Six Methodological Fallacies in the Study of the History of Political Thought

This paper examines six methodological myths, which animates a wide range of fallacies in the study of the history of political thought. “The reduction of social facts to language representations” and “the reduction of the relations among politico-intellectual facts to family resemblance and languag...

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Main Author: Mojahedi Mojahedi
Format: Article
Language:fas
Published: Shahid Beheshti University 2021-11-01
Series:رهیافتهای سیاسی و بین المللی
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Online Access:https://piaj.sbu.ac.ir/article_101831_f8e75368f17cd46cda3fccafaa6c9e32.pdf
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author Mojahedi Mojahedi
author_facet Mojahedi Mojahedi
author_sort Mojahedi Mojahedi
collection DOAJ
description This paper examines six methodological myths, which animates a wide range of fallacies in the study of the history of political thought. “The reduction of social facts to language representations” and “the reduction of the relations among politico-intellectual facts to family resemblance and language games” are the first two myths, which I try to discuss and bust in this paper. They stem from an unwarranted generalization of Wittgenstein’s ideas regarding philosophical statements and metaphysical claims to scientific (theoretical and experimental) statements. The next four myths are those, which Skinner pioneered in introducing and critically examining—i.e., “the myth of anachronism”, “the myth of reification”, “the myth of coherence” and “the myth of prolepsis”. In the Introduction, I discuss some theoretical basis for this methodological critique to the study of the history of political thought. Afterwards, in the first two parts of the paper, the two Wittgensteinian fallacies will be examined separately through a close reading of the ideas he developed in the two phases of his intellectual life. The four Skinnerian fallacies will be examined through four sections under the third part of the paper. Setting forth an overall review of the debates, which have taken shape around the six introduced fallacies, I conclude the paper with an evaluation of the relations between the Wittgenstein-inspired methodological myths and those discovered by Skinner given the fact that Skinner’s ideas regarding the methodology of the study of the history of political thought were partly under the influence of Wittgenstein’s philosophical ideas.
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spelling doaj-art-dfa6d4c1df2c4b4aaa64803ae0d09dd92025-08-20T03:37:32ZfasShahid Beheshti Universityرهیافتهای سیاسی و بین المللی1735-739X2645-43862021-11-01131416810.29252/piaj.2021.223326.1121101831Six Methodological Fallacies in the Study of the History of Political ThoughtMojahedi Mojahedi0Faculty Member, Institute for the Humanities and Cultural StudiesThis paper examines six methodological myths, which animates a wide range of fallacies in the study of the history of political thought. “The reduction of social facts to language representations” and “the reduction of the relations among politico-intellectual facts to family resemblance and language games” are the first two myths, which I try to discuss and bust in this paper. They stem from an unwarranted generalization of Wittgenstein’s ideas regarding philosophical statements and metaphysical claims to scientific (theoretical and experimental) statements. The next four myths are those, which Skinner pioneered in introducing and critically examining—i.e., “the myth of anachronism”, “the myth of reification”, “the myth of coherence” and “the myth of prolepsis”. In the Introduction, I discuss some theoretical basis for this methodological critique to the study of the history of political thought. Afterwards, in the first two parts of the paper, the two Wittgensteinian fallacies will be examined separately through a close reading of the ideas he developed in the two phases of his intellectual life. The four Skinnerian fallacies will be examined through four sections under the third part of the paper. Setting forth an overall review of the debates, which have taken shape around the six introduced fallacies, I conclude the paper with an evaluation of the relations between the Wittgenstein-inspired methodological myths and those discovered by Skinner given the fact that Skinner’s ideas regarding the methodology of the study of the history of political thought were partly under the influence of Wittgenstein’s philosophical ideas.https://piaj.sbu.ac.ir/article_101831_f8e75368f17cd46cda3fccafaa6c9e32.pdf"skinner""wittgenstein""strauss""history of political thought""the myth of doctrine"
spellingShingle Mojahedi Mojahedi
Six Methodological Fallacies in the Study of the History of Political Thought
رهیافتهای سیاسی و بین المللی
"skinner"
"wittgenstein"
"strauss"
"history of political thought"
"the myth of doctrine"
title Six Methodological Fallacies in the Study of the History of Political Thought
title_full Six Methodological Fallacies in the Study of the History of Political Thought
title_fullStr Six Methodological Fallacies in the Study of the History of Political Thought
title_full_unstemmed Six Methodological Fallacies in the Study of the History of Political Thought
title_short Six Methodological Fallacies in the Study of the History of Political Thought
title_sort six methodological fallacies in the study of the history of political thought
topic "skinner"
"wittgenstein"
"strauss"
"history of political thought"
"the myth of doctrine"
url https://piaj.sbu.ac.ir/article_101831_f8e75368f17cd46cda3fccafaa6c9e32.pdf
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