ABSTRACT
After the catastrophe of the Second World War, Kantian themes re-emerged, in a positivist guise, within peace and conflict studies. Kenneth Boulding, Karl Deutsch, Johan Galtung and many others hoped that positivist social sciences would help us to overcome the international problems posed by the threat of violence and war. Although the mainstream in the USA-powerfully boosted by the US financiers of the cold war-believed in the eternal wisdom of political realism, peace researchers thought that scientific research could demonstrate that political realists were wrong. Even better, they envisaged a more peacefully organised world based on scientific knowledge. Like modern medicine, peace and conflict studies can help save lives. Given the spectre of thermonuclear war, this task assumed the urgency of saving the whole of human civilisation.
