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Larry Laudan has recently advanced a philosophy of science that appears to answer both Kuhnian critics of the rationality of science, on the one hand, and interpretive and critical theorists' objections to a naturalistic social science, on the other. Like Lakatos before him, Laudan argues that scientific progress is indeed a rational affair. But Laudan goes one step further, arguing that his analysis yields a set of rational criteria for theory choice. In addition, Laudan explicitly claims that the standard he proposes can be applied in any realm of empirical inquiry. Employing a case study of the development of strategic doctrine during the Cold War period, I show this latter claim to be false. Because Laudan's standard for theory choice depends on an exclusively cognitive calculus, it cannot account for, much less help us weigh, the practical implications of theory choice. I conclude that such an accounting procedure may be appropriate for the natural sciences but can hardly be adequate in the realm of thermonuclear politics, where theory choice carries with it potentially catastrophic practical consequences. More generally, choosing from among competing political theories must make explicit room for discursive argument.

Intro -- POLITICAL THEORY AND PARTISAN POLITICS -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- PART I: Political Theory and the Constitutional Foundations of Partisan Politics -- 1. Political Theorists on the Legitimacy of Partisan Politics -- 2. Political Theory and Constitutional Construction -- 3. Constitutional Doctrine and Political Theory -- PART II: Theoretical Deliberation and Partisan Politics -- 4. Rationality in Liberal Politics -- 5. Deliberative Democracy and the Limits of Partisan Politics: Between Athens and Philadelphia -- 6. Working in Half-Truth: Some Premodern Reflections on Discourse Ethics in Politics -- PART III: Political Theory as Politics -- 7. Secularism, Partisanship and the Ambiguity of Justice -- 8. Political Theory and the Postmodern Politics of Ambiguity -- 9. Political Theory as Metapractice -- EPILOGUE -- CONTRIBUTORS -- INDEX -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- X.