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Not just another book on the philosophy and methods of political science

Do we really need another book on the philosophy of (social) science? Surely we can find all that we need to know in existing tomes such as those of Kuhn (1962), Lakatos (1980), and Popper (1976). Haven’t the likes of Brady and Collier (2012), King et al. (1994), and Marsh and Stoker (2010) said all that needs to be said about the philosophy andmethods of political science specifically? We do, indeed, need this book. The philosophy and methods of political science is Keith Dowding’s approach to the conduct of political science research, developed through decades of successful work in the UK and Australia. Although there is no shortage of work along these lines, Dowding’s should be in the top of the pile because of its unique combination of philosophical insight, open-mindedness, and hands-on usefulness. One of Dowding’s core motivations in writing The philosophy and methods is his observation that political scientists are not particularly well-versed in philosophy, an affliction that often leads us to make naïve inferences. In general, this point rings true. In many ways, Dowding’s book is a political science ‘instruction manual’ intended to aid students and anyone else interested in the topic. As a Ph.D. student in the US in the early 2000s, The philosophy and methods certainly would have been valuable as I tried to link the heavily methods focused training I was acquiring to key understandings in the philosophy of science. It would have provided guidance on key questions every researcher has at one point or another, such as ‘what is the difference between a theory and a hypothesis?’, ‘what is the best course of action when my theory has no evidence but I am fairly certain it is correct?’ and so on. Today, in a discipline where methods and data are increasingly easy to come by, but also increasingly complex, a firm grounding in the philosophy of science is as important as ever. What does The philosophy and methods offer to scholars who rely primarily on quantitative analysis as their main tool for conducting research? This is the key question explored in this review. For starters, Dowding’s approach to isms (which he understands as a shorthand for a way of looking at the world) is particularly refreshing, and even liberating. He begins Chapter 2, ‘Isms’, by warning that he does not like ‘isms’ and would have preferred not to have the chapter in the book at all. Why? Because ‘isms’mean different things to different people, which often leads commentators to become embroiled in debates about how an author has demarcated each ism, when it would be more fruitful to engage with the ideas themselves. Additionally, Dowding wanted to avoid provoking debates about the ‘true character’ of ‘isms’, which is not productive either.