Language English Originally published 1946 Country United States of America | Publication date 1946 | |
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Similar Politics Among Nations, The Purpose of American, The Twenty Years' Crisis 19, Theory of International Politics, Man - the State - and War | ||
Scientific Man versus Power Politics is a 1946 work by realist academic Hans Morgenthau. The book is Morgenthau's first work and contains his most systematic exposition of a realist philosophy and a critique of a position he terms 'liberal rationalism'. Morgenthau argues that liberalism's belief in human reason had been shown to be deficient because of the rise of Nazi Germany and that emphasis on science and reason as routes to peace meant that states were losing touch with historic traditions of statecraft. The work marked out Morgenthau as the pre-eminent modern exponent of a Hobbesian view of human nature in international relations scholarship. Despite the contemporary association between (neo)realism and positivism Scientific Man has been considered a critique of attempts to place politics on a 'scientific' footing in works such as Charles Merriam's New Aspects of Politics.