Beyond metatheory?

Abstract

Metatheory is out of fashion. If theory has a purpose, we are told, that purpose is the generation of practically relevant knowledge. Metatheoretical inquiry and debate contribute little to such knowledge and are best bracketed, left aside for the philosophers. This article challenges this all-too-common line of reasoning. First, one can bracket metatheoretical inquiry, but this does not free one’s work, theoretical or otherwise, of metatheoretical assumptions. Second, our metatheoretical assumptions affect the kind of practically relevant knowledge we can produce. If our goal is the generation of such knowledge, understanding how our metatheoretical assumptions enable or constrain this objective is essential. Today, the most sustained articulation of the ‘bracket metatheory thesis’ is provided by analytical eclecticists, who call on the field to leave behind metatheoretical debate, concentrate on concrete puzzles and problematics, and draw selectively on insights from diverse research traditions to fashion middle-range theoretical explanations. Yet by forgoing metatheoretical reflection, analytical eclecticists fail to see how their project is deeply structured by epistemological and ontological assumptions, making it an exclusively empirical-theoretic project with distinctive ontological content. This metatheoretical framing significantly impedes the kind of practically relevant knowledge eclecticist research can generate. Practical knowledge, as both Aristotle and Kant understood, is knowledge that can address basic questions of political action — how should I, we, or they act? Empirical-theoretic insights alone cannot provide such knowledge; it has to be integrated with normative forms of reasoning. As presently conceived, however, analytical eclecticism cannot accommodate such reasoning. If the generation of practical knowledge is one of the field’s ambitions, greater metatheoretical reflection and a more expansive and ambitious form of eclecticism are required.