H.H. Chartrand

May 2002

AAP Homepage

Eugene F. Miller

Positivism, Historicism, and Political Inquiry (Web 4)

American Political Science Review

Volume 66, Issue 3

Sept. 1972, 796-817

Index

Introduction [Web 1]

Epistemological Issues That Divide Positivism and Historicism

The Revolt Against Positivism in the Philosophy of Science [Web 2]

The Growth of Historicism in American Political Science [Web 3]

Conclusion: Beyond Positivism and Historicism in Political Inquiry [Web 4]

Conclusion: Beyond Positivism and Historicism in Political Inquiry

This essay has examined the controversy between behavioral and postbehavioral views of political inquiry in light of the larger dispute in modern philosophy over the character of human knowledge. We have seen that while behavioralism continues to be the dominant approach in American political science, its epistemological foundations have been dealt a severe, if as yet unperceived, blow by critics of positivism. It remains uncertain whether or not positivism, in some modified form, will continue to provide the guiding principles for political inquiry or, if not, where the new epistemological and methodological principles will come from. An increasing number of political scientists, in formulating their opposition to behavioralism, are drawing upon one variety or another of the antipositivist theory of knowledge that may be called historicism. Yet the capacity of this theory of knowledge to sustain a science of politics is, to say the least, problematical. Its principles lead to an epistemological relativism that renders questionable that very possibility of science or philosophy as understood in the Western tradition.

The conviction that neither positivism nor historicism can provide a satisfactory basis for political inquiry lies behind the renewed interest in traditional approaches to political philosophy. ⁵⁸ Positivism and historicism have been allied in their opposition to traditional political philosophy, whose goal was knowledge of the good or just political order. Positivism bases its opposition on the claim that value-judgments cannot be verified empirically, while historicism insists that values are but individual or social creations, with no support in nature. It is possible, nonetheless, for proponents of positivism and historicism to support a reappraisal of earlier thought; for on some points of epistemology, each of these positions finds itself allied with traditional political philosophy in opposition to the other. Historicism agrees with tradition, in opposition to positivism, that evaluation is essential to understanding and, in particular, that the human things cannot be understood apart from judgments of good and bad. Conse-

58. Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin have been the most influential figures in the effort to restore political philosophy. For Strauss, see especially Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), What is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe, Ill.:Free Press, 1959), The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964), “Relativism” in Relativism and the Study of Man, ed. Helmut Schoeck and James W. Wiggins (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1961), pp. 135-157, and “Philosophy as Rigorous Science and Political Philosophy,” Interpretation, 2 (Summer, 1971), 1-9. For Voegelin, see especially The New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952); Order and History, 3 vols. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1956-1957); and Anamnesis (Munich: Piper, 1966). A fourth and final volume of Order and History is in preparation. For useful accounts of Voegelin’s thought, see Gregor Sebba, “Order and Disorders of the Soul: Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of History,” Southern Review, 3, New Series (Spring, 1967), 282-310; William C. Havard, “The Changing Pattern of Voegelin’s Conception of History and Consciousness,” Southern Review, 7, New Series (January, 1971), 49-67; Dante Germino, “Eric Voegelin’s Anamnesis,” Southern Review, 7 New Series (January, 1971), 68-88; and Ellis Sandoz, “The Foundations of Voegelin’s Political Theory,” Political Science Reviewer, 1 (FaIl, 1971), 30-73.

Both Strauss and Voegelin have defended political philosophy against the positivist critique. Strauss has gone on to identify historicism, rather than positivism, as the dominant force in contemporary thought and the leading contemporary opponent of political philosophy. His own work in classical political philosophy may properly be seen as a rebuttal of both the theoretical historicism of Hegel, which claims that political philosophy as quest for knowledge has been superseded by complete knowledge of the historical whole, and the relativistic historicism of Heidegger, which holds that views of the good must always be relative to groundless choice or to a dispensation of fate. Voegelin’s stand with respect to historicism has not been as clear-cut as Strauss’s although, he, too, is sharply critical of the thought of Heidegger as well as that of Hegel. In formulating his own position, Voegelin has drawn in some measure from the historicist tradition. He has held, for example, that political science in its full grandeur is philosophy of history and that the conditions of a civilization set limits to the capacity of its members to discern the truth about reality. Stanley Rosen has drawn attention to these aspects of Voegelin’s thought in his review of Order and History in Review of Metaphysics, 12 (December, 1958), 257-276. I would contend, however, that the thrust of Voegelin’s thought is away from historicism, at least in the sense of epistemological relativism. Of decisive importance is his view that man may, by the analysis of the experience of existence, grasp the truth about the order of being and, in light of this knowledge, rank the symbolic representations of reality that various civilizations have produced. There are, of course, other important differences between Strauss and Voegelin, such as their disagreement as to whether Political philosophy can or should be guided by revelation. Political theory or philosophy as Voegelin conceives it would probably be looked upon by Strauss as a type of political theology.

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quently, the scientific method, as reconstructed by positivism, cannot disclose what is human about man and society. Positivism agrees with tradition, in opposition to relativistic epistemologies, that reliable knowledge of nature is possible in at least some areas. The traditional view had been that the mind can grasp nature as it is and, on the basis of such knowledge, apprehend what ought to be. Positivism came to deny that there can be genuine knowledge of what is good and just, or of the standards (“ideals,” “values”) that ought to guide political choice, but it continued to insist on the possibility of knowing the factual world as it is. By questioning the possibility of objective knowledge of both facts and values, historicism takes a radical step beyond positivism as well as beyond traditonal theories of knowledge. It undercuts both positivistic approaches to political science and traditional political philosophy. Whatever their shortcomings might have been, traditional approaches to political philosophy, especially the ancient or classical approaches, encouraged a discriminating study of man and politics while preserving the possibility of reliable knowledge. The study of political philosophy in its traditional forms may thus contribute to the formulation of a mode of political inquiry that will do justice to the proper aspirations of positivism and historicism while avoiding their characteristic pitfalls.

In discussing the ‘postbehavioral revolution” in political science, David Easton takes note of each of the positions that I have described. I would argue, however, that there are two fundamental errors in Easton’s analysis of these positions and their relationships. He is mistaken, first of all, in thinking that the aims of the postbehavioral revolution can be reconciled with the effort to “convert the study of politics into a more rigorously scientific discipline modelled on the methodology of the natural sciences.” ⁵⁹ He argues that political science can accommodate the demands of postbehavioralism without surrendering the long-run objectives of behavioral science if it devotes more resources to applied research, acknowledges the influence of values on research, and engages in creative speculation about alternative kinds of political relationships that might be possible in the future. Easton fails to see that the postbehavioral revolution is heavily influenced by historicist epistemology and is, to that extent, opposed to “science” as behavioralism has defined it.

Easton’s second error is to underestimate the importance and vitality of current efforts to restore political philosophy as the quest for knowledge of political things both as they are and as they ought to be. In fact, he regards them as unworthy of serious attention from political scientists because they are not “future oriented.” According to Easton, they seek “to return to some golden age of political research” and, for that reason, require an adherent “to deny the possibility of discovering testable generalizations about human behavior.” Those who adopt this viewpoint have, by their reactionary stand, “forfeited their opportunity and put in question their fitness to undertake th(e) creative task of theory” that the future requires.⁶⁰ I suggest that these efforts to restore political philosophy are best understood as a response to the social and intellectual crisis that Easton himself has spoken of in his early writings and again in his presidential address. Proponents of this restoration share Easton’s early conviction that the crisis of modern thought and life is largely the result of a pervasive disillusionment with reason and that historicism is a primary manifestation of contemporary irrationalism. They are no less concerned than he is with contemporary society’s predicament and with its future, but they differ on this point: they are able to consider traditional approaches and principles as possible sources of future guidance because they have freed themselves from Easton’s implicit assumption that what arose in the past has been rendered obsolete by historical progress. ⁶¹ Efforts to restore political philosophy speak to the most urgent tasks in full awareness of the epistemological issues that these tasks must face. They cannot justly be accused of indifference to present needs and future tasks, but they may well be untimely, in Nietzsche’s sense of the term. Their success may have to await the recognition by political scientists of the nature and implications of historicism, just as it awaited earlier a recognition of the limitations of positivism.

59. Easton, “The New Revolution in Political Science,” p. 1051.

60. Easton, “The New Revolution,” pp. 1051, 1058.

61. I have examined the development of Easton’s thought, including his somewhat ambiguous position with respect to historicism, in “David Easton’s Political Theory,” Political Science Reviewer, 1 (Fall, 1971), 184-235. It is noteworthy that Ludwig von Bertalanify, the leading figure in the establishment of general system theory, has developed a “perspectivistic” theory of knowledge, which adopts some of the central premises of historicism but seeks to preserve, in a limited sense, the possibility of absolute knowledge of reality. See Bertalanffy’s “An Essay on the Relativity of Categories,” General Systems, 7 (1962), 71-83

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