ON DIALECTIC AND INTERNATIONAL-RELATIONS - A REPLY TO OUR CRITICS

This reply sets out to counter various criticisms made against dialect ical thinking in the discipline of IR. It first locates dialectic in t he wider history of social-scientific thought, and then tries to subst antiate its central concepts of praxis, needs and interests, as well a s totality and contradiction. On the basis of this brief epistemologic al outline, the reply challenges some tenets of constructivism and adv ances, by way of example, a sketch of how the idea of dialectical crit ique can be applied to the history of the discipline of IR.