Three Questions of Methodology

Abstract

Wight composed this note to make clear three caveats about his exposition of three main traditions of thinking about international politics in Western societies since the sixteenth century (Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism). First, the sources considered include not only works by theorists and international lawyers, but also statements and policies of politicians. Second, it is imperative to avoid ‘the hypostatization of categories’—that is, ‘taking a classificatory system too seriously and too concretely’ and attributing objective reality to intellectual concepts. The views of specific thinkers are more valuable than generalizations about shared opinions in categories or claims of progress in philosophical understanding over the centuries. Third, the scholar’s role concerning value judgements in this effort to elucidate the three traditions consists of ‘exposition and comparison, not criticism in any sense of propounding theory’ for the critical assessment of the ideas expressed in these traditions.