Historical Explanation and the Study of Politics

Abstract

MY STARTING POINT IS THE RATHER PLATITUDINOUS PROPOSITION that political science is a branch of scholarship which can be defined in terms of the activity studied but not in terms of the method adopted, which is to say that it is not a discipline like history or physics. To say that these subjects are disciplines is to indicate that historians and physicists are committed both to a certain method of acquiring data and to a certain mode of explanation. Because political scientists are not so committed they are inevitably involved in controversies about method and explanation, and the view I propose to discuss here is the view that, although several modes of explanation are open to students of politics, only the historical mode, and on a different level the philosophical mode, are appropriate. Those who hold this view lean heavily on the writings of Professor Michael Oakeshott and I shall begin with a very brief reference to Oakeshott's account of the main modes of experience and explanation. Subsequent sections will discuss the relevance of this account to students of politics, the nature of historical explanation, and the possibility of alternatives such as sociological explanation.