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Although social scientists have been devoted to discovering specific realities of social life, many theorists devoted to critical judgment have turned to philosophy in search of universal grounds of truth and reality. They have, however, worried about the problem of relativism. Although Wittgenstein has often been characterized as a relativist, Cora Diamond, inspired by G. E. M Anscombe, argues that his work, despite internal tensions, provides rational grounds for external criticism of social practices. Her argument and her critique of the work of Peter Winch and Ilham Dilman are, however, neither adequately supported by Wittgenstein’s texts nor sufficiently developed on their own terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a great deal has been written about the perestroika movement in turn-of-the century political science its actual place in the history of the discipline has been poorly understood by its founders, defenders, and critics. Perestroika can be best understood as a manifestation of the persistent crises of identity that have characterized the discipline of political science, and it cannot be explained apart from the manner in which it was reflection of issues that attended both the origins of the field and periods such as the 1920s and aftermath of the behavioral era. What has been particularly important in each case has been the impact on both American politics and political science of the ethic of pluralism, which has created significant difficulties for both the practical and epistemic relationship between the discipline and its subject matter. — John Gunnell.This essay is followed by responses from James Farr, Robert O. Keohane, David D. Laitin, Kristen Renwick Monroe, Anne Norton, and Sanford F. Schram. John Gunnell then offers a response to commentators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hutchinson, Read, and Sharrock have provided an important analysis of the work of Peter Winch. They succeed in rescuing his philosophy from many of the distorting characterizations and categorizations to which it has been subjected, and they provide a fresh account of its relevance for thinking about the theory and practice of social science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the extensive commentary on the work of Peter Winch, there has been inadequate recognition of how his Idea of a Social Science discerned the implications of Wittgenstein's philosophy for confronting issues regarding the nature and interpretation of social phenomena. Winch's subsequent confrontation with anthropology can be further illuminated by examining one of the most contentious contemporary debates in this field. This case illustrates the paradoxes involved in meta-practices such as philosophy and social science seeking to make descriptive and normative claims about conceptually preconstituted forms of life, and it indicates the limitations of philosophical realism as a social scientific meta-theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are significant flaws in recent claims that Thomas Kuhn's work was an apology for American Cold War ideology and a manifestation of the transformation of logical positivism from a politically motivated philosophy to an apolitical account of the logic of science. These arguments present an inaccurate account of important aspects of the European origins of positivism and its post-emigration career in the United States, and they misinterpret the character and impact of Kuhn's work. Although significant elements of the image of science that Kuhn criticized originated in positivist philosophy of science, that image most distinctly took shape in peripheral fields such as political science where it was appropriated as part of a conservative defence against an attack, by another wave of emigre scholars, on the traditional American commitment to science and liberalism. In the end, it was Kuhn's work that provided the most significant basis for challenging the image of science that dominated the Cold War era. History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed. Thomas Kuhn [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary estrangement of political theory from political science is in large measure the product of a quarrel that originated in the challenge to the values of U.S. political science initiated by émigré scholars during the 1940s. The behavioral revolution was in an important respect a conservative rebellion in defense of the values of liberalism and related notions of science, relativism, and historical progress that had traditionally informed the discipline. This controversy in the context of political science fundamentally structured the discourse of academic political theory and the contemporary constitution of the field both as a division of political science and as a wider interdisciplinary enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Merriam has been characteristically treated, in historical accounts of American political science, as effecting a radical break with the nineteenth-century tradition and with the historicism that characterized the Columbia school from which he emerged. Although it would be a mistake to depreciate his contribution to subsequent political science, we misunderstand both Merriam and the contemporary discipline if we project images of the present on his work and fail to see the degree to which he embraced both the form and content of the study of politics initiated by his teachers William Dunning and John Burgess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]