File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2002/bhaskar.0212, message 16


From: "Daniel Pineu" <danielfrp-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: BHA: Essay on post-structuralism in IR
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 20:05:17 -0000


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.


Hi Ruth,

Well, two general points about the essay that I should have offered with the outline in the first place... First of all, I am condemned to a miserable ceiling of 1500 words (give or take 10%). Which means that it will be a constant battle between going beyond just outline assertions on a lot of important points, and keeping the focus on 2 or 3 main points, for the sake of compliance with the word-limit. Perhaps, as my tutor said to me, I'm overly ambitious. ( guess that covers you point #2, lol)

In any case, the essay derives, and should be linked to, a presentation. On one of the seminars, my group had to answer the question: "what is post-structuralism, and what contributions has it brought to IR". With the other two members focusing on methodology (deconstruction & double-reading), and the substantive issue of the critique of sovereignty, I was left with the somewhat residual task of setting up the pilosophy-of-science framewok on post-structuralism/po-mo, and discuss briefly what it brought (epistemologically) to IR - good and bad. While thinking about the essay proper, and being given some leeway to drift from the actual presentation, the thought came to me of presenting (as does Delanty) post-structuralism as both a reaction to structuralism, and a broader reaction to positivism. Fine, but then i kept on coming up with post-structural and po-mo cul-de-sacs, especially on the realtionship between ontology & epistemology, which poses big problems for IR. So, the thought came to me a couple of days ago to present a third moment, or move, to supersed post-positivism WHILE also superseding the main flaws that i see in PS/PM. Hence the critical realism bit, which came a posteriori, and wasn't initially built in my arguments.

So, while i do take your point #1, and indeed will be moving to keep sections 1-2 as short as I can without losing too much depth on the basics, I cannot altogether give the bulk of the paper to CR, as that would be a significant departure from the question I am supposed to address (relationship and contributions of post-structuralism to IR). CR must come as a third moment, a sort of conclusion.

Thank you so much for your "thought 3", I was pouring over a couple of books now, and thinking that I should do precisely that - although i still don't have a clear idea on how to do it - especially since, as you say, the line between epistemology and "substantive social theory" is somewhat blurry, and even more so in the cases of PS and CR. But yes, I would be dealing with BOTH levels (the philosophy of science, and the theory of society).

Thanks for steering me on the right direction, no distraction at all, quite the contrary. Any more comments are most welcome. I only wish I had couple of thousand more words to do it all in. ;-)

Cheers,

Daniel

HTML VERSION:

Hi Ruth,
 
Well, two general points about the essay that I should have offered with the outline in the first place... First of all, I am condemned to a miserable ceiling of 1500 words (give or take 10%). Which means that it will be a constant battle between going beyond just outline assertions on a lot of important points, and keeping the focus on 2 or 3 main points, for the sake of compliance with the word-limit. Perhaps, as my tutor said to me, I'm overly ambitious. ( guess that covers you point #2, lol)
 
In any case, the essay derives, and should be linked to, a presentation. On one of the seminars, my group had to answer the question: "what is post-structuralism, and what contributions has it brought to IR". With the other two members focusing on methodology (deconstruction & double-reading), and the substantive issue of the critique of sovereignty, I was left with the somewhat residual task of setting up the pilosophy-of-science framewok on post-structuralism/po-mo, and discuss briefly what it brought (epistemologically) to IR - good and bad. While thinking about the essay proper, and being given some leeway to drift from the actual presentation, the thought came to me of presenting (as does Delanty) post-structuralism as both a reaction to structuralism, and a broader reaction to positivism. Fine, but then i kept on coming up with post-structural and po-mo cul-de-sacs, especially on the realtionship between ontology & epistemology, which poses big problems for IR. So, the thought came to me a couple of days ago to present a third moment, or move, to supersed post-positivism WHILE also superseding the main flaws that i see in PS/PM. Hence the critical realism bit, which came a posteriori, and wasn't initially built in my arguments.
 
So, while i do take your point #1, and indeed will be moving to keep sections 1-2 as short as I can without losing too much depth on the basics, I cannot altogether give the bulk of the paper to CR, as that would be a significant departure from the question I am supposed to address (relationship and contributions of post-structuralism to IR). CR must come as a third moment, a sort of conclusion.
 
Thank you so much for your "thought 3", I was pouring over a couple of books now, and thinking that I should do precisely that - although i still don't have a clear idea on how to do it - especially since, as you say, the line between epistemology and "substantive social theory" is somewhat blurry, and even more so in the cases of PS and CR. But yes, I would be dealing with BOTH levels (the philosophy of science, and the theory of society).
 
Thanks for steering me on the right direction, no distraction at all, quite the contrary. Any more comments are most welcome. I only wish I had couple of thousand more words to do it all in. ;-)
 
Cheers,
 
Daniel
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