Roger D Spegele
Biographic Data
| ID | 1155031 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Roger D Spegele |
| GIVEN NAMES | Roger D |
| FAMILY NAME | Spegele |
| SIGNATURE | SPEGELE R D |
| AFFILIATIONS | North-West University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1971 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Emancipatory International Relations
Towards a More Reflective Political Realism
This chapter is conceived as an intellectual adventure, a bumpy ride across the seemingly obscure terrain barely hinted at in the title. Its ostensible value lies in teasing out and evaluating different conceptions of theory, practice, and the relations they comport. Although the ride may have all the drawbacks of taking a roller coaster when one wanted a Ferris wheel, its intention is to shake up orthodox assumptions about the topics considered.…
Emancipatory International Relations
Although international relations theory is witnessing a veritable explosion of theoretical works in the general area of what I call, for reasons that will become clearer below, emancipatory international relations (EIR), a full-length critical study of this genre of theorizing has not yet been written, so far as I am aware. My project is to fill the lacuna. This will involve describing, analysing and criticizing a group of theories whose central …
Is robust globalism a mistake
The Imperfect Is Our ParadiseWallace Stevens1. IntroductionOne significant consequence of the subsidence of positivism as the dominant methodology of the social sciences has been the strong emergence of an emancipatory conception of international relations. Reisisting pedestrian calls 'to define one's terms', let us rather try to be more useful and characterize the general idea behind it in terms of its aim. The aim of any emancipatory internatio…
Political Realism in International Theory
In this 1996 book Roger Spegele argues that in the past international theorists have failed to recognise that there is not one conception of international relations, subdivided into different theories and approaches, but at least three wholly different conceptions of the subject. Though scholars are increasingly prepared to accept this, there is still no consensus about what to call these conceptions, how to describe them, and why they should be …
Political Realism and the Remembrance of Relativism
With the precipitate and well-deserved demise of positivism as the only theory of knowledge backstopping international relations, a large number of ethical issues, emasculated by positivism's non-cognitivist views of morality, are emerging for philosophical reflection and analysis. One of the most important of these is relativism. Despite its obvious (and increasing) significance, however, few international theorists have specifically addressed t…
Richard Ashley's Discourse for International Relations
Three Forms of Political Realism
In the recent study of international relations, political realism has, apparently, had as many supporters as detractors. Nonetheless, there seems to be a growing tendency to treat the categories of political realism as if they were passing the way of all flesh, destined to be replaced by system theory, transnationalism, Marxist structuralism, critical theory or whatever. One difficulty with this judgement is that political realism is not a single…
On Evaluative Political Realism
Science and common sense in the study of international politics
The history of recent efforts to establish a science of international politics may be usefully viewed as elaborate glosses on David Hume's powerful philosophical programme for resolving, reconciling or dissolving a variety of perspicuous dualities: the external and the internal, mind and body, reason and experience. Philosophers and historians of ideas still dispute the extent to which Hume succeeded but if one is to judge by the two leading ‘sci…
Alarums and excursions
This article ranges widely through the evolution of international political theory categorizing the varied nuances in this development in three compartments: Positive —Empiricism, Marxian International Politics, Political Realism. The author asks the question as to how international relations can claim scientific legitimacy in the light of the radical incommensurability between the above three divisions
From the Incoherence of Systems Theory to a Philosophy of International Relations
Despite the high seriousness and obviously increasing importance of international politics in our time, something recognizable as a philosophy of the subject, in the view of some scholars, has not yet succeeded in emerging from the demise of “banal” positivism. This lamentable and barely explicable state of affairs has led several philosophically inclined scholars to urge the search for a philosophy of international relations. The form, scope and…
Deconstructing Methodological Falsificationism in International Relations
The idea that international politics can be a theoretical science logically homeomorphic to theoretical physics finds its most perspicuous recent expression in a methodological falsificationist program for its realization. But the program is a syllabus of epistemological errors which, upon detailed examination, collapses into incoherence. This article gives particular attention to three aspects of the program: the principle of interdependent dedu…
Fiction as Political Theory
Do novelists have something to say about politics? By raising the question in such a starkly rhetorical way it is tempting to respond, ‘Yes, of course, novelists (at least some of them) do have something to say on a wide variety of subjects which traditionally fall under the rubric of political thought’. One could quickly give examples: Tolstoy's devastating critique of military leadership in War and Peace, George Orwell's penetrating analysis of…
"Classical Liberalism & Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent
Three Forms of Political Realism
In the recent study of international relations, political realism has, apparently, had as many supporters as detractors. Nonetheless, there seems to be a growing tendency to treat the categories of political realism as if they were passing the way of all flesh, destined to be replaced by system theory, transnationalism, Marxist structuralism, critical theory or whatever. One difficulty with this judgement is that political realism is not a single…
Deconstructing Methodological Falsificationism in International Relations
The idea that international politics can be a theoretical science logically homeomorphic to theoretical physics finds its most perspicuous recent expression in a methodological falsificationist program for its realization. But the program is a syllabus of epistemological errors which, upon detailed examination, collapses into incoherence. This article gives particular attention to three aspects of the program: the principle of interdependent dedu…
Richard Ashley's Discourse for International Relations
From the Incoherence of Systems Theory to a Philosophy of International Relations
Despite the high seriousness and obviously increasing importance of international politics in our time, something recognizable as a philosophy of the subject, in the view of some scholars, has not yet succeeded in emerging from the demise of “banal” positivism. This lamentable and barely explicable state of affairs has led several philosophically inclined scholars to urge the search for a philosophy of international relations. The form, scope and…
Emancipatory International Relations
Although international relations theory is witnessing a veritable explosion of theoretical works in the general area of what I call, for reasons that will become clearer below, emancipatory international relations (EIR), a full-length critical study of this genre of theorizing has not yet been written, so far as I am aware. My project is to fill the lacuna. This will involve describing, analysing and criticizing a group of theories whose central …
Political Realism and the Remembrance of Relativism
With the precipitate and well-deserved demise of positivism as the only theory of knowledge backstopping international relations, a large number of ethical issues, emasculated by positivism's non-cognitivist views of morality, are emerging for philosophical reflection and analysis. One of the most important of these is relativism. Despite its obvious (and increasing) significance, however, few international theorists have specifically addressed t…
On Evaluative Political Realism
Fiction as Political Theory
Do novelists have something to say about politics? By raising the question in such a starkly rhetorical way it is tempting to respond, ‘Yes, of course, novelists (at least some of them) do have something to say on a wide variety of subjects which traditionally fall under the rubric of political thought’. One could quickly give examples: Tolstoy's devastating critique of military leadership in War and Peace, George Orwell's penetrating analysis of…
"Classical Liberalism & Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent
Fiction as Political Theory
Do novelists have something to say about politics? By raising the question in such a starkly rhetorical way it is tempting to respond, ‘Yes, of course, novelists (at least some of them) do have something to say on a wide variety of subjects which traditionally fall under the rubric of political thought’. One could quickly give examples: Tolstoy's devastating critique of military leadership in War and Peace, George Orwell's penetrating analysis of…
Deconstructing Methodological Falsificationism in International Relations
The idea that international politics can be a theoretical science logically homeomorphic to theoretical physics finds its most perspicuous recent expression in a methodological falsificationist program for its realization. But the program is a syllabus of epistemological errors which, upon detailed examination, collapses into incoherence. This article gives particular attention to three aspects of the program: the principle of interdependent dedu…
From the Incoherence of Systems Theory to a Philosophy of International Relations
Despite the high seriousness and obviously increasing importance of international politics in our time, something recognizable as a philosophy of the subject, in the view of some scholars, has not yet succeeded in emerging from the demise of “banal” positivism. This lamentable and barely explicable state of affairs has led several philosophically inclined scholars to urge the search for a philosophy of international relations. The form, scope and…
Alarums and excursions
This article ranges widely through the evolution of international political theory categorizing the varied nuances in this development in three compartments: Positive —Empiricism, Marxian International Politics, Political Realism. The author asks the question as to how international relations can claim scientific legitimacy in the light of the radical incommensurability between the above three divisions
Science and common sense in the study of international politics
The history of recent efforts to establish a science of international politics may be usefully viewed as elaborate glosses on David Hume's powerful philosophical programme for resolving, reconciling or dissolving a variety of perspicuous dualities: the external and the internal, mind and body, reason and experience. Philosophers and historians of ideas still dispute the extent to which Hume succeeded but if one is to judge by the two leading ‘sci…
On Evaluative Political Realism
Three Forms of Political Realism
In the recent study of international relations, political realism has, apparently, had as many supporters as detractors. Nonetheless, there seems to be a growing tendency to treat the categories of political realism as if they were passing the way of all flesh, destined to be replaced by system theory, transnationalism, Marxist structuralism, critical theory or whatever. One difficulty with this judgement is that political realism is not a single…
Richard Ashley's Discourse for International Relations
Political Realism and the Remembrance of Relativism
With the precipitate and well-deserved demise of positivism as the only theory of knowledge backstopping international relations, a large number of ethical issues, emasculated by positivism's non-cognitivist views of morality, are emerging for philosophical reflection and analysis. One of the most important of these is relativism. Despite its obvious (and increasing) significance, however, few international theorists have specifically addressed t…
Political Realism in International Theory
In this 1996 book Roger Spegele argues that in the past international theorists have failed to recognise that there is not one conception of international relations, subdivided into different theories and approaches, but at least three wholly different conceptions of the subject. Though scholars are increasingly prepared to accept this, there is still no consensus about what to call these conceptions, how to describe them, and why they should be …
Is robust globalism a mistake
The Imperfect Is Our ParadiseWallace Stevens1. IntroductionOne significant consequence of the subsidence of positivism as the dominant methodology of the social sciences has been the strong emergence of an emancipatory conception of international relations. Reisisting pedestrian calls 'to define one's terms', let us rather try to be more useful and characterize the general idea behind it in terms of its aim. The aim of any emancipatory internatio…
Emancipatory International Relations
Although international relations theory is witnessing a veritable explosion of theoretical works in the general area of what I call, for reasons that will become clearer below, emancipatory international relations (EIR), a full-length critical study of this genre of theorizing has not yet been written, so far as I am aware. My project is to fill the lacuna. This will involve describing, analysing and criticizing a group of theories whose central …
Towards a More Reflective Political Realism
This chapter is conceived as an intellectual adventure, a bumpy ride across the seemingly obscure terrain barely hinted at in the title. Its ostensible value lies in teasing out and evaluating different conceptions of theory, practice, and the relations they comport. Although the ride may have all the drawbacks of taking a roller coaster when one wanted a Ferris wheel, its intention is to shake up orthodox assumptions about the topics considered.…
Emancipatory International Relations
Philosophy (14 works) · Epistemology (13 works) · Law (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Politics (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · International relations (10 works) · Law (10 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (8 works)