This paper adopts a symmetrical approach tocontroversies over R.H. MacArthur and E.O. Wilson'sequilibrium model of island biogeography, in order toshow how different interpretations of the model dependupon different philosophical understandings of theapplication of models and theories. In particular,there are quite distinct domains to which the modelcould apply; in addition, some equivocation amongthese domains is important to the model's success.Therefore, apparently inconsistent interpretations,interpretations that fit into roughly instrumentalist,realist and rationalist conceptions of science, may bemutually supporting in practice. Descriptions ofscientific practice, then, (...) should not adjudicate amongthese interpretations, but should instead recognizeways in which successful models translate amongdomains, and in so doing can become realistic,instrumentally successful, or rationally established.As complex social objects, models can afford complexrepresentational relations. (shrink)

This article makes use of the theoretical framework of George Herbert Mead to extend the parameters of the constructionist study of technology, which is shown to suffer from two major weaknesses. First, the perspective is based upon a dualist ontology, which tends toward a solipsistic position. Second, the constructionist approach is sociologically deterministic, and fails to fully capture innovation and creativity in the technological process. Mead's ontology can serve to remedy these issues, as his theory of meaning rests on a (...) non-dualist foundation. Further, his theory of emergence provides a way to conceptualize spontaneity and innovation in ways that are not possible using traditional constructionist approach. (shrink)

Positivism has had a tremendous impact on the development of the social sciences over the past two centuries. It has deeply influenced method and theory, and has seeped deeply into our broader understandings of the nature of the social sciences. Postmodernism has attempted to loosen the grip of positivism on our thinking, and while it has not been without its successes, postmodernism has worked more to deconstruct positivism than to construct something new in its place. Psychologists today perennially wrestle to (...) find and retain their intellectual balance within the methodological, theoretical, and epistemological struggles between positivism and postmodernism. In the process, pre-postmodern criticisms of positivism have been largely forgotten. Although they remain deeply buried at the core of psychology, these early alternatives to positivism are rarely given explicit hearing today. The current piece explores some of the early critiques of positivism, particularly of its scientism, as well as early suggestions to tip the scales in favor ofsapientia. This third option, largely overlooked within mainstream psychology, is of tremendous value today as it is both deconstructive and constructive relative to the shortcomings of positivism. It avoids the overly reductionistic “trivial order” of positivism, as well as the deeply unsatisfying and disorienting “barbaric vagueness” of postmodernism, while simultaneously embracing important core elements of both currents of thought. (shrink)

International Relations's intellectual history is almost always treated as a history of ideas in isolation from both those discursive and political economies which provide its disciplinary and wider context. This paper contributes to this wider analysis by focusing on the impact of the field's discursive economy. Specifically, using Foucaultian archaeologico-genealogical strategy of problematization to analyse the emergence and disciplinary trajectories of Constructivism in IR, this paper argues that Constructivism has been brought gradually closer to its mainstream Neo-utilitarian counterpart through a (...) process of normalization, and investigates how it was possible for Constructivism to be purged of its early critical potential, both theoretical and practical. The first part of the paper shows how the intellectual configuration of Constructivism and its disciplinary fortunes are inseparable from far-from-unproblematic readings of the Philosophy of Social Science: the choices made at this level are neither as intellectually neutral nor as disciplinarily inconsequential as they are presented. The second and third parts chart the genealogies of Constructivism, showing how its overall normalization occurred in two stages, each revolving around particular practices and events. The second part concentrates on older genealogies, analysing the politics of early classificatory practices regarding Constructivism, and showing how these permitted the distillation and immunization of Constructivism – and thus of the rest of the mainstream scholarship which it was depicted as compatible with – against more radical Postmodernist/Post-structuralist critiques. Finally, the third part focuses attention on recent genealogies, revealing new attempts to reconstruct and reformulate Constructivism: here, indirect neutralization practices such as the elaboration of ‘Pragmatist’ Constructivism, as well as the direct neutralization such as the formulation of ‘Realist’ Constructivism, are key events in Constructivism's normalization. These apparently ‘critical’ alternatives that aim to ‘provide the identity variable’ in fact remain close to Neo-utilitarianism, but their successful representation as ‘critical’ help neutralize calls for greater openness in mainstream IR. Rather than a simple intellectual history, it is this complex process of reading and producing that counts as ‘Constructivism’, which explains both the normalization of Constructivism and the continued marginalization of Postmodernist/Post-structuralist approaches in mainstream IR's infra-disciplinary balance of intellectual power. (shrink)

This article considers some political potentialities of the post-constructivist proposal for substituting truth with traceability. Traceability is a measure of truthfulness in which the rationality of a truth-claim is found in accounting for the work done to maintain links back to an internal referent through a chain of mediations. The substitution of traceability for truth is seen as necessary to move the entire political domain towards a greater responsiveness to the events of the natural-social world. In particular, it seeks to (...) disarm the strategy of ... (shrink)