Critical assessments of ontology and epistemology must be formed through an accurate reading of history – absent an incrementalist and conditioned approach to international relations, critique becomes parasitic. Methodological pluralism and contextual understandings of IR are the necessary counteract to Western-dominated modes of inquiry.

The possibility of objective social inquiry in the form of explanatory critique has been defended through philosophical argument about the basic nature of the world and of knowledge (ontology and epistemology). In practice, however, there will always be various constraints which undermine or condition the realisation of this possibility. This is because producing knowledge is a social practice which is not purely cognitive, and is thus subject to a range of non-cognitive as well as cognitive determinations or influences: social science always only happens in a context which is at once always understood, preconceptualised, and codetermined by non-cognitive factors too. So that, on this stance, social theory appears, at its best, in the form of conditioned critique. As critique, it presupposes and engages with those preconceptualisations; as conditioned, it is subject in its genesis, reception and effect, to extra-scientific, extra-cognitive and non-ideational, as well as scientific, cognitive and ideational, determinations (whose critical understanding is itself part of the business of theory). This is of course an implication of historical materialism. (Bhaskar 1986: 170). Different kinds of constraint can be distinguished analytically (in practice such constraints occur simultaneously or in combination). Like any social practice, the activity of producing knowledge is simultaneously a social and a material practice, subject to both social and material determinations and constraints. The discussion here focuses mainly on the social factors constraining the production of objective knowledge. The significance for knowledge production of the enormous international inequalities in material conditions is a very important area of inquiry, but cannot be included within the scope of the current discussion. What kinds of social factors might constrain the process of social inquiry into international relations? One set of constraints arise from the ways in which our location in society influences what we know about society. The kind of objective knowledge being defended here is that which provides a more adequate account of the social world, and, in doing so, provides an implicit or explicit critique of prevailing ideas (ideologies) which misrepresent the social world. Although considerable debate within and between social sciences is conducted primarily at the level of theory or method – for example, the so-called ‘inter-paradigm debates’ in International Relations – where disagreements really matter are ultimately over how we understand and explain concrete events and conditions, and processes of change or lack of change. Here historical knowledge is crucial. Ideologies which misrepresent the world in various ways, and as such are factually wrong, are parasitic for their acceptance on ignorance of what actually is the case. This might sound very simplistic; but how many people are really very well informed about the history and current detail of social conditions in their own country or region – including, very importantly, the international or global constitution of their own history – let alone the histories of ‘other places’? 35 . There is nothing straightforward or easy about becoming well informed about concrete histories. Such an enterprise takes time; and for those unfortunate enough only to speak English, probably requires mastering a different language in the process (which, for Anglophones studying African histories and realities, for example, will probably still only be the colonial European language). We should therefore heed Engels’ observation made in the nineteenth century: The demonstration of the materialist conception even upon a single historical example was a scientific task requiring years of quiet research, for it is evident that mere empty talk can achieve nothing in this context and that only an abundance of critically examined historical material which has been completely mastered can make it possible to solve such a problem. (Engels 1859: 221) To have ‘years of quiet research’ seems a luxury today in the light of competing demands on our time from teaching, the compulsion to publish and keep abreast of disciplinary debates, not to mention family life. We should therefore also heed the advice of Aijaz Ahmad: ‘the ground reality is that there is no alternative to picking up small chunks and doing them well’ (1997: 59-60). Recognising the limits of our knowledge of substantive histories, and attempting to overcome them bit by bit, is surely always better than a false confidence in our authority deriving from lack of awareness of how little we know about the world. These constraints are relevant in all cases regardless of whether the researcher is examining their own or another society. What more specific problems arise when studying societies other than those we come from? What about for example a European IR scholar doing research about Africa – or an African scholar doing research about Europe? 36 Such questions are especially pertinent to International Relations. Given the basic importance of knowing about a place, its peoples and history, it is arguably likely that local intellectuals might be better informed about their own particular people, country or region than foreigners, especially where the question of language is concerned. There is nothing intrinsic about this however; and of course nationality / place of origin are not the only social influences on what we know. Our class position and gender are especially significant in influencing our general outlook, ‘common-sense’ understandings, core assumptions about the world, and what we know about our own society through direct experience. A variety of different social factors will combine to influence and condition the perspective of a particular researcher and thus potentially influence the knowledge they produce. However, initial influences deriving from our social position (in a particular society and in the world), once recognised, can be countered. Social position influences but does not determine the production of knowledge. We are not trapped forever to only produce the viewpoint consistent with our particular social origin or location. A commitment to objectivity in social inquiry, or what I have called ‘epistemological internationalism’, implies ’attempts to escape from the bias of one’s own subjectivity and one’s own historical place’” (Collier 2003: 137). A careful scholar from any part of the world, when studying a society other than their own, must ensure they do not assume that theoretical categories deriving from some particular historically specific process of social change can automatically be applied to the analysis of a different society with its own history; still less should the categories referring to historically specific social forms developed in one society be used as a norm with which to compare and, implicitly or explicitly, evaluate historically specific social forms of another society. Yet these are standard methodological procedures in Western social inquiry. The researcher should endeavour to find out as much as possible about the historical production and current conditions in that society from a variety of sources – by consulting people in that society, by reading literature of that society, local newspapers, and, importantly of course, by reading work produced by that society’s intellectuals. This seems so obvious as not to be worth mentioning; yet it is surprising, for example, how many Western Africanist scholars appear to pay little attention to the work of African intellectuals.. Mahmood Mamdani has criticised: Eurocentrism … has a tendency to view its object as lacking in a capacity to comprehend their own history as a step in taking the initiative to making it. While reading some of the better known Africanist works during a teaching job in the US in 1989, I was struck by how little attempt most Africanists made to read African intellectuals. For I had always taken it for granted that, should I want to study North American society, I would approach it through its own intelligentsia, through their writings, their self-reflection. Matters are different with the Africanist who tends to approach Africa as one would a zoo. For the collectivity of animals, no matter how interesting and intricate its internal organisation, has no capacity for self-reflection and self-transformation! In this sense, Eurocentrism mutilates the experience of both the West and of the rest, mythologizing the former and caricaturing the latter. (Mamdani 1995: 609).