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Crisis, Values, and the Purpose of Science: Hans Morgenthau in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2016

Felix Rösch
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Extract

Shortly after finishing his Habilitation at the University of Geneva in 1934, Hans Morgenthau typed a lengthy manuscript entitled Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft in dieser Zeit und über die Bestimmung des Menschen (On the Purpose of Science in These Times and on Human Destiny). Underappreciated and little known in the ever-growing literature on Morgenthau and classical realism at large, this manuscript provided the foundation for a series of publications throughout his life in which he ferociously and even polemically defended a normative role for “science” (Wissenschaft) in modern societies against the backdrop of the rise of behavioralism. Most famous among them is certainly Morgenthau's first book in the United States, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (see Hartmut Behr in this forum). Indeed, forty years after Morgenthau had penned this manuscript in Geneva, he based the first part of Science: Servant or Master on it, indicating that he “never went much beyond what he had basically said and formulated” during his time in Europe.

Type
Roundtable: Morgenthau in America
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , Spring 2016 , pp. 23 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2016 

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References

NOTES

1 Wissenschaft (etymologically: to create knowledge) comprises any form of systematic knowledge creation and thus also the humanities. Wissenschaft is not confined to empirically verifiable knowledge, as we find it in the natural sciences. It is in this sense that Morgenthau used the term “science,” and it is in this sense that it is used in this contribution.

2 See, for example, Hans J. Morgenthau, “Das Problem der amerikanischen Universität,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, January 10, 1938, p. 5; Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (London: Latimer House, 1947); and Science: Servant or Master? (New York: New American Library, 1972).

3 Morgenthau, Science, p. xxi.

4 John Herz, “Letter to the Morgenthau Conference,” in Christian Hacke, Gottfried-Karl Kindermann, and Kai M. Schellhorn, eds., The Heritage, Challenge, and Future of Realism: In Memoriam Hans J. Morgenthau (1904–1980) (Göttingen: V&R, 2005), p. 25.

5 Hans J. Morgenthau, “Postscript to the Transaction Edition: Bernard Johnson's Interview with Hans J. Morgenthau,” in Kenneth W. Thompson and Robert J. Myers, eds., Truth and Tragedy: A Tribute to Hans J. Morgenthau (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1984), pp. 353–54.

6 Irma Thormann, “Letter to Carl Landauer,” January 18, 1935 (Leo Baeck Institute Archives, Hans Morgenthau Collection, Container 2, Folder 9).

7 Carl Landauer, “Letter to Irma Thormann,” March 25, 1935 (Leo Baeck Institute Archives, Hans Morgenthau Collection, Container 2, Folder 9).

8 Hans J. Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft in dieser Zeit und über die Bestimmung des Menschen, 1934 (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C., Container 151), p. ii.

9 Hans J. Morgenthau, Die internationale Rechtspflege, ihr Wesen und ihre Grenzen (Leipzig: Robert Noske, 1929), p. 67; and The Concept of the Political (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 101.

10 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, p. 33.

11 Morgenthau, The Concept of the Political, p. 126.

12 Galston, William A., “Realism in Political Theory,” European Journal of Political Theory 9, no. 4 (2010), p. 391 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Rösch, Felix, “Pouvoir, Puissance, and Politics: Hans Morgenthau's Dualistic Concept of Power?” Review of International Studies 40, no. 2 (2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Christoph Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau. An Intellectual Biography (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 2001), p. 167.

15 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, pp. 37 and 51.

16 Hans J. Morgenthau, “On Trying to Be Just,” Commentary (May 1963), p. 421.

17 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, p. 30.

18 Ibid., p. 79.

19 Richard Ned Lebow, The Tragic Vision of Politics. Ethics, Interests, and Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); also Klusmeyer, Douglas, “Beyond Tragedy: Hannah Arendt and Hans Morgenthau on Responsibility, Evil, and Political Ethics,” International Studies Review 11, no. 2 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chou, Mark, “Morgenthau, the Tragic: On Tragedy and the Transition from Scientific Man to Politics Among Nations,” Telos 157 (2011)Google Scholar; Kostagiannis, Konstantinos, “Hans Morgenthau and the Tragedy of the Nation-State,” International History Review 36, no. 3 (2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, p. 74.

21 Hans J. Morgenthau, “The Significance of Being Alone,” n.d., p. 2 (Leo Baeck Institute Archives, Hans Morgenthau Collection, Container 4, Folder 6).

22 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, p. 64.

23 Hugo Sinzheimer, “Letter to Hans J. Morgenthau,” March 11, 1932 (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C., Container 197).

24 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, pp. 54–55.

25 Hans-Jörg Sigwart, “The Logic of Legitimacy: Ethics in Political Realism,” Review of Politics 75, no. 3 (2013), p. 413.

26 Morgenthau, “The Significance of Being Alone,” p. 2.

27 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, p. 2.

28 Ibid., p. 55.

29 Ibid., pp. 12–13.

30 For example, Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics; “The Nature and Limits of a Theory of International Relations,” in William T. R. Fox, ed., Theoretical Aspects of International Relations (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959); “Modern Science and Political Power,” Columbia Law Review 64, no. 8 (1964)Google Scholar; and “The Purpose of Political Science,” in James C. Charlesworth, ed., A Design for Political Science: Scope, Objectives, and Methods (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1966).

31 Morgenthau, Hans J., “The Limitations of Science and the Problem of Social Planning,” Ethics 54, no. 3 (1944)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, p. 69.

33 Morgenthau, Hans J., “Reflections on the State of Political Science,” Review of Politics 17, no. 4 (1955), pp. 446–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

35 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, p. 20.

36 Ibid., pp. 79–80.

37 Ibid., p. 77.

38 Rösch, Felix, “The Human Condition of Politics: Considering the Legacy of Hans J. Morgenthau for International Relations,” Journal of International Political Theory 9, no. 1 (2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Arendt, Hannah, in Benhabib, Seyla, “Feminist Theory and Hannah Arendt's Concept of Public Space,” History of the Human Sciences 6, no. 2 (1993), p. 105 Google Scholar.

40 Ross, Andrew, “Realism, Emotion, and Dynamic Allegiances in Global Politics,” International Theory 5, no. 2 (2013), p. 277 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, p. 77.

42 Raymond Geuss, Philosophy and Real Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 9.

43 Sigwart, “The Logic of Legitimacy,” p. 431–32.

44 Morgenthau, Hans J., “Stresemann als Schöpfer der deutschen Völkerrechtspolitik,” Die Justiz 5, no. 3 (1930)Google Scholar.

45 Morgenthau, Über den Sinn der Wissenschaft, p. 77. The argument anticipates, for example, Sabaratnam, Meera, “Staging a Battle, Losing the Wars? International Studies, ‘Science’ and the Neoliberalisation of the University,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 43, no. 3 (2015), pp. 978–79. (p. 7, line 241 and p. 9, line 300)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.