World politics and western reason: Universalism, pluralism, hegemony

Alternatives: Global, Local, Political

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 1981, Pages 195-227

  Walker, R B J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84965886559     PISSN: 03043754     EISSN: 21633150     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030437548100700203     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. Edward W. Said. Orientalism (New York: Vintage Booksp 1979); see. also, Albert Houran6 “Islam and the Philosophers of History.” Mlddle Eastern Studies 3, 1967, PP* 206-268.
2. Anthony Smith, The Geopolitics of Information: How Western CuIture Dominates the World (London: Faber and Faber, 1980); see, also, Herbert 1. Schiller, Mars Communications and American Empire (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969); and, for a useful discussion of the broader context, Robert W. Cox, “Ideologies and the New International Economic Order: reflections on some recent literature,” International Organisation 33, 2, Spring 1979, pp. 257-302.
3. In addition to the well-known literature on development economics and the political economy of imperialism and dependence, see S.K. Arora, “Pre-empted Future2 Notes on Theories of Political Development,” Eehavioural Sciences and Community Development 2.2, September 1968, pp. 85-120; Ashis Nandy, “The Psychology of Colonialism: Sex and Age as the Idiom of Political Inequality in British India,” in Andre Beteille (Ed.), Aspects of Inequality (New Delhi: Indian Council of Social Science Research, forthcoming); 0. Mannoni. Prosper0 and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization, P. Power, trans. (New York: Praeger, 2nd ed. 1964); Mannoni, “Psychoanalysis and the Decolonization of Mankind.”in J. Miller (Ed.), Freud (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1972), pp 86-95; and V.G. Kiernan, The Lords of Human Kind: European Attitudes to the Outside World in the Imperial Age (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972).
4. Works relevant to this general theme include Tala1 Asad (Ed), Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (London: Ithaca Press, 1973); Asad, “Anthropology and the Analysis of Ideology,” Man 14,4, December 1979, pp. 607-627; Jack Godoy, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchtcus, Mark Sainsbury, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); and, Dumont, “On the Comparative Understanding of Non-Modern Civilizations,” Daedulus, Spring 1975, pp. 153-172. For important recent philosophical discussions of the general problem of cultural relativism in socio-political theory, see John Skorupski, Symbol and Theori (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); Bryan R. Wilson (Ed.), Rationality (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970); Ruth Finnegan and Robin Horton (Eds.), Modes of Thought (London: Faber and Faber, 1973); Ernst Gellner, Legitimation of Belief (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); and J.A. Theuws, ‘'Cultural Anthropology and Hermeneutics,” Cultures et development 10, 2, 1978, pp. 203-230.
5. R.B.J. Walker, Political Theory and the Transformation of World Politics (Princeton University, Center of’ International Studies, World Order Studies Program Occasional Paper No. 8, 1980).
6. I have in mind most particularly Rajni Kothari, “Towards a Just World,” Alternatives V, I, June 1979. pp. 1-42; also published as Working Paper Number 11, 1980, by World Order Models Project, New York; see, also, Kothari, Footsteps Into the Future (New York: Free Press, 1975); Ali A. Mauui, A World Federation of Cultures; An Afirican Perspective (New York: Free Press, 1976); Gustavo Lagos and Horacio H. Godoy, Revolution of Being: A Latin American View (New York: Free Press, 1977); Richard A. Falk, A Srudy of Future Worlds (New York: Free Press, 1975); Johan Galtung, The True Worlds (New York: Free Press, 1980); Robert C. Johansen, The National Interest and rhe Human fnferest (Princeton: PrhXtOn University Press, 1980); Roy Preiswerk, “The Place of Intercultural Relations in the Study of International Relations,” Yearbook of World Affairs (London: Stevens, 1978), pp. 251-267; and Fouad Ajami, “Human Rights and World Order Politics,” Alternatives ZZI, 3, March 1978, pp. 351-383, also published as Working Paper No. 4. 1978, by World Order Models Project, New York.
7. Martin Wight, “Why Is There NO International Theory2,” in Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (Eds.), Dlplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics (London: George, Allen and Unwin, 1966). pp. 17-34.
8. E.H. Can, The Twenty Years Crisis, 1919-1939, 2nd edition (London: Macmillan, 1946).
9. Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellianism: The Doctrine of Raison d'Efat and its Place in Modern History (1924), D. Scott, trans. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957); and Historicism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook. J. E. Anderson, trans. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972).
10. See Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977): and Fritz Kratochwil, International Order and Fore@ Policy (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1978).
11. Stanley Hoffmann, The State of War (New York: Praeger, 19651, p. 86. The continuing importance of this dilemma has recently been stressed by Ian Clark, Reform ond Resistance in rhe International Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
12. For comments on the contemporary importance of Kant in the analysis of world politics see W.B. Gallie, “Wanted: A Philosophy of International Relations,” Polltical Studies 27, 3, September 1979, pp. 484-492; and Jan Clark (Note ll), Reform and Resisiance, Pp. 31-54. However, the real importance of Kant for contemporary thinking in this area lies, I would suggest, precisely in the unresolved tension between universalism and pluralism which is at the heart of the critical philosophy; for useful discussion, see, e.g. Hans Saner, Kant's Political Thought, E.G. Ashton, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973). 1 ignore here parallel themes raised in analyses of international regionalism.
13. Hedley Bull, “International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach,” Worldpolitics, April, 1966; and Morton A. Kaplan, “The New Great Debate: Traditionalism vs Science in International Relations,” World Politics, October 1966; both reprinted in Klauss Knorr and James N. Rosenau, (eds.), Contending Approoches to InternatfonaIPolitics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969, pp. 20-38 and 39-61, respectively.
14. Richard J. Bernstein, The Restructuring of Social and Politlcal Theory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976); cf. Paul Ricoeur, Main Trends in Philosophy (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979).
15. Jonathan R.K., “philosophy and the History of Philosophy,” in RBe, et al. (eds.), Philosophy and Its Past (Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1978); pp. 3-39.
16. Isaiah Berlin, Vice and Herder (New York: Viking Press, 1976); and Against the Current: Essays ia the History of Ideas (New York: Viking Press, 1979). For an important study of the broader context of this issue, see Albert 0. Hirschman, The Possionsondthe Interests: political Arguments for Capitalism Before. lts Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University
17. T.S. Kuhn, me structure of Scfentlfc Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); and Paul Feyerabend. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of howledge (London: New Left Books. 1975).
18. Charles Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 542; cf. Geoffrey Hawthorn, Enlightenment and Despair: A History of Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
19. Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 11; See, also, Zygmunt Bauman, Culture us Proxis (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973); Clifford Geertz, 2'he Interpretation of cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973); J.0. Merquior, The Veil and the Mask: Essays on Culture and Ideology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979); Ernest0 Laclau, politics and Ideoiogy in Marxist Theory (London: New Left Books, 1977); and particularly the excellent comprehensive discussion in Jorge Lahain, The Concept of Ideotogy (London: Hutchiwon, 1979).
20. See Antonio Gramsci, Selectfonsfiom the Prison Notebooks, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey “Xwll-Smith, trans. (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971); Cf., e.g. Gwyn A. Williams, “Gramsci's concept of Egemonia,” Journal of the History of Ideas 21, 4, 1960; Thomas R Bates, “Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony,”, 36, 2, 1975; Paul Piccone, “Gramsci's Marxism: Beyond Lenin and Togliatti,” Theory and Society 3,4, Winter 1976, pp. 485-512; and Joseph Femia, “Hegemony and Consciousness in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci,” Political Studies 23, 1, 1975, pp. 29-48.
21. Williams (Note 19). p. 114.
22. Ernest Gellner, “Conceptsand Society,” in Wilson (Ed.), Rationality (Note 4), pp. 28-29.
23. In this context, and particularly on the differing perspectives of Durkheim and Levy- Bruhl, see Robin Horton. “Levy-Bruhl, Durkheim and the Scientific Revol~tion,~H'o rton and Finnegan (Eds.), Modes of Thought (NoteQ), pp. 249-305; see also, Horton, “African Traditional Thought and Western Science,” A.t&-a 37, 1967, reprinted in part in Wilson (Ed.), Note 4, Rutionality, pp. 131-171; and Skorupski, Symbol and Theory (Note 4).
24. Gellner, Legitimution of Belief (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 133.
25. This particular formulation of the issue is borrowed from Chang Tung-Sun, “A Chinese Philosopher's Theory of Knowledge,” Yenching Journal of Social Studies Z,2,1939 (Peking), reprinted in Gregory P. Stone and Harvey A. Faberman, Social Psychology Through Symbolic Interactionism (Waltham, Mass., 1970), pp. 121-140.
26. Adda B. Bozeman, Politics and Culture in International History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960); see, also, Bozeman, The Future of Law in a Multi-cultural World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971); and Robert S. Wood, “History, Thought and Images: The Development of International Law and Organization,” virginiu Journal of International Law 12, 1, December 1971.
27. Werner Levi, “International Law in a Multicultural World,” International Studies Quarter@ 18, 4, December 1974.
28. On Northrop's philosophy of science, see Science and First Principles (New York: Macmillan, 1931); for his general theory of knowledge see The Logic of the Sciences and Humanitfes (New York: Macmillan, 1947), and “The Relation Between Naturalistic Scientific Knowledge and Humanistic Intrinsic Values in Western Culture,” John E. Smith (Ed.), Contemporary American Philosophy, 2nd series (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1970), pp. 107-151; and on his philosophical anthropology, see, Philosophical Anthropology and Practical Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1960); The Meeting of East and West: An Inquiry Concerning World Understanding (New York: Macmillan, 1952); The Complexity of Legal and Ethical Experience: Studies in the Methodology of Normative Science (Boston: Little Brown, 1959); “The Relation Between Eastern and Western Philosophy,” in Radhakrishnan, Compurative Studies in Philosophy Presented in Honour of His Sixtieth Birthday (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1951). pp. 362-378; and Northrop and H.H. Livingston (Eds.), Cross-Cultural Understanding: Epistemology in Anthropology (New York: Harper & Row, 1964). For general commentary on Northrop, see Andrew J. Reck, The New American Phi&sophers (New York: Delta Books, 1968) pp. 197-220; and Pitirim Sorokin, Social Philosophies in an Age of Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950), pp. 145-158, and 244-259.
29. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and Humanities (Note 29), pp. 82, 62, 119.
30. Northrop, The Complexity of Legal and Ethical Experience (Note 29), pp. 84-85.
31. See, e.g., Hu Shih, “The Scientific Spirit and Method in Chinese Philosophy,” and E.R. Hughes, “Epistemological Methods in Chinese Philosophy,” in Charles A. Moore (Ed.), f i e Chinese Mind: Essentials of Chinese Philosophy and Culture (Honolulu: East West Center Press, 1967); and Arthur F. Wright, “Northrop on the Traditional Culture of the Orient,” Journal of the History of Ideas 10, 1949, 143-149. Cf., Ben-Ad Scharfstein (Ed.), Philosophy lilastl Philosophy West (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978).
32. Fung Yu-Lan, A Hisfory of Chinese Philosophy, Derk Bodde, trans. (London: George Allen and Unwin, 2nd ed., 1952), vol. 1, p. 3.
33. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilizafion in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954 ff.v)o l. 2, p. 579. For a recent discussion of this issue which has resultedin an enormous literature, and which involves important alternative traditions generated by Marx and Weber, see Bryan S. Turner, Marxundthe Endof Orientalism (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978). Cf., Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Zfs Modern Fate: A Triiogy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968) and Maxime Rodinson, Islam and Capitalism (London: Allen Lane, 1974).
34. Said (Note 1).