ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the compatibility of the theory of spontaneous order with political science. It indicates that a homogeneous class of political phenomena is impossible to determine and that they lack methodological distinctiveness. This constitutes the pluralistic character of political science, revealed in the existence of many research perspectives. This chapter presents the criteria of legitimacy of these approaches in terms of their cognitive properties, evolutionary perception of reality and the anthropological perspective. It also points to the possibility of identifying the epistemic system of contemporary political science based on anthropological, sociological, methodological and axiological premises common to various paradigms of studying political phenomena.
This chapter proves the legitimacy of the spontaneous order theory as a research approach within political science and its compatibility with the epistemic system therein. In addition, it indicates that in its axiological aspect, the theory is based not on ethical premises but on an epistemological argument based on the existence of immanent human cognitive limitations. Thus, it rejects the mechanism of projecting moral norms from the sphere of individual behaviour to social institutions. It also argues that the understanding of legal norms formulated within the framework of the theory is part of the legal realism approach.
