Originally published in 2013 and preserved as part of our archive project. Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work.

‘Whoever it was that first hit on the notion of a university and proposed that a public institution of this kind be established, it was not a bad idea to handle the entire content of learning (really, the thinkers devoted to it) by mass production, so to speak –by a division of labor …’

Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties[i]

‘The clashing point of two subjects, two disciplines, two cultures –of two galaxies, so far as that goes, ought to produce creative chances. In the history of mental activity that is where some of the break-throughs came.’

          C.P. Snow, ‘The Two Cultures’[ii] 

In the literature of International Relations, theoretical and epistemological controversies between so-called positivist advocates and the rest, have been, on the whole, fruitful.[iii] From this controversy, the dimensions of IR’s methodological questions have been brought into greater relief and beyond this it has enriched and expanded the literature, by enabling various new kinds of questions and knowledge pursuits. While researching this blooming of a thousand theoretical flowers (as K.J. Holsti once phrased it) for an essay, a significant new source came to my attention and quickly came to preoccupy my thinking. Tim Dunne, Lene Hansen, and Collin Wight’s special issue, ‘The End of International Relations Theory?’ and its companion symposium, richly deliberate, once again, the road from IR’s pluralistic garden today.[iv] The question throughout is how to and not to cohere our diverse and diverging inquiries. This question strikes me as vital, in an ongoing way, since the purposes (the ends or functions), of both disciplinary pluralism and coherence, are equally the pursuit of knowledge. The question is said to be vital and ongoing, however, since pluralism and coherence are attained from the investigation of different kinds and at times conflicting, questions, which either draw research together or apart. This brief essay is largely an exploration of this tension in the pursuit of international knowledge.

IR and the Function of Knowledge

Yet, before we set out, the question, surrounding epistemological issues and residing behind or beside our theoretical debates and deliberations, is: What is the function of the pursuit of knowledge itself? Although this meta-academic question is archetypically philosophical and possibly irresolvable, with respect to IR its consideration is intellectually helpful for the new student and discipline at large, since it draws some of our deeper divisions up to the surface and illuminates some underlying questions. Is the function of the pursuit of international knowledge the virtue of diplomatic wisdom or is it the powerful Enlightenment dream of a peaceful order? Is it the ambition of transcending blame from our understanding of the causes of war or is it the opposite? Is the function what Cox famously described as critical or is it problem-solving, or both?[v] Alternatively, is the function of knowledge determined by the cognitive interest behind its generation, as Habermas distinguished practical, technical, and emancipatory intellectual forms?[vi] Or, does the answer depend on the specific kind of knowledge under question, say, as Aristotle distinguished them?[vii] On the other hand, is the function only apparent once knowledge is attained? Or, regardless of its implications, is the function of knowledge simply the discernment or possession of the truth?[viii]

Without falling into the question of what knowledge is, the question of the function of knowledge, in a sociological sense, depends on whom one asks. There are autobiographical answers scholars, practitioners, and philosophers may have, personal journeys, values, and political agendas. There are also, public answers, comprising the vast collective goals and ambitions of succeeding generations, peoples, and civilizations, in their contributions to humanity. Moreover, privilege and influence are unevenly distributed between the advocates of these various, often conflicting, positions on the function of knowledge.[ix]

Since it is a philosophical, personal, public and political question, the arguably most sensible and intellectually fecund position is ambiguously located, so to sceptically ensure continuing and increasingly sophisticated debate in the pursuit of knowledge. In other words, providing reasons and space for intellectual plurality, by denying both relativism and monism, we not only clear the various roadways of knowledge, but also illuminate the paths between them, and so deepen and promote further learning for future benefit. From this position and spirit of inquisitive scepticism, intellectual pluralism and cooperation are coequal in the pursuit of knowledge.

Yet, to reconcile theoretical pluralism with cooperation, theoretical diversity with coherence, so the argument will be made, questions of consilience (the interlocking of explanations across questions concerning different phenomena) and meta-theory need clarification and ongoing examination. That is not to say, however, that there should be rules or a meta-method established for pursuing inter-theoretical coherence, since that would actually limit our stock of questions. Rather, the point is that the pursuit of knowledge requires only the lucid and thorough engagement of our questions, all of them, including how these questions relate, since how all this research adds up, how it all hangs together, is a live question, of significance and fruitfulness, so long as IR’s body of knowledge continues to grow.

Intellectual Pluralism and Cooperation

In the history of IR, the various contributions of the scholarly generations, positivist and post, have expanded and complicated IR theory. Today, incoming generations of IR scholars find a discipline of theoretical pluralism, as a fact, if not everywhere a fashionable trend. Yet, the pluralism of IR today can also be characterized by increasing entropy, declining isomorphism and understanding, growing disinterest between scholars, and a widening dearth of relevance between the data generated by IR’s different theoretical directions. While introductory textbooks are keeping pace with pluralization, often ingeniously so, scholarly communities within IR are arguably more engaged in critical indifference than fruitful controversy. That is, while debate has produced progress on epistemological questions, intellectual cooperation may be, on balance, in decline, though some empirical work into the sociology of IR knowledge is necessary to confirm this.

In 1989, considering IR’s diverging directions of inquiry, K.J. Holsti raised the question: What is the function of pluralism?[x] He argued that pluralism (intellectual freedom and equality) is based, most importantly, on the Socratic idea that intellectual progress is achieved via the conceptual and logical interrogation of beliefs. On this basis, Holsti argued that progress in IR is not best measured by the crowning of paradigms, or even the accumulation of theories, but rather, the accumulation of knowledge. In this he was exactly right. He argued, academic progress is best measured by the increasingly lucid statement of our explanatory theories and the continual gathering and ordering of relevant facts. This is a helpful and compelling contribution, so long as we recognize that there are different kinds of theory and facts. Nonetheless, the question of how these theories and facts hang together, wander apart, and what questions reside between them, is still unresolved in the pluralizing literature of IR today.

In considering IR’s historical pluralism, one may come to the notion that the values of intellectual freedom and equality, opposed to the value and goal of intellectual cooperation, in the academic pursuit of IR and the social sciences generally, are, at the surface, incompatible and conflicting. That is, while freedom and equality enable us to drift apart, they produce new variety of fruits. And, conversely, while cooperation draws us together, it tends to focus research upon specific, even singular, questions. While, in IR’s current state of affairs, intellectual freedom (if not equality) is arguably alive and well, conflict with the goal and value or ideal of intellectual cooperation may be an ongoing challenge.

The contented pluralist, celebrating the achievement of IR’s pluralism, may object to this above notion of conflict.[xi] It is arguable that there is today, a body of IR theory and exegesis, albeit of a pluralistic character, and that this literature, despite the variety of conflicting and divergent positions within it, is cohered by a distinct basket of questions, reaching into the broadest and deepest intellectual spaces of history and political philosophy.[xii] Furthermore, the learning, teaching, and growth of this literature, as an undergraduate programme and post-graduate pursuit, may be argued to constitute the academic grounds on which to consider IR a distinct and flourishing discipline, regardless of the degree of cooperation and dialogue between international schools........

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