Back-To-Back Review: Pragmatic, Not Dogmatic, Ontology: A Reply to Colin Wight
| Author | Patrick Thaddeus Jackson |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836708097037 |
| Published date | 01 September 2008 |
| Date | 01 September 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
354 COOPERATION AND CONFLICT 43(3)
Pragmatic, Not Dogmatic,
Ontology: A Reply to Colin Wight
PATRICK THADDEUS JACKSON
As Colin mentions, he and I have been arguing with one another about
matters ontological and philosophical for several years now. Traditionally,
we do this late into the evening at professional conferences, and we gener-
ally attract an audience consisting of not just passive spectators, but of
active participants in the show. Over the years, I have learned three
things from these experiences. First, neither Colin nor I are interested in
compromising our most basic (and implacably opposed) principles,12 even
as we agree on such critical points as the importance of ontology and the
relational character of social life. Second, we apparently put on a good
show, since we keep attracting an audience — I should mention that we’re
available for parties, department meetings, etc.And, third, the point of our
continuing to have this argument is decidedly not to convince one another,
which is unlikely to happen; instead,the point is to clarify the basic divisions
and distinctions that are necessarily implicated in any coherent stance on
these matters. As such, I see us making a variety of options clear, rather
than foreclosing one or another option.
I suspect that Colin would not agree with me about this third point, as he
seems much more interested in argumentatively producing scientific and
critical realists than I am in argumentatively producing transactional social
constructionists. That difference between us is consistent with our basic
orientations and principles: Colin claims a solid (if falsifiable and fallible)
grasp on really real Reality,while I claim only a useful stance that dissolves
some of the problems generated by other theoretical perspectives, while
upholding certain moral and ethical commitments. Since Colin thinks that
at some level he’s right, his position can’t simply be one option among
others; since I am not convinced that ‘right’ is an appropriate (or even a
meaningful) criterion to use when evaluating social-scientific work, it would
be inconsistent of me to foreclose other options — although it is perfectly
acceptable for me to point out what seem to me to be logical inconsistencies
and philosophical sleights of hand in those other options. I suspect that
Colin will hit back; indeed, I sincerely hope that he will, thus giving me a
chance to respond in the future, and so on.
Space does not permit me to respond in detail to all of the points Colin
raises in his excellent review of my book. Therefore I focus on two of the
charges that he brings against me: that I do not, in fact, produce an
explanation of post-war German reconstruction, and that I am a closet real-
ist and essentialist in as much as I make reference to rhetorical common-
places like ‘the West’ and have individually named human beings floating
around in my empirical account. It will not come as a surprise that I disagree
on both counts, since they’re quite closely related; I can therefore deal with
them together. The heart of my disagreement is that I think that Colin is
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