Exploring the Ontological Basis of Coexistence in International Relations: Subjectivism, Heidegger, and the Heteronomy of Ethics and Politics
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EXPLORING THE ONTOLOGICAL BASIS OF COEXISTENCE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: SUBJECTIVISM, HEIDEGGER, AND THE HETERONOMY OF ETHICS AND POLITICS Louiza Andreou ODYSSEOS Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirement of the Ph.D. in International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London 2001 (94,913 words) 1 UMI Number: U166548 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U166548 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 f Abstract In the literature of International Relations the notion of coexistence is not understood as a question for world politics, despite the frequent irruption of issues of coexistence that constantly preoccupy international praxis. Rather, in theoretic terms coexistence is considered self-evidently as the composition of units, identified with co-presence in some spatial sense. This is evident, not from the explicit theorisation of coexistence as such, but from the ontological commitments of the discipline. The enquiry points toward the ontological centrality of the modem subject, whose key attributes are reason, self-mastery and control over others and itself, and which determines coexistence through ‘a logic of composition.’ The logic of composition reduces the multifarious relations of self and other to mere co-presence of already constituted subjects, that is, it occludes the constitutive role of the other in coexistence and for the ‘subject’ itself. Illustrating the interplay of subjectivity, composition and heteronomy in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan and the work of David Campbell, the thesis turns to the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger in order to gain access to the heteronomy of entities. In his account of Being-in-the-world, it is argued, can be found an ‘optics of coexistence’ which enables a factically adequate understanding of coexistence. Such an optics reveals the self, not as autonomous and masterful, but as other-determined in its everydayness, and as uniquely appropriating this heteronomy in its process of becoming-proper. Existential heteronomy ‘unworks modem subjectivity’. In this way, it forms the basis for the self s ethical comportment, a self which is an opening to otherness, and enables the articulation of a ‘politics of non-self-sufficiency,’ as a point of departure away from the subjective politics of self-sufficiency. Moreover, the diclosure of heteronomy disturbs the determination of coexistence as composition and points to community constitution through critique. Through what is called ‘critical mimesis’ community comes into being through the deconstructive retrieve of past possibilities inherited from past generations in process which is inclusive and critical. This is an account of communal constitution which is productive also in an era of global transformations, concerned with the destabilising effects o f‘globalisation.’ 2 Table of Contents Abstract________________________ ._____________________________________ 2 Table o f Contents______________________________________________________ 3 Acknowledgements_____________________________________________________ 5 1. Introduction: Subjectivity, Coexistence, and the Question of Heteronomy______ 6 1. The issue of coexistence and International Relations_________________________ 6 2. The Cold War, ideological conflict and coexistence __________________________ 9 3. Coexistence in the post-Cold War era____________________________________15 4. International ontological commitments ___________________________________ 22 5. The logic of composition: subjectivity and coexistence _______________________ 27 6. The structure of the project___________________________________________ 35 2. Manifestations o f Composition: Discourses Traditional and Critical_____ . 39 1. The modern subject in historical context_______________________ 42 2. Thomas Hobbes and the social contract___________________________________ 60 3. Residual contractarianism: David Campbell’s critical thought_________________ 71 4. Conclusion 82 3. Towards a ‘Hermeneutics o f Facticity’: Martin Heidegger’s Philosophical Project__________________________________________________ 84 1. Heidegger’s project _________________________________________________ 86 2. Radical phenomenology as the method of ontology _________________________ 93 3. Challenging subjectivity: the priority of facticity __________________________ 103 4. Conclusion___________________________________________________ 112 4, An Optics o f Coexistence: Dasein’s Radical Embeddedness in its World 114 1. Dasein’s engaged immersion in its world ________________________________ 116 2. The world as a shared web of meanings and relations _______________________ 124 3. Being-there is Being-with ____________________________________________ 129 4. Dasein is Care: Thrownness, Projectiveness, Fallenness _____________________ 139 5. Coexistential heteronomy, or otherwise than composition ___________________ 148 3 5. Becoming-proper_________________________________________________ 152 1. Becoming-whole: Being-towards-death __________________________________ 155 2. Becoming-proper and individualisation_________________________________ 160 3. Authenticity and inauthenticity - a dialogic relationship? ___________________ 170 6. Recovering the ‘Ethical* Self as an Opening to Otherness________________ 177 1. Questioning ethics_________________________________________________ 180 2. Hearing and silence ________________________________________________ 191 3. Recovering the ethical self ___________________________________________ 198 4. Rethinking the need for rules of proper conduct__________________________ 201 5. The Ethical’ self’s disposition: liberating solicitude_______________________ 207 6. Conclusion_______________________________________________________ 210 7. Worldly Realms: Political Selfhood and Community Constitution Beyond Composition_______________________________________ 213 1. Unworking political subjectivity: toward non-self-sufficiency________________ 214 2. Coexistence and communal constitution through critique___________________ 229 3. Coexistence: worldly realms of meaning _________________________________ 246 Appendix I_________________________________________________________ 257 Glossary of Selected Terms _____________________________________________ 257 Bibliography_________________________________________________________ 261 4 Acknowledgements A work is always a debt. For the last four years, a number of people provided intellectual stimulus, professional and emotional support, as well as the occasional tall latte. Amogst the first to encourage me to undertake doctoral research was Samuel H. Barnes of Georgetown University’s Center for German and European Studies, and for this first vote of confidence, I owe him many thanks. But it was in 1996, at the London School of Economics, that Michael Bank’s Concepts and Methods in International Relations master’s seminar illustrated the attraction of thinking differently. His personal encouragement and willingness to support this kind of intellectual curiosity was instrumental (although we had plenty of debate as to the meaning if this particular word) in getting this project started. A different kind of stimulus was on offer at Clement House, Room 710, the offices of Millennium: Journal of International Studies.This was truly where the journey began, as colleagues and friends, such as Hideaki Shinoda, Hakan Seckinelgin, Paris Yeros, Michi Ebata, Ralph Emmers and Nelli Kambouri, all ‘called for thinking.’ Hakan Seckinelgin especially deserves the warmest of thanks for supporting me through many pitfalls, offering friendship, non-intrusive advice, a good novel when the mood called for it, and for always pointing to the need for even deeper questioning. At the LSE’s numerous research workshops one finds the most dedicated of people. At the ‘Postmodernism in International Relations’ Workshop I was first introduced to Heidegger’s works, while at the ‘International Political Theory’ Workshop I found my true intellectual home for the first two years of the Ph.D. Erica Benner deserves many thanks for showing us that thinking matters. Along with Margot Light, as members of my research panel, they were encouraging at all levels. Most importantly, however, heartfelt gratitude goes to Mark Hoffman, who has been the best supervisor one could wish for in such a project. There was always time, in such a busy schedule, for advice and support, for which I am deeply grateful. With his critical engagement towards my ideas about this project at first, and the text itself at the later stages, he became, as Annita Bruckner has written, ‘the reader’ for whom I was writing. Last but not least, I would like to thank Stefan Elbe, whose combination of critique and companionship made the doctorate both possible and an experience to remember. To my parents, Marios and Maro Odysseos, I owe everything. But for their exemplary attitude towards education, their financial and unfaltering emotional