The Naturalism Fallacy: Origins of Epistemic Violence in International Studies.

Pointing to the successes of modern natural science, naturalists recommend social scientific emulation of natural scientific research practices. Two properties of natural science suggest limitations, however. First, since Bacon, natural science has sought to control nature in order to promote human emancipation from nature’s ravages. Unreflective adoption of this conception in transcultural social sciences, such as international studies, can unintentionally produce oppressive outcomes. Second, the meaning conventions of natural science, when imported into social science, conform results to the world understandings from which inquiry proceeds. This circularity contributes to epistemic violence to the extent that such studies inform state policies. Naturalism would redeem itself if it could articulate unambiguous criteria for theory choice. But it cannot. Falsificationism’s contemporary defenders in international studies tacitly acknowledge this failure by appending to their descriptions of falsificationist criteria those of pragmatism. Falsificationist philosophers would recoil at this, believing that pragmatist criteria render theory choice irrational. If, in the end, we have no unambiguous criteria and must rely on the relatively vague coherence norms of pragmatism, how can international studies avoid the Scylla of irrationalism without steering into the Charybdis of epistemic violence? It can do so, this paper argues, only by advancing a program that promotes and extends diversity within the community of inquirers. As a byproduct, diversity would guard against research practices informed by non-emancipatory norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]