma: I remember him from school! Something about a cave?

Ben: That's the one! For Plato, ultimate reality isn't the physical world we see. It’s a world of perfect, non-material ideas or 'forms'.

Emma: What does that mean? Like, this microphone in front of me isn’t real?

Ben: To Plato, it's a particular, imperfect copy of the universal 'idea' of a microphone. The perfect idea of 'circle' is the true reality, and every round plate or wheel is just a shadow of it. The idea is more real than the object.

Emma: Okay, that’s a bit of a mind-bender. So the idea of a thing is its true essence?

Ben: Precisely. And these forms are timeless and transcendent. Then, on the complete opposite side, you have Democritus and the atomists.

Emma: I’m guessing they weren’t big fans of transcendent ideas.

Ben: Not at all. For them, reality was simple: it's all just tiny, indivisible material particles—atoms—moving in an empty space. Everything that exists is just a different arrangement of these physical bits.

Emma: So one side says ideas are real and matter is a shadow, and the other says matter is real and ideas are just... what? Thoughts in our heads?

Ben: You've nailed the core of the 'universals controversy'. The question is whether abstract concepts—the universals, like 'justice' or 'humanity'—actually exist, or if only particular, concrete things exist.

Emma: And the atomist view sounds a lot like modern science, right? Looking for the smallest particles at CERN and all that.

Ben: It's the direct philosophical ancestor. And this leads to a position called nominalism, which is very common in science today. Nominalism basically says universals are just names. 'Humanity' doesn't exist as a real entity; only individual humans exist.

Emma: So it's just a useful label we created.

Ben: Exactly. For a nominalist, an abstract concept has no being on its own. It's a mental tool, a way to categorize the physical world. It has no causal power.

Emma: Okay, so this debate—what’s fundamentally real—seems like it would affect everything. It changes what you even look for when you're trying to build knowledge.

Ben: You're jumping ahead, but you're spot on. Because once you decide what's real... the next logical question is how you go about studying it. And that leads us directly into methodology.

Emma: So that's how we define what an 'explanation' even is. But it feels like there's a huge question we haven't answered yet... *who* or *what* are we explaining? The person, or the system they're in?

Ben: That's the perfect question, Emma. It gets right to the heart of methodology. It’s basically the biggest philosophical fork in the road for social sciences.

Emma: A fork in the road... So what are the two paths?

Ben: Okay, Path One is called Methodological Individualism. It sounds complex, but the idea is simple. It says to understand big things, like institutions or social changes, you have to start with the smallest part.

Emma: The individual person?

Ben: Exactly. It's an action-centered view. Thinkers like Max Weber and Friedrich Hayek championed this. They argue that society is just the result of all of us... individuals... making choices.

Emma: So it's tied to that 'Rational Choice Theory' we hear about?

Ben: You got it. That theory assumes we're all rational actors trying to maximize our own utility. It's like explaining a traffic jam by looking at each individual driver's decision to take that road at that time.

Emma: Instead of just saying 'the traffic jam magically appeared'.

Ben: Right. There's no ghost in the machine causing traffic. It's just people making choices.

Emma: Okay, so if that's Path One, what's down Path Two?

Ben: That's Methodological Holism, or Structuralism. And it flips the script completely. It says you can't understand the individual without first understanding the system.

Emma: So the whole is greater than the sum of its parts?

Ben: Precisely! Emile Durkheim was a key thinker here. Holism argues the 'system'—be it social class, gender roles, or the economy—has its own logic. It shapes and determines how individuals behave.

Emma: So, to use your traffic analogy... Holism would focus more on the design of the road system and the speed limits, rather than just the individual drivers?

Ben: That’s a great way to put it. The structure itself is the main character in the story, not the individuals within it. The key takeaway is that these two different starting points—the individual versus the system—lead to completely different explanations for the exact same events.

Emma: And I'm guessing we're going to see these two approaches battle it out in the different IR theories we'll be looking at.

Ben: You know it. And that's exactly where we're headed next, starting with the theories that lean heavily on that individualist view.

Emma: Okay Ben, you’ve used that phrase “reducible to” a few times now when we talked about atomism. It sounds like a core idea for positivist science.

Ben: It absolutely is, Emma. It’s our final big concept—reductionism. And it’s actually quite simple. The idea is that to understand any complex thing, you have to break it down and study its smallest parts.

Emma: So, to know about the whole, you study the pieces that make it up?

Ben: Exactly. You reduce the complex system to its elementary components. Whether that’s a theory you’re reducing to simple logical statements, or a biological process you’re reducing to its chemical parts.

Emma: That reminds me of something I’ve heard of… Ockham's Razor? Is that related?

Ben: You’re spot on! Ockham’s Razor is a perfect example. It’s the principle of parsimony. It says that the simplest explanation is usually the best one.

Emma: So science should avoid making things more complicated than they need to be?

Ben: Precisely. Why invent ten complicated reasons for something when one simple one will do? It’s about being economical with your thoughts. Cut away the needless parts of a theory.

Emma: Okay, so this idea of breaking things down and keeping them simple… where does it lead?

Ben: Well, it leads to a pretty radical idea called the “unity of science.” This is the belief that, ultimately, all sciences can be reduced down to one fundamental science—physics.

Emma: Wait, all of them? You’re saying psychology can be reduced to physics?

Ben: That's the most extreme version, yes. The thinking goes… psychology can be reduced to biology... biology to chemistry... and chemistry is just the arrangement of atoms, which is physics. Suddenly your feelings are all about particles!

Emma: Wow. That feels… a little cold. So it gives a privileged position to the natural sciences, right?

Ben: It does. It suggests that the methods of physics and chemistry are the *only* real way to do science, even for studying society.

Emma: But surely not everyone agrees with that. The social world seems so different from the natural world.

Ben: And that’s the big pushback. Thinkers like Max Weber and others argued that the social world requires a totally different approach. You can't just observe people like they're chemicals in a beaker.

Emma: Why not?

Ben: Because in social sciences, the observer is part of the world they’re analyzing! Our analysis is wrapped up in language, history, and interpretation. You need a different method, like hermeneutics, which is the science of understanding and interpretation.

Emma: So reductionism is a powerful tool, but maybe not the only tool in the box.

Ben: That’s the key takeaway here. It's been the dominant view for a long time, but for the last few decades, anti-reductionism has been gaining ground, especially when we try to understand ourselves.

Emma: What a fascinating journey. From empiricism and positivism all the way to this grand idea of reducing everything to physics. It really shows how our assumptions shape the way we even think about knowledge.

Ben: It really does. These concepts are the bedrock of so much scientific inquiry, and questioning them opens up whole new ways of seeing the world. It’s been a pleasure exploring it all with you.

Emma: It’s been amazing, Ben. And a huge thank you to all our listeners for joining us on the Studyfi Podcast. We hope we’ve given you some new tools for your thinking toolkit. Keep asking questions, and until next time, happy studying!

Ben: Goodbye everyone!