I wrote this article while I was a postdoctoral fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, whose support I gratefully acknowledge. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Nikolaus Lobkowicz of the Geschwister Scholl Institute of Munich University for his hospitality and encouragement, and to Robert Spaemann (Institute of Philosophy Munich) for his enlightening discussion of teleology. My colleagues Harvey Goldman and Jack Snyder were kind enough to read an earlier version and to offer helpful comments.

1. Marx, Karl, “Das Elend der Philosophie,” in , Marx and Engels, Friedrich, Werke, vol. 4(Berlin: Dietz, 1951)Google Scholar.

2. See Popper, Karl, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper, 1968)Google Scholar, and Hempel, Carl, “Scientific Explanation,” in , Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation (New York: Free Press, 1965), chap. 4Google Scholar; and Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

3. See e.g. Ashley's in this respect impressive bibliography.

4. Baron Münchhausen, it will be remembered, claimed to have been able to pull himself and his horse out of a swamp by his own hair, after having been thrown off by his mare. A quite sympathetic interpreter of Hegel, incidentally, comes to the following conclusion: “There is something in Hegel's philosophy, which is irresistibly reminiscent of Baron Münchhausen.…” Taylor, Charles, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6. For indications that such finalist or teleological interpretations need not resort to reports about an individual's aims and mental states but that an imputation by an observer is sufficient for such types of explanations, I use goal-directedness in the wider sense (i.e., even if only imputed) and intentionality in the narrower sense. Fundamental for my argument about the importance of practical philosophy is Riedel, Manfred, ed., Rehabilitierung der praktischen Philosophie, 2 vols. (Freiburg: Rombach, 1972)Google Scholar.

7. Weber, Max, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 5th ed. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1972), vol. 1, § 2 Begriffdes sozialen Handelns, pp. 11 ff.Google Scholar

8. See my “On the Notion of ‘interest’ in International Relations,” International Organization 36 (Winter 1982)Google Scholar.

9. Morgenthau, Hans, Politics among Nations, 5th ed. (New York: Knopf, 1973), p. 8Google Scholar.

10. Ibid., pp. 11–12 and p. 5.

11. See my “The Humean Conception of International Relations,” Occasional Paper no. 9 (Princeton, N.J.: Center for International Studies, 1981)Google Scholar.

12. Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), e.g. pp. 29 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Ibid., p. 53.

14. See e.g. Blau's, Peter fundamental “Critical Remarks on Weber's Theory of Authority,” American Political Science Review 57 (1963), pp. 305–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Blau, , “The Hierarchy of Authority in Organizations,” American Journal of Sociology 73 (1968), pp. 453–67CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

15. Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), e.g. p. 69Google Scholar, and the discussion, emphasizing context, of how theories aid in understanding a set of phenomena, pp. 7–9. But since Waltz argues so many different things, this might well be a misinterpretation.

16. See in this context Ashley's often repeated argument about the neorealistic subordination of “diachrony to synchrony.”

17. See Waltz, Theory of International Politics, chap. 1.

18. Ibid., pp. 36–37 and also p. 113; and see e.g. p. 38: “One useful point is thereby suggested … namely that different national and international systems coexist and interact.”

19. See e.g. ibid., pp. 74, 76–77, where “socialization” is used to explain the persistence of structure; and also chap. 9 on the “Management of International Affairs” investigating e.g. the reasons for a “big” farmer to seed rain clouds. Analogies to the hegemon in international politics and its reasons for supplying collective goods are drawn.

20. Ibid., p. 19.

21. Ibid., p. 69; he also calls the standard hypothetico-deductive approach of Hempel and Popper “necessarily barren” (p. 11).

22. On this point see Popper, , Logic of Scientific Discovery, app. X, “Physical Necessity,” pp. 424–25Google Scholar.

23. For a concise discussion of the epistemological issues see Stegmüller, Wolfgang, Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie (Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner, 1978), especially 1: 449–94Google Scholar.

24. On the anarchistic conception see e.g. Paul Feyerabend's Against Method, Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge.

25. Lakatos, Imre, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs,” in Lakatos, and Musgrave, Alan, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. Waltz, , Theory of International Relations, pp. 36, 39Google Scholar.

27. Ibid., p. 113.

28. See e.g. Knorr, Klaus, The War Potential of Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956)Google Scholar; Baldwin, David, “Power Analysis and World Politics,” World Politics 31 (01 1979), pp. 161–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the conceptually most elaborate distinction between the role of money and power in human interactions, Baldwin, , “Money and Power,” Journal of Politics 3 (1971), pp. 578–614CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. See e.g. Popper, Karl, Objective Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), chap. 8Google Scholar.

30. For the controversy between traditionalists and behavioralists see Bull, Hedley, “International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach,” World Politics 18 (04 1966), pp. 361–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kaplan, Morton, “The New Great Debate: Traditionalism v. Science in International Relations,” World Politics 19 (10 1966), pp. 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31. This was Kaplan's point in replying to Bull's objection that the new scientific “behavioralist” approaches cannot deal with purposeful action. Kaplan's often repeated counterexample was the thermostat or the automatic pilot by which (through feedback loops) the system can “maintain” itself. Since this process of equilibrization could be explained “scientifically,” human purposive action could analogously be understood within the “scientific” framework. The confusion in this debate–which shows that both Bull and Kaplan were right and wrong, depending upon the interpretation one gives to the terms “explained” and “purposive action”—can only be cleared up when we keep the crucial differences between antecedent (natural) causes and motives as antecedent conditions in mind.

32. For a fascinating study of the uses of teleological argument (or teleological remnants) even in modern and “good” science, see Spaeman, Robert and Löw, Reinhard, Die Frage Wozu? (Munich: Piper, 1981)Google Scholar. Kaplan is right that purposefulness can be “scientifically” modeled, but this modeling follows the teleological perspective of human action rather than the explanation scheme of giving independently established antecedent conditions. And in that sense, Bull was right.

33. On finalistic explanations schemes see two seminal works: Davidson, Donald, “Actions, Reasons and Causes,” Journal of Philosophy 60 (1963), pp. 685–700CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and von Wright, G. Henrik, Explanation and Understanding (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971).Google Scholar.

34. A special case could naturally be that this person never attains what he intends; thus a “causal” psychological explanation might be required if certain unconscious factors defeat the person's conscious purposes. For a more extensive discussion of the epistemological problems involved in explaining such phenomena see my “Force of Prescriptions,” forthcoming.

35. For a good collection of essays summarizing the Anglo-Saxon and (at least) German discussions, see Pothast, Ulrich, ed., Seminar: Freies Handeln und Determinismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1978)Google Scholar.

36. E.g. Waltz, , Theory of International Relations, p. 91Google Scholar, and Gilpin, , War and Change, p. xiiGoogle Scholar.

37. Efficiency means goal maximization under given conditions. Effectiveness is a wider concept: it means the ability to persist and function under changing conditions, even those that might include occasional suboptimal performance (slack).