Positivism, Functionalism, and International Law

Abstract

If an event in the physical world contradicts all scientific forecasts, and thus challenges the assumptions on which the forecasts have been based, it is the natural reaction of scientific inquiry to reëxamine the foundations of the specific science and attempt to reconcile scientific findings and empirical facts. The social sciences do not react in the same way. They have an inveterate tendency to stick to their assumptions and to suffer constant defeat from experience rather than to change their assumptions inthe light of contradicting facts. This resistance to change is uppermost in the history of international law. All the schemes and devices by which great humanitarians and shrewd politicians endeavored to reorganize the relations between states on the basis of law, have not stood the trial of history.