On the Ontology of Structural Realism

摘要

Due to its systemic approach, structural realism (or neorealism) can be subsumed under methodological holism, which takes social phenomena to be wholes that cannot be reduced to their parts. The wholes posited by structural realism are the state and the international structure. Recent developments in the philosophy of social science suggest that methodological holism ought to be limited to causal explanation and complemented by ontological individualism, which requires an account of how social wholes derive from individuals. Structural realism lacks such an account because it takes the state as an empirical given, mistaking for a fact what is really a concept in need of deductive derivation from individuals. To bring the theory methodologically up to date, this essay undertakes such a derivation of the state from individuals, proceeding in the deductive manner of political theory. It thus provides structural realism with a methodologically valid ontology, which, in turn, enables the theory to better defend itself against liberal and constructivist critics who reduce the state to a transient phenomenon.