Reorienting IR: Ontological entanglement, agency, and ethics

Abstract

Isn't the most general of political problems the problem of truth? (Foucault 1991, 82) Perhaps, the reason why my work irritates people is precisely the fact that I'm not interested in constructing a new schema, or in validating one that already exists. Perhaps it's because my objective isn't to propose a global principle for analyzing society. (Foucault 1991, 85) To us nature is more diverse and interesting than any god, and the body is more layered, rich, and creative than the soul. Most immanent naturalists support an ethic in which visceral attachment to life and the world provides the preliminary soil from which commitment to more generous identifications, responsibilities, and connections might be cultivated. (Connolly 2002, 85) Politics is the terrain of competing ontologies. Politics is about competing visions of how the world is and how it should be. Every ontology is political. If there were no ontological differences there would be no politics. (Wight 2006, 2).