Abstract After situating Andreas Reckwitz’s The Society of Singularities within the broader context of the tradition of social theory, we discuss in detail the obvious strengths of this book, notably its impressive range and originality. Subsequently, we elaborate on two limitations of Reckwitz’s argument. Firstly, we argue that Reckwitz’s use of categories such as ‘singularity’ and ‘universality’ is too all-embracing, lacking the clarity and focus needed to sustain a productive line of inquiry. Secondly, and related to the previous point, we contend that Reckwitz’s claims about the recent trend towards increasing singularity are so broad that they are difficult to refute empirically. Further, we discuss briefly contemporary political developments to demonstrate why the core societal issues at stake cannot be explained through all-inclusive categories such as singularity. Finally, we maintain that existence theory can provide an alternative fruitful perspective on some of the phenomena discussed in this book.
{"title":"The Theory of Everything: A Sympathetic Critique of Andeas Reckwitz’s The Society of Singularities","authors":"P. Baert","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2035","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract After situating Andreas Reckwitz’s The Society of Singularities within the broader context of the tradition of social theory, we discuss in detail the obvious strengths of this book, notably its impressive range and originality. Subsequently, we elaborate on two limitations of Reckwitz’s argument. Firstly, we argue that Reckwitz’s use of categories such as ‘singularity’ and ‘universality’ is too all-embracing, lacking the clarity and focus needed to sustain a productive line of inquiry. Secondly, and related to the previous point, we contend that Reckwitz’s claims about the recent trend towards increasing singularity are so broad that they are difficult to refute empirically. Further, we discuss briefly contemporary political developments to demonstrate why the core societal issues at stake cannot be explained through all-inclusive categories such as singularity. Finally, we maintain that existence theory can provide an alternative fruitful perspective on some of the phenomena discussed in this book.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79202314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The article summarizes the content of Andreas Reckwitz’s book The Society of Singularities in 10 theses and briefly links it to the author’s overall work. The Society of Singularities applies a practice theory approach in order to outline a theory of Western (late-)modernity which recognizes in it a basic rivalry between two logics of social evaluation: a social logic of the general and a social logic of the particular/ singular. The question arises which historical causes for the surge of the social logic of uniqueness since the 1980s can be discerned, which structural features this type of society unfolds and which social and political consequences it has.
{"title":"The Society of Singularities—10 Theses","authors":"Andreas Reckwitz","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2031","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article summarizes the content of Andreas Reckwitz’s book The Society of Singularities in 10 theses and briefly links it to the author’s overall work. The Society of Singularities applies a practice theory approach in order to outline a theory of Western (late-)modernity which recognizes in it a basic rivalry between two logics of social evaluation: a social logic of the general and a social logic of the particular/ singular. The question arises which historical causes for the surge of the social logic of uniqueness since the 1980s can be discerned, which structural features this type of society unfolds and which social and political consequences it has.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77497932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article seeks to historicize both the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the debate on realism occasioned by Russian aggression in Ukraine since 2014. Using the research of Gerard Toal on Russia’s construction of its security interests in the post-Soviet spaces that include Ukraine, the article argues that neorealist geopolitical explanations fail to do justice to the roles of contingency and culture in setting Russia’s so-called ‘red lines.’ It also identifies an agency problem in realism: realists not only fail to do justice to the agency of small states like Ukraine in this conflict but elide the moral and practical agency of decisionmakers like Russian President Vladmir Putin. The article also suggests that the current realism debate is the tip of an iceberg: realism has long had a problem specifying the relation of its theory to its practice. The article concludes by discussing the long shadow of 19th century imperial history over contemporary discussions of spheres of influence and great power status.
{"title":"Realism after Ukraine: A Critique of Geopolitical Reason from Monroe to Mearsheimer","authors":"M. Specter","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2033","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article seeks to historicize both the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the debate on realism occasioned by Russian aggression in Ukraine since 2014. Using the research of Gerard Toal on Russia’s construction of its security interests in the post-Soviet spaces that include Ukraine, the article argues that neorealist geopolitical explanations fail to do justice to the roles of contingency and culture in setting Russia’s so-called ‘red lines.’ It also identifies an agency problem in realism: realists not only fail to do justice to the agency of small states like Ukraine in this conflict but elide the moral and practical agency of decisionmakers like Russian President Vladmir Putin. The article also suggests that the current realism debate is the tip of an iceberg: realism has long had a problem specifying the relation of its theory to its practice. The article concludes by discussing the long shadow of 19th century imperial history over contemporary discussions of spheres of influence and great power status.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75084649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Does the ‘Zeitenwende’ herald the beginning of a new and as yet undefined open society realism? The present essay argues this question requires critical discussion of nature and value of realist political theory, particularly at a time where international society is accelerating to somewhere which is itself as yet unclear. Adding to revisionist research on political realism in International Relations (IR) theory I sketch how a political vision I call open society realism may be developed out of Classical realism, in sharp distinction to academic IR neorealism for methodological and political reasons. To strip foreign policy realism from Continental philosophy, law, and history risks that we become what political liberalism ought to avoid: a closed society with a good conscience retreating from world politics, hiding behind the ‘national’ interest as if strategic great power management is a methodic function of structure rather than the politics of an ethically conscious diplomacy.
{"title":"The End of Open Society Realism?","authors":"Robert Schuett","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Does the ‘Zeitenwende’ herald the beginning of a new and as yet undefined open society realism? The present essay argues this question requires critical discussion of nature and value of realist political theory, particularly at a time where international society is accelerating to somewhere which is itself as yet unclear. Adding to revisionist research on political realism in International Relations (IR) theory I sketch how a political vision I call open society realism may be developed out of Classical realism, in sharp distinction to academic IR neorealism for methodological and political reasons. To strip foreign policy realism from Continental philosophy, law, and history risks that we become what political liberalism ought to avoid: a closed society with a good conscience retreating from world politics, hiding behind the ‘national’ interest as if strategic great power management is a methodic function of structure rather than the politics of an ethically conscious diplomacy.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90197707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Since the outbreak of the war in the Ukraine, realism has made a comeback in public discourses but it is not clear what realism actually means as it seems to stand for everything: from supporting the Ukraine against Russian aggression to the war is the West’s fault. This is the result of decades of not distinguishing between neorealism and classical realism and implicitly acknowledging neorealist storytelling of having systematized classical realist thought. The present paper is a further intervention to carefully distinguish between both theoretical perspectives to uncover what they can add to current world political problems. It finishes by asking if neorealist scholars like John Mearsheimer have a point that it is the West’s fault and a diplomatic solution needs to be found. They often refer to Hans Morgenthau not least because he was one of the most outspoken critics of the Vietnam War.
{"title":"Realism, the War in the Ukraine, and the Limits of Diplomacy","authors":"Felix Rösch","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2030","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Since the outbreak of the war in the Ukraine, realism has made a comeback in public discourses but it is not clear what realism actually means as it seems to stand for everything: from supporting the Ukraine against Russian aggression to the war is the West’s fault. This is the result of decades of not distinguishing between neorealism and classical realism and implicitly acknowledging neorealist storytelling of having systematized classical realist thought. The present paper is a further intervention to carefully distinguish between both theoretical perspectives to uncover what they can add to current world political problems. It finishes by asking if neorealist scholars like John Mearsheimer have a point that it is the West’s fault and a diplomatic solution needs to be found. They often refer to Hans Morgenthau not least because he was one of the most outspoken critics of the Vietnam War.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78817950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The usefulness of ‘realism’ in explaining Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine has become a keenly contested debate not only in International Relations but in wider public intellectual discourse since the onset of the war in February 2022. At the centre of this debate is the punditry of John J. Mearsheimer, a prominent offensive realist who is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Chicago. This article argues that although Mearsheimer is indeed a realist, his offensive realism is but one of many different realist theories that can forward an explanation of the Ukraine War. Beyond the apparent hegemony of structural realism (the branch of realism to which Mearsheimer’s offensive realism belongs), it is argued that classical and neoclassical realist frameworks can provide more nuanced and, ultimately, convincing arguments as to why Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine. This is because both classical and neoclassical realism can incorporate insights from non-realist studies—such as the concepts of civilization and ontological security—and combine them into an overarching power politics framework. Although neither classical nor neoclassical realism is flawless in their explanations, they demonstrate that realism does not just have to be about international power structures but can offer multivariate accounts of why a state, like Russia, decided to act, such as invading Ukraine.
自2022年2月战争爆发以来，“现实主义”在解释俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的决定时的有用性，不仅在国际关系领域，而且在更广泛的公共知识分子话语中，都成为了一个激烈争论的话题。这场辩论的核心是约翰·j·米尔斯海默(John J. Mearsheimer)的权威观点，他是芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)国际关系教授，是一位著名的进攻性现实主义者。本文认为，虽然米尔斯海默确实是一位现实主义者，但他的进攻性现实主义理论只是解释乌克兰战争的众多现实主义理论之一。除了结构现实主义(Mearsheimer的进攻性现实主义属于现实主义的分支)的明显霸权之外，有人认为古典和新古典现实主义框架可以提供更细致入微的，最终令人信服的论据，说明俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京(Vladimir Putin)为什么决定入侵乌克兰。这是因为古典现实主义和新古典现实主义都可以结合非现实主义研究的见解——比如文明和本体论安全的概念——并将它们结合到一个总体的权力政治框架中。尽管古典现实主义和新古典现实主义的解释都不完美，但他们证明，现实主义不仅必须是关于国际权力结构的，而且可以提供多元的解释，解释为什么像俄罗斯这样的国家决定采取行动，比如入侵乌克兰。
{"title":"Mearsheimer, Realism, and the Ukraine War","authors":"N. Smith, Grant Dawson","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2023","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The usefulness of ‘realism’ in explaining Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine has become a keenly contested debate not only in International Relations but in wider public intellectual discourse since the onset of the war in February 2022. At the centre of this debate is the punditry of John J. Mearsheimer, a prominent offensive realist who is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Chicago. This article argues that although Mearsheimer is indeed a realist, his offensive realism is but one of many different realist theories that can forward an explanation of the Ukraine War. Beyond the apparent hegemony of structural realism (the branch of realism to which Mearsheimer’s offensive realism belongs), it is argued that classical and neoclassical realist frameworks can provide more nuanced and, ultimately, convincing arguments as to why Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine. This is because both classical and neoclassical realism can incorporate insights from non-realist studies—such as the concepts of civilization and ontological security—and combine them into an overarching power politics framework. Although neither classical nor neoclassical realism is flawless in their explanations, they demonstrate that realism does not just have to be about international power structures but can offer multivariate accounts of why a state, like Russia, decided to act, such as invading Ukraine.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76674933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract William Lynch has persistently questioned the politics underlying my appeal to science and technology studies’ flagship symmetry principle. He believes that it licenses the worst features of the ‘post-truth condition’. I respond in two parts, the first facing the future and the second facing the past. In the first part, I argue that the symmetry principle will be crucial in decisions that society will increasingly need to make concerning the inclusion of animals and machines on grounds of sentience, consciousness, intelligence, etc. In the second part, I argue that the symmetry principle has been in fact at the core of the ‘justice as fairness’ idea that has been at the core of both liberal and socialist democracies. Difficulties start once the means of expression and communication are made widely available and the standards of fairness are subject to continual questioning and renegotiation.
{"title":"Symmetry in World-Historic Perspective: Reply to Lynch","authors":"S. Fuller","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract William Lynch has persistently questioned the politics underlying my appeal to science and technology studies’ flagship symmetry principle. He believes that it licenses the worst features of the ‘post-truth condition’. I respond in two parts, the first facing the future and the second facing the past. In the first part, I argue that the symmetry principle will be crucial in decisions that society will increasingly need to make concerning the inclusion of animals and machines on grounds of sentience, consciousness, intelligence, etc. In the second part, I argue that the symmetry principle has been in fact at the core of the ‘justice as fairness’ idea that has been at the core of both liberal and socialist democracies. Difficulties start once the means of expression and communication are made widely available and the standards of fairness are subject to continual questioning and renegotiation.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90124146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Understanding the social bases of what John Rawls meant by justice requires understanding a central part of Rawls’s professional life: his role as a teacher. As this essay shows, Rawls’s approach to teaching was not ancillary to his approach to heady philosophical issues like the justification of moral reasoning. Rather, there’s an ethic that runs through Rawls’s work, one focused on deliberation and consensus-seeking, and one whose strengths and weaknesses are easiest to see when you examine his teaching.
{"title":"How to Do Things with Justice: Professor Rawls, 1962–1971","authors":"Brad Baranowski","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2027","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Understanding the social bases of what John Rawls meant by justice requires understanding a central part of Rawls’s professional life: his role as a teacher. As this essay shows, Rawls’s approach to teaching was not ancillary to his approach to heady philosophical issues like the justification of moral reasoning. Rather, there’s an ethic that runs through Rawls’s work, one focused on deliberation and consensus-seeking, and one whose strengths and weaknesses are easiest to see when you examine his teaching.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77916870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The argument of Katrina Forrester’s In the Shadow of Justice explains the present neglect of Rawlsian thinking in the social and political world beyond academia. She there convincingly shows how its deep assumptions, conceptual framing and narrow view of what constitutes politics disabled it from grappling with the subsequent massive transformations of capitalism. Her second argument, advanced in her article and questioned here, offers an ideology critique of Rawlsian thinking that claims, in its strongest version, that such thinking fails to acknowledge that capitalism is not reformable and that this failure derives from its liberal assumptions. What is needed, she claims, is a critique that implies the feasibility of attaining a post-capitalist world that is based on a theory that goes beyond the boundaries of liberalism.
{"title":"Capitalism, Justice, and the Boundaries of Liberalism","authors":"S. Lukes","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The argument of Katrina Forrester’s In the Shadow of Justice explains the present neglect of Rawlsian thinking in the social and political world beyond academia. She there convincingly shows how its deep assumptions, conceptual framing and narrow view of what constitutes politics disabled it from grappling with the subsequent massive transformations of capitalism. Her second argument, advanced in her article and questioned here, offers an ideology critique of Rawlsian thinking that claims, in its strongest version, that such thinking fails to acknowledge that capitalism is not reformable and that this failure derives from its liberal assumptions. What is needed, she claims, is a critique that implies the feasibility of attaining a post-capitalist world that is based on a theory that goes beyond the boundaries of liberalism.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89459278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract There is something amiss about post-Rawlsian efforts to bring political theory down to earth by insisting upon the political primacy of the question of legitimacy, peace, or order. The intuition driving much realism seems to be that we must first agree to get along, and only then can we get down to the business of pursuing justice. I argue that the ideological narratives of the powerful pose a political problem for this primacy of legitimacy thesis. To prioritize the achievement of democratic legitimacy seems to make sense only to the extent that we already live in a world in which systematic domination—and its ideological baggage—has been stamped out. I draw on the social study of domination for the sake of combatting in political theory the temptation to focus on the static design of the constitutional state at the expense of ignoring or even condemning the social processes that motivate legal and constitutional changes.
{"title":"Whose Realism? Which Legitimacy? Ideologies of Domination and Post-Rawlsian Political Theory","authors":"W. Roberts","doi":"10.1515/auk-2022-2028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2022-2028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract There is something amiss about post-Rawlsian efforts to bring political theory down to earth by insisting upon the political primacy of the question of legitimacy, peace, or order. The intuition driving much realism seems to be that we must first agree to get along, and only then can we get down to the business of pursuing justice. I argue that the ideological narratives of the powerful pose a political problem for this primacy of legitimacy thesis. To prioritize the achievement of democratic legitimacy seems to make sense only to the extent that we already live in a world in which systematic domination—and its ideological baggage—has been stamped out. I draw on the social study of domination for the sake of combatting in political theory the temptation to focus on the static design of the constitutional state at the expense of ignoring or even condemning the social processes that motivate legal and constitutional changes.","PeriodicalId":35240,"journal":{"name":"Analyse und Kritik","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78199462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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