The crown of sciences: Can it be just a science? The journey of political science in the 20th century (original) (raw)
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Which Sciences Does the Political Science Direct and Use and How Does It Do So
I propose to do four things: (1) to call attention to a seemingly trivial editorial choice made by Ingram Bywater in his influential edition of the Greek text of Aristotle's Ethics; (2) to show that this editorial choice has no basis in the manuscript tradition and is therefore misguided; (3) to show what is at stake for political practice; and (4) to show in what ways political science directs and uses the other sciences and in which ways it does not.
One. A History of Political Science: How? What? Why?
Modern Political Science, 2009
BRITISH AND AMERICAN political scientists recently have shown an un usual degree of interest in the history of their discipline. The dawn of a new millennium prompted leading figures in the British study of politics to reflect on their past and to situate themselves in relation to it. 1 In America, work on the history of political science has appeared off and on for some time, but the last decade has witnessed a positive flourishing of such studies. These studies include some in which luminaries in the disci pline look back on their teachers and predecessors. 2 They also include a distinct subgenre of historical studies written from within the discipline, but by scholars outside its limelight. 3 The past of political science has attracted further attention recently from intellectual historians outside of the discipline in both Britain and America. 4 Modern Political Science
The relevance of political science and the public responsibility of political scientists
2020
The relevance of political science and the public responsibility of political scientists Political scientists face increasing demands to demonstrate the relevance of their research beyond the academy (the so-called 'impact agenda'). Matthew Flinders argues that this should be seen less a threat to the discipline's autonomy than an opportunity to rise to public responsibilities that have always accompanied a political science career. The 'noble science of politics' has changed a great deal through the 20th and 21st centuries. It has also rather (in)famously been 'a discipline divided', with tensions between warring factions and sub-fields too often dominating discussions, to the detriment of complementarity and pluralism. The 'tragedy of political science' is that it has spent too much time and energy fighting internal schisms and too little nurturing its position within the broader social context. This assertion might be challenged by some as a generalisation, yet the lively debates in the past two decades, prompted by books on the relevance of political science and making political science matter, suggest that the problem still persists. We are still waiting for 'punk political science' to explode onto the scene The 'raucous rebellion' in political science occasioned by the Perestroikan movement never actually seemed that raucous, and appeared more concerned with increasing methodological pluralism within the discipline than forging a new political science for the twenty-first century. We are still waiting for 'punk political science' to explode onto the scene.
Chapter 3 Political Science and the Other Social Sciences
The discipline of political science is " ill-defined, amorphous and heterogeneous. " With this diagnosis, editors Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby open their preface to the first Handbook of Political Science (1975: 1). Twenty years later, the main features of political sciences are: specialization, fragmentation and hybridization. Its frontiers are open and moving and need not be defined. The process of specialization has generated an increasing fragmentation in subfields, which are not " amorphous " but rather well-organized and creative. The " heterogeneity " has been greatly nourished by exchanges with neighbouring disciplines through the building of bridges between specialized fields of the various social sciences. This process of cross-fertilization is achieved by hybridization. The relations between political science and the other social sciences are in reality relations between sectors of different disciplines, not between whole disciplines. It is not an " interdisciplinary " endeavor. Since there is no progress without specialization, the creative interchanges occur between specialized subfields, most of the time at the margins of the formal disciplines. The current advancement of the social sciences can be explained in large part by the hybridization of segments of sciences. It would be impossible to conceive of a history of political science and of its current trends without reference to the other social sciences.
R. Rosicki, On the political dimension of political science – a few words about political dimension as the final judgment and reasoning, in: E. Jurga-Wosik, S. Paczos, R. Rosicki (eds.), W poszukiwaniu polityczności, WNPiDz UAM, Poznań 2014, pp. 71-81., 2014
The subject of the text is the issue of the "political", which is defined as the nature and level of the final judgment and ultimate reasoning. The issues of this kind of the "political" has been attempted to distinguish in political sciences. The text focuses on: (1) the scientist as an agent for the final judgment and reasoning, (2) the subject of study of political science, (3) "theoretical strategies" in the science of politics. The latter problem has been discussed mainly on the example of Polish political science. Discussed were among others: (1) "the dilemma of scale", (2) limited operational capacity (methodological and theoretical), (3) aesthetic imagery of political life, (4) structural ignorance in the field of ontology, epistemology and methodology.
The new non-science of politics: On turns to history in political science
1990
I. Introducticn. The canon of major writings on politics includes a considerable number that claim to offer a new science of politics, or a new science of man that encompasses politics. Arlc, totle, Hobbos, Hume, Publius, Con~ te, Bentham, Hegel, Marx, Spencer, Burgess, Bentley, Truman, East.
The American Political Science Review (APSR) centennial provided us an occasion for the examination of the political science profession as reflected from its pages. Employing a citation analysis of 220 major political scientists published in the APSR and probing deeper into the citation record of some of its prominent scholars, this paper charts the dynamics of political science history. Since its birth over a hundred years ago, the profession has been in a state of constant flux, where new movements surge as previous ones decline once their integration into the fund of professional knowledge was completed. The paper argues that the surge and decline pattern is not a “tragedy of political science,” but a sign of a healthy and vigorous profession.