Here’s a quick heads-up about something that will be concluding here — and over at The Disorder of Things — in a couple of weeks:

“This is the third in a series of posts by several of us at The Disorder Of Things on Patrick Thaddeus Jackson‘s The Conduct Of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and Its Implications for the Study of World Politics. Paul started things off with his post setting up Jackson’s methodology of politics in order to ask important questions about the politics of Jackson’s methodology. Joe continued with his post and a discussion of the relationship between the scientific and the normative, and their institutionalization within IR. Next week will see a final post, followed by a reply by Jackson himself.”

Four very bright graduate students are working their way through my book and posting some extremely detailed engagements with it, so of course the least I can do is to post a reply of my own to their great set of engagements once they finish their series. And they all seem to come from the PTJ School of Methodology Blogging, which means essays of a substantial length rather than the sharp quips that the blogging format so often features; hence reading through their essays before I post my reply might be advisable. I’ve been having a lot of fun reading through their pieces and taking copious notes for my reply, so I thought I’d share the fun and let everyone know where they too can get their philosophical fix for the semester.