RESEARCH TRADITIONS AND THE EVOLUTION OF COLD-WAR NUCLEAR STRATEGY - PROGRESS DOESNT MAKE PERFECT

Larry Laudan has recently advanced a philosophy of science that appear s to answer both Kuhnian critics of the rationality of science, on the one hand, and interpretive and critical theorists' objections to a na turalistic social science, on the other. Like Lakatos before him, Laud an argues that scientific progress is indeed a rational affair. But La udan goes one step further, arguing that his analysis yields a set of rational criteria for theory choice. In addition, Laudan explicitly cl aims that the standard he proposes can be applied in any realm of empi rical inquiry. Employing a case study of the development of strategic doctrine during the Cold War period, I show this latter claim to be fa lse. Because Laudan's standard for theory choice depends on an exclusi vely cognitive calculus, it cannot account for, much less help us weig h, the practical implications of theory choice. I conclude that such a n accounting procedure may be appropriate for the natural sciences but can hardly be adequate in the realm of thermonuclear politics, where theory choice carries with it potentially catastrophic practical conse quences. More generally, choosing from among competing political theor ies must make explicit room for discursive argument.