How to Think About Civilizations - The Watson Institute for ...

Furthering the Conversation
But beyond the drawing of finer-grained maps, the real payoff of this fractalizing
of analytical distinctions is to suggest ways in which the scholarly conversation might
proceed. If I am right about the importance of these distinctions, then it follows that
further rounds in the debate should unfold along the lines envisioned by various
combinations of attribute- and process-ontologies on one hand with scholarly and
participant specification on the other. In this way the ideal-typical matrix I have
constructed stops merely being a static map, and becomes instead a dynamic generator
of potential future conversations.
That said, there are a number of logical combinations that might potentially be
explored—but not all of them are likely to be particularly productive or illuminating. In
order to clarify what I see as the most fruitful intellectual avenues, I need to briefly
advance two separate lines of argument. The first involves a dynamic endogenous to
the distinctions that I have offered as a way of characterizing the debate, a dynamic that
presses scholars and scholarship towards two of the four quadrants at any given level
of the matrix, and renders the other two quadrants somewhat unstable. The second
involves the fact that different combinations of commitments offer different resources
and lessons for scholars in International Relations, and the future course of the debate
possible cells. Otherwise, the matrix would be largely empty, and we would need to provide some kind of a compelling
explanation for why scholarly work on civilizations only occurred in certain conceptual locations but not in others.
How to Think About Civilizations • P. T. Jackson • Page 31