Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 9, 2022

 

The Reconstruction of the View of Knowledge and the Development Path of IR Theories: A Critique of the Three Mainstream Theories

(Abstract)

 

Qin Yaqing

 

A fundamental difference between the classic scientific view epitomized by Isaac Newton and the quantum scientific view represented by quantum mechanics is whether our world is one of certainty. The former believes that it is essentially certain, while the latter argues that uncertainty is the real state of nature. Over years, the Newtonian scientific view has become the background knowledge, predominating in both natural and social sciences and shaping the mode of knowledge production. In International Relations (IR), the so-called three mainstream theories, neo-realism, neo-liberal institutionalism and social constructivism, have followed the classic view, believing in the certainty principle and aiming at finding the deterministic causality “out there.” They have in fact gained a hegemonic status in the IR academic discourse. However, if uncertainty is the real attribute of our world, then the premises of the three IR theories, as well as the classic view behind them, will be fundamentally challenged, and the key IR concepts, such as the state, international society and power, radically remade. Moreover, the construction of non-deterministic IR theories will be a new orientation of knowledge production. Although the influence of the quantum theory has just been beginning to show in IR theories, it may well be a forerunner of a paradigmatic revolution in the field.