ABSTRACT
The nature of objects determines their cognitive possibilities. This critical realist (CR) idea, drawn from Aristotle, has also increasingly gained ground in international relations (IR). Martin Hollis and Steve Smith have argued that any attempt to explain anything in world politics necessarily implies hypotheses about the existence and nature of entities. They contend that the justification of ontology is connected to its explanatory merits. David Dessler (1989:446) maintains that ‘the richer and more comprehensive the underlying ontology, the better the theory’. Alexander Wendt (1999) seems to disagree with this criterion, but has nonetheless written a remarkable book on the ontology of the states system. Open-mindedly, Hayward Alker has learned, through trial and error in his careful empirical studies, that ultimately our understanding of the nature of data depends on our social ontology. Better social ontology is thus the key to constructing more adequate sets of empirical evidence.
