Social Science and the Political Trend

This is not a “political” discussion. Our concern is solely with the study of political phenomena, the possibility of knowledge and understanding, and incidentally, the prospect that knowledge may result in changing and improving the phenomena themselves. No criticism, or even critique, of any political personage or method or act is to be read in to the argument. To say this emphatically at the outset is in order because to talk about political phenomena at all, even with a purely descriptive intent, one has to use terms which have what the late Professor Veblen called “honorific” implications (and this includes the “dishonorific”). But the question whether men as scientists can understand the behaviour of men as statesmen and citizens is closely connected with the question how far the latter's behaviour is itself of an in telligent or understanding sort; and such issues are hard to discuss in purely descriptive terms.