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Niscussions of Max Weber's essay on 'The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy' and Michael Oakeshott's reflections 'On the Theoretical Understanding of Human Conduct' have seldom included a detailed textual analysis of the arguments. Such an analysis is important, because these essays not only thoroughly addressed the issue of the nature of social scientific inquiry but uniquely confronted and illuminated two fundamental and endemic paradoxes which have been particularly prominent at crucial junctures in conversations about the identity and role of fields such as political science. These paradoxes, however, arise from the very nature of metapractices and, specifically, from the complex cognitive and practical relationships among philosophy, social science, and practices such as politics. Adapted from the source document.

Discussions of Max Weber's essay on "The `Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy" and Michael Oakeshott's reflections "On the Theoretical Understanding of Human Conduct" have seldom included a detailed textual analysis of the arguments. Such an analysis is important, because these essays not only thoroughly addressed the issue of the nature of social scientific inquiry but uniquely confronted and illuminated two fundamental and endemic paradoxes which have been particularly prominent at crucial junctures in conversations about the identity and role of fields such as political science. These paradoxes, however, arise from the very nature of metapractices and, specifically, from the complex cognitive and practical relationships among philosophy, social science, and practices such as politics.

Contemporary literature in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind points to the locus of significant unresolved theoretical and methodological issues in political theory and political science, and particularly to the persistently anomalous status of mental concepts. The manner in which political and social theorists have accessed and deployed this literature, however, has been highly selective and conceptually problematical. The purpose has often been to justify prior agendas, and issues relating to how brain processes are involved in an explanation of political phenomena have not been satisfactorily confronted. Cognitive science is itself a highly contested field with indigenous theoretical difficulties, and it is necessary to sort out and analyze the salient positions in this conversation and to begin, at least tentatively, to assess critically its implications for both social theory and empirical research and to suggest a direction for further investigation.

As Thomas Kuhn noted, it is almost inevitable that scientific practitioners read the history of their field backward and perceive earlier stages as, at best, prototypical of the present. This is the manner in which political scientists, and even historians, have imaged the relationship between the debates about science and democracy that took place during the 1920s and 1950s. Despite the importance of Charles Merriam's role in the history of American political science, his work was not the discursive axis of the paradigmatic disciplinary shift that took place in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was the arguments of G. E. G. Catlin and W. Y. Elliott that most distinctly represented the transformation in both the theory of democracy and the image of science, and that, for the next two generations, set the terms of the debate about these issues as well as about the relationship between the mainstream discipline and the subfield of political theory. And, despite the theoretical and ideological differences between Catlin and Elliott, their exchange points to the intensely practical concerns that originally informed the controversy about the scientific study of politics.

In his introduction to the 1991 edition of Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America, journalist Tom Wicker noted its relevance for understanding the ambivalent appeal of values that had led both to the downfall of communism and to the "demonization" of Saddam Hussein. Wicker also noted that Hartz's synoptic use of "liberal" as encompassing what is commonly referred to in American political discourse as "liberal" and "conservative" ideologies might "add to some Americans' confusion" about the already "confused and abused" use of the term. As we reach the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Hartz's book, it is important to reassess the work, especially in light of what might seem an obvious parallel between his concerns in the context of the Cold War and contemporary worries about the relationship between American foreign policy and domestic politics that has evolved since 2001. Whether the valence has been negative or positive, Hartz's image of a liberal consensus in the United States has created a picture that has held the academic mind captive and shaped its approach to both scholarship and political analysis.