Political Science: Legitimacy and Epistemology Debated

As many scholars from around the world are studying political sciences and a large number of work is related with political science, a debate has been rising and taking place on whether or not they are legitimate, and if so in political or/and science. Can we consider them political and/or scientists? If not, how can one consider their work? Can one give any meaning to why they are studying or working in this particular domain? Should the word science and scientist be reconsidered as many tend to think that politics is a soft science, meaning not reliable or with an inconstant method, while others argue that looking through its epistemology, politics has its own and righteous place in science hence adding that although being considered a soft

However when referring to political sciences, Roy Bhaskar argues ‘it is the nature of the object that determines the form of its science’ (From Hay, Colin (2002) Political Analysis: A Critical Introduction, Chapter 2, ‘What’s ‘Political’ About Political Science’, The limits of naturalism, p.85). Thus, science has been separated in two distinctive class: ‘soft science’ and ‘hard science’. Taking in account that everyone is part of the same world, the ‘hard’ scientists will study molecules, geology, physics, mathematics… whereas the ‘soft’ scientists will study politics, economy, cultures, societies…. Nevertheless most ‘hard’ scientists, which can also be referred to as natural scientists, will argue that the two sciences are taking part in two different worlds. This is mainly due to the fact that “the nature of the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’ is different after Keynes and Marx in a way that the ‘physical’ and the ‘natural’ is not after Newton or Einstein” (From Hay, Colin (2002) Political Analysis: A Critical Introduction, Chapter

If so, are the scientists constituting the worlds or world using the same methods? Evidently to be considered a science as seen before one has to have a regular method with experiments and results independent to the time and place, which also need to be repeatable. Jared Diamond in ‘Soft sciences are often harder than hard sciences’ explains how “the task of operationalizing is inevitably more difficult and less exact in the soft sciences, because there are so many uncontrolled variables” as well as no such thing as a lab in a socially, politically and culturally continuously changing world. Howbeit, the naturalists would argue that there is a “unity of method between the natural and social sciences” (Bhaskar, 1989: 67). In addition, the positivists argue that there are no fundamental differences between natural and socially constructed world. They use the same tools and logic in the same manner through the use of ontology, epistemology and methodology. In the socially constructed world the scientists observe behaviors of political actors and through different setting observe what could be referred to in the natural world as an experience. Their goal as scientists is to explain and predict the world that surrounds them by discovering laws that occur over and over. To do so two methods can be used: induction and deduction. The principle of induction is explained in Hay’s Political Analysis, where “reality does indeed presents itself to