On the Need for Contextualist Criteria: A Reply to Professor Gunnell

Abstract

Professor Gunnell seems to be arguing that if political scientists follow the deductivist path they will almost certainly fall into a bottomless and sterile abyss. My understanding of the deductivist conception of science, and my verstehen about social phenomena lead me to believe that this is a very real risk. The risk derives from the apparent complexity of social phenomena and the relatively limited ability of the human mind to deal with complexity in a rigorous deductive manner. It is just possible that social phenomena are sufficiently complex that they will never be manageable within the neat framework of deductive models. It is precisely for this reason that, at least at this point in time, I would prefer not to have the whole of the discipline tread this path. But why should even one man risk a lifetime of scholarly endeavor against such a possible outcome? Well, if there is another possible outcome to which he attaches a sufficiently high utility, he will take the gamble. I suggest that there is another possible outcome, and hope that, for some, its utility will be sufficiently high to warrant the gamble. That outcome consists in the production of a cumulatively reliable body of knowledge about those social phenomena called political. Consider the worth of being able to reduce the errors of calculation on the parts of voters, office seekers, secretaries of state, etc.