ID | 176033 |
Title Proper | From serpents and doves to the war on teleocracy |
Language | ENG |
Author | Brown, Chris |
Summary / Abstract (Note) | In one of his earliest papers, ‘Serpents and Doves in Classical International Theory’ (1988), Nick Rengger set out themes that would be important to him for the next thirty years, including a Rortyan/Oakeshottian commitment to conversation as the appropriate mode of human inquiry, with the premise that there is no truth to be discovered, and a healthy scepticism directed towards reformist projects in international relations. These themes are present in his final works on just war and the anti-Pelagian imagination, but in a new, and less attractive, more dogmatic form. His critique of ‘teleocracy’ had hardened into something that no longer resembled a conversation, and his critique of progressivism involved the burning of a multitude of straw men. In 1988 Rengger aspired to be one of Rorty’s ‘edifying’ philosophers, by 2018 he seemed to have become committed to a system. |
`In' analytical Note | International Relations Vol. 34, No.4; Dec 2020: p.616-620 |
Journal Source | International Relations Vol: 34 No 4 |
Key Words | Just War ; Rorty ; Oakeshott ; Pelagianism/Anti-Pelagianism ; Teleocracy |