On multipolarity, unipolarity, whateverpolarity

Dear Reader!

I would like to present to you a continuation of the previous post (in fact, an e-mail correspondence between the two minds) concerning the idea of 'polarity' and the use of other scientific terms in social science.

From: Dr.Fox@political_scientist.com

To: Popper@rational_critic.org

Topic: your commentary

Dear friend,

Thank you again for your vast commentary. Although I can’t understand all your enmity towards political science, I appreciate your opinion.

However I have some questions.

Your commentary was mostly against bipolarity, and maybe, to some extent, I may agree that it is not that all-embracing. But should I then try to focus on multipolarity, or unipolarity?

I’m not sure that I will change my paper right now (my advisor was quite all right with it), but I’d like to hear what would you say.

Yours faithfully,

J. Fox

From: Popper@rational_critic.org

To: Dr.Fox@political_scientist.com

Topic: [RE:] your commentary

Dear J.Fox,

There is no enmity. I’m just skeptic, that’s all.

You are asking about multipolarity/unipolarity, but doesn't it sound nonsensical to you? I do not mean that countries cannot cooperate, or that politics can only be a composition of two-sided links between states, but the very word 'mulitpolarity', as well as ‘unipolarity’ is closer to an oxymoron, rather than a scientific term.

I do not wish to sound snobbish, but allow me to remind you of the possible number of poles in physics (as a matter of fact, in every science): it's either two or none. Both 'unipolarity' and 'multipolarity' are describing things which do not exist. We, the humankind, have a lot of such words - levitation, telepathy, omnipotence - which can be constructed within human languages, but which do not describe any real experience or anything that is proved to exist.

If you say that you are doing science (let me omit the word 'political') how can you use such neologisms as scientific terms (at least, treat them in that way)?

All said above brings up a long-disputed topic of arts-sciences controversy, or dichotomy (or polarity, if you like that word). I suppose you are familiar with such theory as positivism. Today, there is a rather vivid tendency among social sciences to use ideas from real sciences (math, physics, etc.) in an attempt to make this body of knowledge more scientific. Positivism may be good, but you should use this metaphorical way of describing politics with great care.

One of problems in social sciences is its subjectivity and enormous piety towards the ancient knowledge. For instance, Plato dwelled upon many topics, including politics (e.g., ‘The Republic’) and (meta)physics. If some Ph.D. in politics will refer to Plato in his work, article or speech, it will be considered appropriate and the fact itself will raise no criticism. However, I cannot imagine a well-educated and experienced quantum physicist using Plato’s idea of ‘ideas’ (‘eidos’) as an argument for his hypothesis.

Physics, chemistry, biology and many other sciences have evolved through the ages, but humanities and social sciences seem to be stagnating for centuries. There are many reasons for that, and I don’t have time to describe them. I think, you already know them well enough. Maybe, someday we’ll meet in real life, and I will share some of my thoughts with you.

I’m sorry; I got carried away and didn’t answer your question. If you ask whether you should choose ‘unipolarity’ or ‘multipolarity’, I’d rather say neither of them. Of course, you can rephrase them into ‘monocentrism’ or ‘polycentrism’ (at least they do not contradict reason and physics of this Universe), but I see it as an attempt to make an overwhelming theory of everything in politics (or some branch of it, if there are any) with a rather simple and doubtful basis. As I have said in my comment, over-simplification cannot be a good aid to any kind of theory. But moreover, every theory must be connected with that which Leonardo da Vinci called ‘the common mother of all the sciences and arts’ – experience.

Good luck with your thesis.

Yours sincerely,

Popper