RIEAS E-book, No 2

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RIEAS E-BOOK

July 2013

Athens, Greece

NICOLAS LAOS

KAIROPOLITICS

The Ontological Foundations of

International Relations

With Forewords by:

Professor Alexander Dugin, State University of Moscow

Dr John M. Nomikos, RIEAS

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies

(RIEAS)

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About the author:

Dr Nicolas Laos was born in Athens, Greece, in 1974. He is associated with the

Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS), the University of

Indianapolis (Athens Campus, Greece), and the Saint Elias Seminary and Graduate

School (Faith-Based Diplomacy Programme, Virginia, USA). Additionally, he is a

member of several editorial boards.

He has studied Mathematics, Humanities and politics and graduated from the

University of La Verne (California), and he has earned a Doctoral Degree in

Philosophy from the St Andrew’s Theological Academy (Mexico, Ukrainian

Autocephalous Orthodox Church Canonical). Additionally, he holds an MBA (Free

European School of Economics-European University, Switzerland). Dr Nicolas Laos

has published several monographs and research papers in Philosophy, International

Relations, Political Economy, and Mathematical Analysis.

In 2013, the Ecclesiastical Noble Title of Duke of Bethphage was awarded to him

by the Anglican Episcopal Church International (by decision of Metropolitan

Archbishop the Most Rev’d Dr Norman S. Dutton) for his scholarly and charitable

work. In 2008, at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Athens, he was invested and installed

as a Knight of Grace of the Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem (United

Grand Priories of the Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, under the patronage of the

Lord Lingfield).

About the book:

What is reality? What is ‘real’ and what is ‘ideal’? How is consciousness related to

the world? Is history created by the intentionality of the historical actors or are the

historical actors determined by historical processes beyond their control? The

previous ontological questions are of crucial significance for the creation of a theory

of international relations and for the management of world affairs. In the present

book, Dr Nicolas Laos gives a clear answer to the aforementioned ontological

question, and he articulates a new theory of international relations, which he has

called “Kairopolitics”.

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CONTENTS

PREFACE

FOREWORD by Professor Alexander Dugin, Faculty of Sociology, Director of the

Center of Geopolitical Studies, State University of Moscow

FOREWORD by Dr John M. Nomikos, Director of the Research Institute for

European and American Studies (RIEAS)

CHAPTER 1: The Philosophical Underpinnings of Policy Analysis and Kairicity

CHAPTER 2: The Rise and Fall of International Orders: The Two World Wars in

Focus

CHAPTER 3: The Defects of Political Realism and Neorealism

CHAPTER 4: The Dynamics of the Political System

Bibliography

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PREFACE

This book concerns itself with the articulation of a new research programme, which

I have called “kairopolitics” (I will explain this term in the sequel), and its goals are to

transcend the antithesis between political realism and political idealism and to provide

guidelines for the management of the international/global system in the context of

advanced modernity and complex multipolarity.

These pages come as a response to the 21st century phenomena of change and crisis

as well as a calling to the need for a new theory of international politics capable of

addressing new problems and absorbing advances that have taken place in philosophy,

cybernetics and quantum science with respect to ontological, epistemological and

moral questions and that have been ignored by traditional political realists and

political idealists.

What I have called kairopolitics is a new research programme that reflects the

identity of the human being as a cognitive being and as a creative species. Each

human subject around the world has in principle a limitless potential of self-perfection

and of historical self-actualization. Kairopolitics is also an attempt to update and

enrich the humanistic core of the European Renaissance by taking into account the

historical mistakes, the psychological problems and the existential crisis of the human

subject, which became manifest in the era of advanced modernity (or, for some other

scholars, ‘postmodernity’), and, hence, to promote an idea of a continued path of

illumination, as opposed to the diverse forces that lead to a regression to obscurantist

medieval and feudalist/quasi-feudalist structures and value systems. In other words,

kairopolitics is a radically anthropocentric research programme.

In an era of “global political awakening” (according to Zbigniew Brzezinski’s

terminology), civilization clashes and advanced technology, the United States’ centre

of power is not so much Washington DC as the political and cultural legacy of George

Washington, and the Russian Federation’s centre of power is not so much the

powerful regime of Vladimir Putin as the spiritual legacy of Alexander Pushkin and

St Seraphim of Sarov. In addition, without delving into difficult ontological and

epistemological questions, one cannot correctly address fundamental issues in

intelligence analysis, e.g. he cannot discern real, significant ‘signals’ from

background ‘noise’, and, of course, he cannot conduct successful psychological

operations.

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In this book, I follow a philosophical attitude to the scholarly discipline of

international relations. Philosophy, in general, is a methodical study and systematic

investigation of the problems that result from the relationship of consciousness to the

world and to itself. Thus, the philosophy of international relations is a methodical

study and systematic investigation of the problems that result from the relationship of

an international-political entity to the international system and to itself.

Like the ‘special’ sciences, philosophy is also a science, only one of a more

general character. But there is an important difference between philosophy and the

‘special’ sciences. The aim of philosophy goes beyond the standard scientific work,

which is concerned with the establishment of relations and laws, because philosophy

aims, additionally, at evaluating the objects of philosophical research in a unified

manner. Philosophy is not only concerned with the creation of theories, but it is also

concerned with the creation of theories regarding the creation of theories (i.e. theories

of theories). In other words, the difference between ‘philosophy’ and ‘science’ does

not refer only to the level at which they study their problems, but also it refers to the

manner in which these problems are experienced by the consciousness of the

researcher and to consciousness itself.

I should gratefully acknowledge the inspiration and intellectual influence that I

have received from the research works of the renowned Russian politologist Professor

Alexander Dugin (State University of Moscow), the philosophers and the

psychoanalysts who have studied the notion of ‘kairos’ (primarily Professor

Evangelos Moutsopoulos, who is a prominent Member of the Academy of Athens, the

psychiatrist Dr Daniel N. Stern and the psychoanalyst Dr Harold Kelman), as well as

several international-relations scholars associated with the Centre for Strategic and

International Studies (primarily Professor Joseph Nye Jr), the RAND Corporation

(primarily Dr John Arquilla and Dr David Ronfeldt), and the Research Institute for

European and American Studies (primarily its Director, Dr John Nomikos).

Moreover, my gratitude extends to the prominent mathematician Professor

Themistocles M. Rassias (National Technical University of Athens), who introduced

me in nonlinear analysis and differentiable dynamics during my mathematical studies

at the University of La Verne (California).

Athens, Greece, June 2013 Dr Nicolas Laos

Research Institute for European and American Studies

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FOREWORD BY

Professor ALEXANDER DUGIN

Kairos: welcome to the Revolution, here and now!

Reflections on the essay “Kairopolitics” by Nicolas Laos

The essay on “Kairopolitics” by Greek policy analyst Nicolas Laos is very

important and timely in many respects. I am going to make a quick survey of the main

points that seem to me of great operational significance.

The author demonstrates very broad knowledge in different fields of science from

philosophy and psychology to geopolitics, economics, and the theories of

International Relations and Communication. In the framework of such

interdisciplinary research Nicolas Laos tries to propose a kind of original synthesis

expressed in the concept of kairos. So let’s start with studying the very concept.

The Greek term kairos (καιρός) means literally “opportunity”, “right moment”,

“(good) chance”. I could suggest the following interpretation of it. Kairos is not only a

“proper moment” to do something but the exclusive “temporal point” where the

“common” time undergoes the fundamental qualitative change of its deep nature. This

is the moment of transfiguration of time, of its mutation in the something different

than it was before. In order to illustrate this idea we can describe kairos in at least five

different perspectives: Neoplatonic, phenomenological (Heideggerian), religious

(Hesychastic), mystic (Islamic gnosis studied by H. Corbin) and psychological (Zen

Buddhism).

1) In Neoplatonic terms, kairos signifies the particular moment when the

‘horizontal’ flow of time is intersected by the vertical line understood as a kind of

eternity or “eidetical chain”. The Neoplationic thought follows Plato in perceiving

time as the reflection or image of eternity. However, eternity, according to Plotinus, is

not the whole time but the everlasting moment of being always equal to itself. If so,

then the direct experience of eternity is possible as the act of transcending time, of

ecstatically moving out of time. This process doesn’t mean ‘exit’ from time, but rather

the transfiguration of time, the leap inside the inmost essence of time itself (as the

image of eternity), the transformation of the ‘horizontal’ time into the ‘vertical’ one.

Hence, kairos is the moment of rapture and instant elevation to the utmost levels of

being.

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2) In Heideggerian sense, kairos can be understood as event/en-owning (Er-eignis),

a kind of simultaneous switch of the regime of existence of Dasein (“being t/here”)

from the unauthentic mode to the authentic one. This is the moment of the awakening

of Dasein to its own finitude, of the direct meeting with its own limits (death,

nothingness), of the explosion of being inside “being t/here” when the latter becomes

the “openness”. In this context, kairos can be compared with the future ecstasy of time

as it is described in the second part of Being and Time (Sein und Zeit, 1927). This is

the time of authentic being by contrast with the time of unauthentic being that always

hesitates between to be and not to be (not yet). Summing up, for Heidegger, kairos is

the moment of decision (Entscheidung) that implies the possibility or not for the

return of gods.

3) In the context of the Eastern Christianity’s Hesychastic tradition, the Fathers

spoke about the moment of enlightenment of the heart that comes as a result of the

long practice of silence and the Great Work of Mind. It has been interpreted by St.

Gregory Palamas as the ray of the uncreated Light of Thabor (Φῶς του Θαβώρ)

intruding in the purified heart of a monk. In this context, kairos can be seen as the

meeting point of enscreatum with ensincreatum. This idea was further elaborated in

the context of the Russian religious philosophy of XIX-XX centuries, in a school

known as sophiology. According to its terminology, kairos can be recognised as a

“sophiological moment”.

4) We can also recall the concept of “discrete time” proposed by French

philosopher Henri Corbin in his analysis of the structure of time in the Shia and Sufi

Islamic traditions. According to Corbin, a mystic following the path of Islamic gnosis

should make time somewhat personal; he can personalize it by discovering its unique

features (name, figure, character and so on). By doing so, the mystic achieves the

transformation of time into space. That was the original meaning of the ancient idea

of Eon as a personalized ‘time entity’. Acquainting himself with this ‘time entity’, the

mystic avoids the doom of the ‘horizontal’ time and finds the way into the imaginary

one, “alam-al-mithal”, the world of Malakut “beyond the birth and death”. This is the

very place where the hidden Imam lives.

5) We could also point out the Zen Buddhist practice of the search for “satori”, the

momentary and spontaneous enlightenment of the mind reached through a special

mental technique called “koan”. The latter is a sort of “short circuit” of the mind, and

it follows from the concentration on snippets of a master. It stimulates the specific

mental state in which emptiness (shunyata) of existence is clearly perceived and inner

transformation of the self is achieved. Therefore, it can be seen as an analogue of

kairos in the Japanese (Zen Buddhist) ambiance.

There is a question here: how can we apply such a sophisticated concept as kairos

to the world around us and more precisely to the sphere of IR, given that Nicolas Laos

insists on the practical value of his suggestions? It could be perceived as something

weird, and it does seem so on condition that we are fully satisfied with the way things

go round and we are quite sure about the direction in which humanity moves further

and further into the process of liberalization, globalization and (post)modernization on

a world scale. In other words, if we are quite certain that the existing global trends (in

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economy, culture, science, communication, technology and so on) lead us safely and

directly to a better or at least tolerable future, then kairology defended by Nicolas

Laos doesn’t have much sense or any sense at all. But all this changes immediately if

we begin to examine the status quo in more anxious terms, if we get concerned about

the uncertainty of the future, about the limits of the economic growth reached and

outdone, about multiplying social gaps and inequalities between the people despite (or

due to) globalization, about uncontrolled progress of technologies breaking remaining

ties with moral values. If we recognise that we are in a state of deep crisis and need a

fundamental change, then Laos’s text is quite opportune. In such a case, the concept

of kairos acquires a real sense and becomes pressing.

What does this mean? First of all, it means that kairos cannot be grasped only by

rational means. It also needs deep existential experience though in total connection

with the other realms of the “outer world”. Secondly, it refers to a personal decision

about the destiny of the human being and humanity as a whole: there is the necessity

for them both immediately to change their inertial course in a truly revolutionary way.

They cannot proceed anymore philosophically, culturally, geopolitically,

technologically, morally, ideologically as they did before. Thirdly, kairos refers to the

possibility (albeit problematic and not granted) of a revolutionary alternative to the

existing order of things.

Change is absolutely necessary, and Nicholas Laos gives us his idea about how it

could be possible. Kairos here is the key word. It is a fundamental, immediate and

radical shift of all the existential regimes, a leap in the other direction, an unexpected

strike of lightning, a sudden intrusion of the different. But kairos presupposes the

evaluation of timing, risk and dangers. If the step is taken too early or too late all will

be lost. The stakes are high. Kairos induces us to change the horizontal development

in order to experience the verticality. The author describes what ‘horizontality’

signifies today.

In the field of philosophy, ‘horizontality’ signifies an obsolete dualism of subject

and object introduced on the eve of Modernity but preserved till now in the

mainstream way of thinking (positivism, rationalism, materialism and so on). Instead,

we must turn to what lies in between and can be called “kairicity” (by Evangelos

Moutsopoulos), or Dasein (by Heidegger), or Lebenswelt (by Husserl), or “rhizome”

(by post-structuralists), or “sophiology” (by Vladimir Solovyov). We need to

rediscover the nature of the human being from the ‘intermediate point’, which lies

between subject and object, idealism and realism, consciousness and cosmos. If not,

we are doomed to be absorbed into the information society where the agglomeration

of information quanta will flood the hermeneutic capacity of man, making the ever

growing databases less and less meaningful until they become completely

meaningless. In other words, we are in dire need of a radical epistemological change.

In the field of International Relations, the existing process of globalization becomes

more and more insecure, disastrous and self-destroying, being based on the quite

weak, questionable and unjustified presumption of the universality of the ‘Western

idea’. In its present form, globalization is the ‘monologue’ which imposes an

uniformed and standardized set of values, practices and technologies on different,

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heterogeneous cultures, societies and religions. Proceeding in this direction will,

sooner or later, erode the Western values at its core, inevitably provoking global

resistance against the new kind of colonialism and consolidate radical anti-Western

forces all over the world. What we are confronted with is the West losing its own

identity precisely at the moment when this identity seems to have become universal

and reached the most distant areas of the Earth. The victory of the West will become

its doom and the very reason for its profound defeat. In winning control over

humanity, the West is losing control over itself, and, thus, it is sacrificing itself to its

unlimited “will for power”. The West simply cannot afford to be global anymore.

It is impossible to grasp the present international world order in the realist or liberal

perspective. Nowadays, nation-states are being eroded, and the civil society appears to

be somewhat different from what the humanitarian idealists originally envisaged. So,

without a paradigm change in International Relations, the morally corrupted “double

standards” accompanied by disillusionment, growing irritation and all-absorbing fear

are unavoidable. “Why do they hate us?” –ask Americans sincerely today. It seems

like the USA has never thought seriously about the others, about the diversity of other

cultures, societies and identities. Even if the American way of life is good for

Americans, this doesn’t mean automatically that the others share the same

enthusiasm.

So the world order should be fundamentally changed. In what sense? In the sense

that kairicity could mean the recognition of the plurality of the times. There is a time

of the West and there is a time of the East. In the case of Greece, the country which

Nicolas Laos represents, the presence of this plurality is obvious. Being the cradle of

the Western civilization, Greece belongs at the same time to the Eastern Orthodox

Church. Therefore, on Greek soil, both times and corresponding value systems are

equally present, while the differences between them are clearly perceived. In a similar

way, any other culture, society, or civilization possesses its own version of time, as

well as its own value system, historical identity and so on. The alternative, the

“kairological world order”, could be constructed on recognition of this fact. This

statement implies that we should see globalization as a “polilogue” of different groups

of people with their own temporalities, spaces, visions of cosmos, cultural identities.

This is the only way to save the West from itself and also to protect the Rest from the

West.

Kairopolitics is concerned with the realm of geopolitics, too. Sea power (winning

actually) and Land power (being today on defense) are very useful intellectual

concepts by means of which one can understand the conflictual nature of world

politics. But it is unlikely that the imbalance in their mutual positions could make the

world safer. The victory of the West (Atlanticism, the USA and NATO) over the East

(Eurasianism, the Soviet form) was seen in the beginning of the 1990s as decisive and

even described as “the end of history”. It was also hurriedly declared that the era of

geopolitics had come to an end and the whole planet turned into a single prosperous

post-modern market. But now the fragility of this victory and the impossibility of

unipolar ‘monologue’ are obvious. The readiness of Land power to strike back (in the

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form of a resurgent Russia or, more broadly, the Eurasian Union, the Shanghai

Cooperation Organization, or the BRICS) revives the old geopolitical tensions…

The only solution to get out of this ‘cyclical law’ of geopolitical confrontation is

not the return to the old Westphalian ‘anarchy’ (the nation-states being irreversibly

gone) nor the re-establishment of the bipolar ‘dialogue’ (there being the curse of

dualism) but the institution of the real and equal ‘polilogue’ of civilizations in the true

spirit of multipolarity. Such centres of the new world order must be integrated on the

basis of their values and identities, or, in other words, they must share the same

kairos. This means the reconfiguration of the classical geopolitical map into the new

one, with cultural poles or “greater spaces” embracing Sea and Land power areas as

well as the crucial intermediate zone in between –Rimland. And here the amphibious

nature of the Greek and wider Mediterranean geopolitical identity could serve as a

key-factor, uniting, separating and balancing the plethora of culturally integrated

spaces –Western European, Eurasian, Middle Eastern, North African and so on. The

Greek Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus declared Athens to be the centre of sacred

geography with the mythic Atlantians to the West and the real Persians to the East

(A.-J. Festugière (transl.), Commentairesur le Timée, 5 vols, Bibliothèque des textes

philosophiques, Paris: Vrin, 1966-1968). Therefore, the strategic place in between for

ever and ever is reserved for a kairic geopolitical entity, i.e. for Greece –modern,

ancient, eternal.

In the field of economics, the concept of kairos means the deep revision of the

liberal presumption of everlasting growth (although at this point Nicolas Laos seems

to have another opinion). The linear accumulation of goods, technologies or

knowledge is a dangerous liberal illusion. The present Greek crisis having its origins

in the crash of the American mortgage system in 2008 is only a herald of the

forthcoming catastrophe. There are limits and they will remind us of their existence

more and more menacingly. What has happened to Greece recently is the end of the

absolute certitude that liberalism is a miraculous panacea applicable universally.

Hence, we need to outdo the “new economy” with its massive pervasive propaganda.

We need to return to ‘reality check’, although it will be painful. If the growth of

income isn’t guaranteed anymore and the ‘swelling’ of the middle class not evident, if

the pauperization is a real menace and massive immigration creates more problems

than it solves, while the shortage of energy resources becomes more acute on the

global scale, then the faith in liberalism as the universal solution has lost its power.

That is why we need an alternative to liberalism in this sphere, too.

Since it is simplistic and simultaneously impossible to return to socialism or to the

protectionism of good old Modernity, we have to ‘imagine’ something really new,

something revolutionary new. Right now. Otherwise, it will be too late. The economic

kairicity obliges us to act precipitously. If not economic liberalism, what? Here as

always nothing can be taken for granted. We need to rush through, “riding the tiger”

at the post-modern high speed, playing in the rhythm of growing velocity, acting in

the “dromocratic regime” (P.Virilio). But in what sense this can be done, remains to

be discovered. I foresee it as a bold discourse between pre-modernity and post-

modernity, beyond liberal dogmatism but without straight appeal to its failed historic

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alternatives (Left or Right). We need to leap out of liberal inertia…and into a vertical

dimension. Maybe here the essential ideas of a prominent Russian philosopher and

economist father Sergey Bulgakov could be of use. Another Russian thinker and

sociologist, Piterim Sorokin, once predicted the collapse of “sensate culture” and the

near advent of “ideational social order”. If so, we need to think of a non-material

approach to the material world, non-technical solutions to technical problems.

All the issues mentioned above invoke a necessity for a new ideology, alternative

political vision, the other world-outlook, absolutely radical, revolutionary and

innovative. Could this be “kairopolitics” suggested by Nicholas Laos? Maybe. The

term as far as I understand is very relevant, promising and fruitful. Certainly, it can’t

be taken as an accomplished and fully elaborated solution but as a brave invitation to

think in a completely different direction where Premodernity (spirituality, Platonism,

mysticism, tradition) meets Postmodernity (information society, communicativity,

dromocracy, high technologies) bypassing the impasse of Modernity with its

numbered days.

For all the above, I am inclined to accept this invitation, regarding it as an authentic

Greek initiative similar to our own ideas (Eurasianism, Fourth Political Theory,

Global Revolutionary Alliance, theory of Multipolar World), which are also quite

open for questioning and not frozen dogmatism.

Nicholas Laos’s essay is absolutely worth reading, meditating on, analysing about.

It is a kind of challenge. Kairos is present there. And that is precisely what is most

important…

Professor Alexander Dugin

Faculty of Sociology

Director of the Center of Geopolitical Studies

State University of Moscow

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FOREWORD BY

Dr JOHN M. NOMIKOS

Reflections on the research work “Kairopolitcs” by Nicolas Laos

The research work titled “A New Research Programme for a New World Order:

Complex Multipolarity, Advanced Modernity and the Fusion of Geopolitics and

Noopolitics” written by Dr Nicolas Laos is a masterpiece for any

analyst/researcher/policy-maker who seriously wants to comprehend the complexities

that societies and human beings face in the twenty-first century.

The Greek term kairos (καιρός), signaling a revolutionary conceptual change in

today’s societies with different cultural traditions, political systems and

characteristics, covers many parameters in International Relations, Geopolitics,

Economics, and Religion.

While from its earliest days as a discipline the main debate in International

Relations has been that of realism versus idealism/liberalism, to which later was

added the debate of rationalist approaches versus reflectivist ones, Dr Nicolas Laos

with the term “kairopolitics” aims to revisit this conventional typology in order to

develop an appreciation for pluralist theoretical thinking in the context of both

Western and Eastern cultural identities.

Dr Laos focuses on key concepts (power, Westphalian anarchy, sovereignty,

international system, interest, change, system versus actors) and he juxtaposes diverse

modes of theorizing, thus providing an opportunity to scrutinize different theoretical

imaginaries, such as “kairological world order”, in an analytical and operational

manner.

Last but not least, Dr Nicolas Laos’s “kairopolitics” provides us with ‘food for

thought’, and I am certain that Dr Laos’s new vision of kairos stimulates scholars of

International Relations and Geopolitics to read as well as think about his outstanding

research work!

Dr John M. Nomikos

Director

Research Institute for European and American Studies

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Chapter 1

THE PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF

POLICY ANALYSIS AND KAIRICITY

The social sciences in general and international politics in particular are

characterised by several debates between realists and idealists. Moreover, the

antithesis between realism and idealism in international politics and in the social

sciences in general has taken various forms, which often complicate the debate

between realist and idealist scholars. In the context of the academic discipline of

international relations, the antithesis between realism and idealism was originally

centred around the academic debate between David Davies on behalf of idealism and

E.H. Carr on behalf of realism. David Davies has been stereotyped as “the

industrialist/landowner/Welshman-believing in education/and Liberal Members of

Parliament”1, and he emphasized the study of law, politics, ethics, economics, other

civilizations and international relations. Carr “became stereotyped as the scourge of

utopianism and the advocate of an unrelenting realism”2.

The ‘school’ of political realism tends to model the state as a rational unitary actor,

whose rationality is interpreted not so much as a human attribute, but as a

behaviourally engineered quality of actors within an ‘anarchic’ political system. Both

classical realism and neorealism borrow intentionally from classical microeconomics,

seeing the members of the international system as analogous to firms, ‘anarchic’

structure as analogous to market structure (according to physiocratic economic

models), and power as analogous to utility. Furthermore, political realism is strongly

linked to empiricism and positivism.

Whereas political realists stress necessity and historical continuity, political

idealists stress freedom and historical discontinuity. Whereas political realists argue

that the equilibrium of the international system should be pursued though balance-of-

power arrangements, political idealists insist on “peace through law”3 and emphasize

questions about the moral standing of states and the nature and extent of normative

relations within, between and beyond individual states.

1 Ken Booth, “75 Years On: Rewriting the Subject’s Past –Reinventing Its Future”, in: S.

Smith, K. Booth and M. Zalewski (eds), International Theory –Positivism and Beyond,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 328. 2 Ibid, p. 329.

3 Hidemi Suganami, “The Peace Through Law Approach”, in: T. Taylor (ed.), Approaches

and Theory in International Relations, London: Longman, 1978, pp. 100-121.

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In general, in philosophy and science, one of the most important research problems

is the analysis of the relationship between consciousness and the reality of the world

(external reality). The arguments that have been articulated about this research

problem can be grouped into two philosophical (and, more specifically, ontological)

‘schools’: realism and idealism.

The earliest formulations of the ontological problem

According to philosophical realism, since experience provides us with images of a

reality that seems to be external to our minds, it logically follows that this reality is

the generator of those partial images. Hence, on the basis of the principle of causality,

there exists a mind-independent reality.

Realistic philosophical theories can be divided into two categories: monism and

dualism. According to monism, only one basic substance or principle exists as the

ground of reality. If this principle is material, then we talk about monism of the

materialistic type (or materialistic monism), and, if this principle is spiritual, then we

talk about monism of the idealistic type (or idealistic monism). For instance, the

earliest Greek philosophy (i.e. the Ionian physicists, the Atomists, Anaxagoras, etc.) is

realistic, in the sense that attention is directed towards the external nature, and mainly

monistic of the materialistic type, since it seeks to explain phenomena by means of a

single material principle, such as a single natural element or a concrete combination

of different natural elements. Monistic theories of the idealistic type were developed

much later in the history of philosophy as extreme forms of dualistic theories.

Two characteristic examples of dualistic realism are the philosophies of Plato and

Aristotle. Platonism is an archetypal form of realist philosophy: according to Plato,

the idea comprehends or holds together the essential qualities common to various

particulars. Plato argues that ideas are not mere concepts (abstractions) in the minds

of men or even God, but, instead, Platonic ideas are the original, eternal and

transcendental archetypes of things, existing prior to things and apart from them and

thus uninfluenced by the becoming of the manifest world.

However, under the influence that Aristotle exerted on Plato’s theory of ideas, Plato

qualified his previous arguments about the irreducibility of ideas (i.e. beings) and

phenomena (i.e. non-beings). Thus, in his books Timaeus, Critias, Philebus and Laws,

Plato argued that reality is composed of beings and non-beings as well as of nearly

beings and nearly non-beings. In Timaeus, in particular, Plato asserts the existence of

a series of different ontological levels, which inspired Neoplatonism.

Neoplatonism –mainly through the works of Plotinus, Proclus and Dionysius the

Areopagite– has formulated a religious and philosophical argument according to

which there exists a series of substances. These substances are related to each other,

either through emanation or through return, and compose the universal ontological

hierarchy, which starts from the One, i.e. the absolute being, and ends in matter, i.e.

the absolute non-being. Within the framework of Neoplatonism, Plato’s dualism is

transformed into a theoretical spiritualism, since the One, or the idea of Good, is

15

considered to be the absolute being, whereas matter as such has neither form, nor

quality, nor power, nor unity. However, Proclus, in his book In Platonis Timaeum

commentaria, asserted the value and goodness of both stable matter, as a cosmic

substratum created by the One, and unstable, ‘gross’ matter found in the world of

senses.

Aristotle’s philosophy is a dualistic realism, too, because it is based on the equality

between two elements that are related to each other: matter and form. Aristotle, in his

Metaphysics, argues that all objects have matter, i.e. a material of which they are

composed, and form, i.e. they are characterised by a certain way in which the matter

is arranged. The form makes a thing what it is. For instance, form allows us to

distinguish between a vase and a sculpture. Whereas Plato asserts the separation of the

form of a thing from the thing itself, Aristotle argues that every form is, like the

Platonic ‘idea’, eternal, but, instead of being outside of matter, it is in matter; they

coexist. Hence, according to Aristotle, reality itself is formed within the world of

senses by matter and by the manifestation of a spiritual factor, i.e. form (or species).

Furthermore, intimately related to the distinction between form and matter is the

distinction between actuality and potentiality. Aristotle identifies actuality with form

and hence substance, while identifying matter with potentiality. For instance, as long

as a pot remains stored in a cabinet, it exists potentially, but, when it is used in

accordance with the purpose for which it has been constructed, it exists actually.

In the 9th

century AD, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, an Irish theologian, Neoplatonic

philosopher and poet, initiates the early medieval Western philosophy with his book

De divisione naturae. In his book, Eriugena departs from traditional Neoplatonism,

and he formulates a new definition of nature: Nature is defined as “universitas rerum”,

the totality of all things, and it includes both the things that are (ea quae sunt) as well

as those that are not (ea quae non sunt). Moreover, according to Eriugena’s version of

Neoplatonism, the highest generality is associated with the highest reality. Therefore,

universals not only exists but also they exist prior to things and apart from them,

being the archetypes of individuals.

Realism mingles God with Nature. Within the framework of realism, God is

transcendental, universal and eternal, but still He is mingled with Nature. The

argument that God’s mind contains universals –i.e. the ontology of generality–

suffices in order for God to be reduced to a part of Nature (He may be the uncreated

part of Nature, but still He is a part of Nature). This reasoning was followed by

Anselm of Canterbury (11th

century AD) in his book Proslogion, in which he

attempted to derive the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no

greater can be conceived.

The realist philosophers of scholasticism argue that universals constitute the

authentic reality, whereas individuals belong to the world of imperfect phenomena. In

other words, the concept of a human being is more real than I am. Therefore,

according to the scholastics’ realism, my life and my relation to the world are subject

to rules and doctrines that transcend my personal being, i.e. they transcend any

significance that I may have as an existential otherness (individual). Within the

16

framework of this realist philosophy, the ultimate duty that I have as an individual is

to learn and understand the logic of the universal and comply with it.

At the political level, the scholastics’ philosophical realism has a clear

consequence: the basis and the purpose of society must be to serve the corresponding

universal, i.e. the ‘Kingdom of God’. In other words, historical authorities and

institutions are and must be images or reflections of a transcendental order. And who

has the authority to explain and impose the logic and the will of the highest (i.e. of the

most general) concept (i.e. God)? The Pope, of course, according to the realist

philosophers of scholasticism.

Using realism as an instrument of cultural diplomacy throughout the Middle Ages,

the Pope managed to impose his ‘plenitudo potestatis’. On the basis of philosophical

realism, the Pope could act like his archetype –namely, like God.

In general, the argument that the individual has meaning and value only if and to

the extent that it serves the universal implies that the authority that supposedly

represents, or reflects, the universal has the right and the duty to suppress the

individual in order for the universal to be served in accordance with the directives of

the established authority. In the 20th

and the 21st centuries, this way of thinking was

followed by the Nazis and the Soviets in order to justify their concentration camps

and consolidate their authoritarian rule as well as by the Federal Reserve System and

the Eurozone in order to establish a system of generalized conformity to the will of a

global financial elite, whose interests were treated like categorical imperatives.

Gradually, the medieval man understood that the most effective way of fighting the

Papal absolutism was the refutation of philosophical realism. In fact, the bourgeois

class was the first social actor that became aware of the fact that the papal and

generally the feudal absolutism had to be struck at its core, i.e. realism.

In the Middle Ages, the most important philosophical reaction against the

scholastics’ realism was nominalism. Nominalism was originally formulated by

Roscellinus (ca. 1050 – ca. 1125), a French philosopher and theologian, and it can be

summarized in the following phrase: “universalia sunt nomina”, i.e. universals are

names. According to nominalism, the universals do not have real subsistence, but they

are “flatus vocis”, i.e. simple words, which are used for taxonomic purposes.

According to nominalism, only individuals are real, and anything apart from

individuals is not real. The nominalists invoked Aristotle’s philosophy in order to

refute the quasi-Platonic character of medieval realism (thus, in 1210, the regional

Council of Paris banned the teaching of Aristotle’s works, with the exception of his

Logic and Ethics).

Modern rationalism

Modern philosophy arose as a protest against the old scholastic system, and it made

human reason the highest authority in the pursuit of knowledge, but it did not break

with the past. In fact, the founder of modern philosophy, René Descartes (1596-1650),

formulated a philosophy that belongs to the school of dualistic realism. Descartes’s

17

dualistic realism is based on the distinction between two concepts: extension (i.e. a

spatial continuum of three dimensions: length, breadth and thickness) and thinking.

According to Descartes’s books Meditations and A Discourse on the Method, bodies

exist independently of our thinking, but the only reason we have in order to believe in

their existence is a deeply rooted conviction in the existence of an external world.

Two of the most influential students of Cartesianism were Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

and Baruch Spinoza.

Rationalism –whose paradigmatic representatives are Descartes, Leibniz and

Spinoza– was very much influenced by the scientific revolution of Newton, Kepler

and Galileo, and thus it has subscribed to the view that the kinds of mechanisms

discovered by the previous natural scientists were quite different kinds of things to

those which people can observe. In other words, rationalists stress that perception or

observation is never sufficient on its own, and it requires logical processing. The

central rationalist premise is that the sense cannot give us an understanding of the

mechanisms that generate the observables we perceive and that the notion of logic,

which is a property of the human intellect, can work out the relationship between

observables and deduce the causal mechanisms at work. We can only gain knowledge

of the world by using logic in order to process and explain what we observe or

experience. This notion of rationality, with mathematics as the exemplar, was based

on a foundation of certain truth, which for Descartes was an intuitive truth known by

all minds; thus he declared “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am): reflective

minds could doubt everything, except they could not doubt that they were thinking,

and this provides the basis for secure knowledge about the world.

Rationalism has the following defects: (i) Descartes maintains that rationality is a

deductive system based on intuitive axioms, but he fails to see that there is more than

one kind of rationality. Different individuals might argue that their intuitions were

different from those of others. For instance, Descartes has argued that Euclidean

geometry is absolute, being based on definitive axioms, but Riemann, Lobachevsky

and other mathematicians have created non-Euclidean geometries, based on different

intuitive axioms. Moreover, N.A. Vasiliev, Jan Łukasiewicz, Hans Reichenbach,

A.H.S. Korzybski, Lotfi Zadeh, R.A. Wilson and other logicians have created various

non-Aristotelian logics, based on intuitive axioms that are different from those of

Aristotle. (ii) Man relates to beings and things in the world by assigning significances

to them4. Therefore, the fundamental significations (i.e. the values) that underpin

human action must explicitly find their position in every meaningful discussion about

social systems.

4 Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume One: Language, Volume Two:

Mythical Thought, trans. R. Manheim, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955.

18

The idealist reaction and modern empiricism

As opposed to philosophical realism, idealism does not distinguish between the

reality of the world (external reality) and the reality of consciousness. According to

the idealist philosophers, the very fact that we can know the external reality implies

that the substance of the external reality is not distinct from the substance of

consciousness. Idealism presents the world not as something reflected in human

consciousness, but as an extension and a projection of human consciousness and as a

part of human consciousness.

The realist philosopher Descartes was the unintentional founder of idealism. His

principle “cogito ergo sum” implies that consciousness is the ultimate foundation of

reality and assurance. Another unintentional founder of idealism was the empiricist

philosopher John Locke. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke is

concerned with the discovery of the source from which our knowledge springs, and he

argues that, if it is true –as Descartes and others argued– that we have innate

knowledge of principles, it cannot be explained why we question its validity. In other

words, Locke refutes the Cartesian doctrine of inborn truth by assuming that the mind

must be conscious of its innate principles, if there be any. According to Locke, the

two sources of all our ideas are sensation (which supplies the mind with sensible

qualities) and reflection (which supplies the mind with ideas of its own operation, e.g.

perception, believing, doubting, willing, etc.).

David Hume, who is the most characteristic representative of modern empiricism,

agrees with Descartes and Locke in requiring that genuine knowledge must be self-

evident, but he argues that he has not found such knowledge anywhere except in

mathematics, which merely analyses its own concepts. In his Treatise of Human

Nature, Hume argues that the constitutive and fundamental elements of knowledge

are impressions and ideas. By the term impression, Hume means a lively perception,

which brings with it conviction of positive belief in the existence of a corresponding

objective reality. All our sensations, passions and emotions as they make their first

appearance in the mind are characteristic examples of impressions. By the term idea,

Hume means a copy of a corresponding impression, left behind by the given

impression. In other words, based on the philosophies of Hume and Locke, the central

empiricist premise is that science must be based on a phenomenalist nominalism, i.e.

the notion that only statements that refer to observable phenomena are cognitively

significant and that any statements that do not refer to independent atomized objects

cannot be granted the status of justified knowledge5.

Empiricism has the following defects: (i) According to empiricism-positivism, the

only cognitively significant statements are tautologies and statements that are based

on direct observation. This is an extremely restrictive epistemological thesis, since it

rules out any consideration of (unobservable) things, e.g. social structures, or even

social facts (which, according to Émile Durkheim, refer to those shared social

5 Leszek Kolakowski, Positivist Philosophy, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972, p. 11-17.

19

concepts and understandings such as crime, which he argued that should be treated as

‘things’). (ii) Empiricism does not legitimate discussions about ‘causes’, since these

are unobservable. The empiricists reduce causation to mere correlation. Thus, their

enquiry is limited to that of ‘prediction’ and cannot involve causal analysis. (iii)

Empiricism presupposes a kind of pure perception and objectivism that is impossible.

John Searle has pointed out that subjectivity is an essential characteristic of conscious

states6. Additionally, W.V.O. Quine has pointed out that theory is involved in all

empirical observation, and, therefore, absolute objectivism is impossible7. Both

Immanuel Kant8 and Gestalt Psychology

9 have pointed out that consciousness plays a

much more active role in perception than the one thought by empiricists.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is based on the philosophies of William James, Charles Pierce and

John Dewey. Its main purpose is to combine the rationalist thesis that the mind is

always active in interpreting experience and observation with the empiricist thesis that

revisions in our beliefs are to be made as a result of experience10

.

6 John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992.

7 W.V.O. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, in W.V.O. Quine (ed.), From a Logical

Point of View, 2nd

edition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961, p. 20-46. 8 Immanuel Kant formulated a philosophy that he called “critical”, and it is a compromise

between realism and idealism. According to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781), there are

two different worlds: the first world is called the noumenal world, and it is the world of things

outside us, i.e. things that exist independently of our minds, but, according to Kant, our

consciousness cannot comprehend the essence of this world and, instead, we can only

perceive an altered version (a fainted image) of this world, which Kant called the phenomenal

world. The phenomenal world is the world that we perceive, i.e. the view we have of the

world that is inside our minds. In Kant’s philosophy, the communication between the

noumenal world (pure concepts) and the phenomenal world (phenomena) becomes possible

due to the theory of schema. By the term ‘schema’(plural: schemata), Kant refers to a set of

pre-existing (a priori) judgments, or rules, which are hard wired into our minds and interact

with the noumenal world, thus helping us to create the phenomenal world that exists in our

minds. Our perception of the world is necessarily conditioned by schemata (Immanuel Kant,

Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 9 Gestalt Psychology was founded by Max Wertheimer (1880-1943). Wertheimer noted that

we perceive motion where there is nothing more than a rapid sequence of individual sensory

events. This argument is based on observations he made with his stroboscope at the

Frankfurt train station and on additional observations he made in his laboratory when he

experimented with lights flashing in rapid succession (like the Christmas lights that appear to

course around the tree, or the fancy neon signs in Las Vegas that seem to move). Wertheimer

called this effect “apparent motion”, and it is actually the basic principle of motion pictures.

According to Wertheimer, apparent motion proves that people don’t respond to isolated

segments of sensation but to the whole (Gestalt) of the situation. See: Wolfgang Köhler,

Gestalt Psychology, New York: Liveright, 1992. 10

For a general introduction to pragmatism, see for instance: C.J. Misak (ed.), Pragmatism,

Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1999.

20

“The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief” is

the much quoted centre of pragmatism11

. John Dewey elaborated this position in

books on epistemology, ethics and politics, and he has argued that no attempt to form

a purpose in a definite case is final, but, instead, any purpose should be held only as

“a working hypothesis” until it is empirically confirmed12

. Thus, Dewey obliterates

the gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’. McIntyre has summarized Dewey’s position by

stating that “all reason is practical reason” and, therefore, whenever one characterises

something as good, he means that it will provide him with satisfaction in his

purposes13

.

Pragmatism is ultimately self-defeating. Pragmatism gives the impression that it is

a dynamic attitude towards reality and epistemology and also that it is a progressive

epistemological stance. On the contrary, it assigns a deeply passive role to

consciousness, and it is a form of passive conservatism. Pragmatism stresses the

adaptation of our ideas to an unfolding experience, ignoring the fact that reality is

submissive to the intentionality of human consciousness since there is a structural

continuity between the reality of the world and the reality of consciousness.

Conscious beings are not merely obliged to look for methods of adaptation to a reality

that is external to their consciousness, but they can utilize and restructure reality

according to their intentionality.

Scientific realism

Scientific realism is based on the philosophies of Roy Bhaskar14

and Rom Harré15

,

who emphasize the existence of an objective (mind-independent) cosmos. The

primary purpose of scientific realism is to uncover the structures and things of an

objective scientific cosmos. Scientific realism treats theoretical concepts, such as

‘electrons’ or ‘sets’, in the same way as so-called ‘objective facts’, and, therefore, it

argues that the empiricist conception of the role of theories (as heuristic) is wrong.

Bhaskar distinguishes among the real, the actual and the empirical: the first refers

to what entities and mechanisms make up the world, the second to events, and the

third to that which we experience. From Bhaskar’s viewpoint, empiricism makes the

mistake of looking at the third of these as a way of explaining the other two so that it

reduces ontological questions to epistemological questions. Furthermore, Bhaskar

rejects rationalism, too, by arguing that it too reduces ontology to epistemology by its

reliance on theoretically necessary conceptual truths to explain the world.

11

William James, “What Pragmatism Means”, in his Selected Papers on Philosophy, London:

Dent, 1917, p. 215. 12

John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, Boston: Beacon, 1957, p. 177. 13

Alasdair McIntyre, A Short History of Ethics, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967, p.

253. 14

Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science, Brighton: Harvester, 1978. 15

Rom Harré, Varieties of Realism, Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.

21

But many of the arguments of scientific realism have been falsified by recent

advances in science, especially in the context of quantum theory and cybernetics. In

quantum physics, one learns that reality is not being ‘out there’ by itself. There has to

be a process by which a being recognises reality ‘out there’, and this process of

recognizing (i.e. becoming aware of) reality involves a recognition, a consciousness, a

mind. If the mind changes the way of processing this ‘out there’ reality, then we will

be talking for another experience. According to quantum physics, as we begin to

delve deeply into the question of how one’s observing mind interacts with, is in a

relation to, the object of his observation, we realise that the thing that we are

observing is not just something that is itself physically ‘there’, but it is something that

has been created in our mind as having a certain form, shape, size, material, substance

and generally all the various attributes that we call physical reality and also that,

without these memorized concepts of the things that we see ‘out there’, we would not

be able to create even a picture or an assemblage of understanding of what is ‘out

there’. In other words, there is a structural continuity between the ‘out there’ (external

reality) and the ‘in here’ (consciousness).

Niels Bohr, who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure

and quantum mechanics, is reported to have said to Werner Heisenberg, who was

another great pioneer of quantum physics: in the field of atomic and sub-atomic

physics, “language can be used only as in poetry”, since, like poets, physicists are not

concerned so much with the description of facts as with the creation of images16

.

Moreover, in the same spirit, Alfred Whitehead, who co-authored the epochal

Principia Mathematica with B. Russell, has argued that nature is always in a state of

becoming and that the reality of the natural world is the natural becoming itself17

.

Within the framework of cybernetics, epistemologists focus on the observer in

addition to what is observed. Lynn Segal18

and Ernst von Glasersfeld19

have explained

that, according to modern cybernetics, scientific laws should not be considered as

‘discoveries’, as one, for instance, might discover an island in an ocean, but they

should be considered as ‘inventions’ by which scientists explain regularities in their

experiences. Consciousness interacts with reality, and hence the first constructs and

reconstructs the latter.

Quantum theorists, cybernetics experts and modern philosophers, such as Henri

Bergson, Gaston Bachelard and Evangelos Moutsopoulos have emphatically argued

that, if the structure of the world were totally distinct from the structure of

consciousness, then consciousness would be unable to know the world.

16

Quoted in Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man, Boston: Little, 1974, p. 340. 17

Alfred Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, New York: Macmillan, 1944, p. 106. 18

Lynn Segal, The Dream of Reality, New York: Norton, 1986. 19

Ernst von Glasersfeld, The Construction of Knowledge, Salinas, CA: Intersystems, 1987.

22

Phenomenology, Structuralism and Hermeneutics

Skepticism, being founded on empiricism, emphasizes the gap between the ‘for

oneself’ and the ‘in itself’, and, therefore, it tends to limit human knowledge to an

elementary level. On the other hand, phenomenology departs from the traditional

discussions about syllogism and is directed towards “the things in themselves” as they

are constituted in consciousness.

The phenomenological method is based on a position prior to reflexive thought,

called pre-reflexive thought, which consists of a turn to the very things. At that

moment, the philosopher holds a phenomenological stance by means of which he can

remain open enough to live that experience in its wholeness, preventing any judgment

from interfering with his openness to the description. In the context of

phenomenological inquiry, the philosopher is not concerned with the particular

elements of the object of his research, but with its ideal essence, i.e. he intends to

purify experience of its factuality.

The acknowledged father of phenomenology is Edmund Husserl20

, who argues that

consciousness is the only thing that exists in itself and for itself and that, by ceasing to

be simplistically oriented towards the external world, it can attain spiritual self-

sufficiency. According to the method of phenomenology, the philosopher focuses on

the essential structures that allow the objects that are taken for granted in the “natural

attitude” (which is characteristic of both our everyday life and ordinary science) to

“constitute themselves” in consciousness. Husserl used the term “epoché” (suspension

of judgment) to refer to the purification of experience of its factuality.

Phenomenology is characterised by subjectivism, since phenomenological inquiries

are initially directed, in Cartesian fashion, towards consciousness and its

presentations. On the other hand, phenomenology is not characterised by any

psychological or mentalistic forms of subjectivism, because, in contrast to

empiricism, phenomenology is not concerned with psychological ideas, but it is

concerned with the ideal meanings and universal relations with which consciousness

is confronted in its experience.

In his preface to Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology –First Book: General

Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, Husserl argues that phenomenology, like

mathematics, is “the science of pure possibilities”, which “must everywhere precede

the science of real facts”. By bracketing factuality, phenomenology exerted important

influence on existentialism, and, in fact, it became the method of existentialism21

,

which is based on the thesis that consciousness attributes meaning to the reality of the

world. In contrast to Aristotle’s philosophy –which assigns primary significance to the

essence of things (namely, to the attribute or set of attributes that make an object what

20

Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement, 3rd

revised and enlarged edition,

The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982; Elisabeth Ströker, Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology,

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. 21

Haim Gordon, Dictionary of Existentialism, New York: Greenwood Press, 1999; Thomas

Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

23

it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its

identity)– the philosophers of existence, such as S.A. Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger

and J.-P. Sartre, argue that what is ontologically significant is not the essence of being

but the presence of being, i.e. its existence.

The next major step in the development of the phenomenological method took

place when it was applied in the investigation of the elements that constitute the

structure of reality (whose knowledge is prior to the knowledge of the essence of

reality). By the term ‘structure’, we mean an intimate reality that is organized and re-

organized by itself and that is determined by its intrinsic logic, which also constitutes

its core. The method of structuralism is the final stage of phenomenology’s attempt to

cope with the problems that emerge from the philosophical investigation of the

intimate meaning of reality. Additionally, structuralism corroborates Gaston

Bachelard’s argument that there is a dynamic continuity between knowing

consciousness and known object22

.

Closely related to the project of investigating the intimate meaning of reality is

Hans-Georg Gadamer’s method of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is based on textual

analysis, and it emphasizes the difference between the analysis of nature

(‘explanation’) and the analysis of the mind (‘understanding’). Gadamer’s

hermeneutics has adopted Jaspers’s distinction between ‘explanation’ and

‘understanding’. Karl Jaspers23

defines the scientific analysis of “objective causal

connections” as “explaining” (“Erklären”), whereas he designates the “understanding

of psychic events ‘from within’” as “understanding” (“Verstehen”).

According to hermeneutics, we can only understand the world if we have accepted

a system of significance. Gadamer24

argues that people have a “historically affected

consciousness” and they analyse and act within an “horizon”, by which he means their

beliefs, preconceptions and in general their embeddedness in the particular history and

culture that shaped them. Thus, from the viewpoint of hermeneutics, the notions of

truth and reason are consequences of man’s embeddedness in systems of significance

(value systems). In other words, epistemology can never be something prior to or

independent of culture and has to be seen as secondary to ontology.

22

Mary Tiles, Bachelard –Science and Objectivity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1984. 23

P.A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers, New York: Tudor Publishing

Company, 1957. 24

H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, London: Sheed and Ward, 1975.

24

Critical theory

Critical theory has developed out the work of the Frankfurt School in the inter-war

years25

, and its most influential thinker has been Jürgen Habermas. According to

Habermas, there are three generic fields of knowledge26

: (i) empirical analytical

knowledge (e.g. physics, chemistry, biology, etc.), which is primarily concerned with

the manner in which one controls and manipulates one’s environment and with

prediction; (ii) historical-hermeneutic knowledge (e.g. descriptive social science,

history, aesthetics, legal studies, ethnography), which is primarily concerned with

meaning and understanding (norms can be related to empirical or analytical

propositions, but their validity is determined by the intersubjectivity of the mutual

understanding of intentions); (iii) critical science, which is primarily concerned with

emancipation from libidinal, institutional or environmental forces, which limit our

options and rational control over our lives but have been taken for granted as beyond

human control. Thus, emancipatory knowledge involves a methodical investigation of

the manner in which one’s history and biography has expressed itself in the manner in

which one sees oneself, one’s roles and social expectations. Critical theory agrees

with Karl Marx’s argument that one must become conscious of how an ideology

reflects and distorts reality.

In the 1960s, Habermas developed a theory of communicative action27

, according

to which truth is based on rational consensus. By the term rational consensus,

Habermas means the consensus that would be achieved purely on the basis of

argument, without the interference of any extra-logical or extra-rational elements. The

context in which this kind of rational argument would be possible has been described

by Habermas as an “ideal speech situation”28

. Habermas sees the notion of an ideal

speech situation as implicit in the act of communication and as rationally entailing

moral and normative commitments. The ‘ideal speech situation’29

is based on the

notion that acts of communication necessarily presuppose that statements are

comprehensible, true, right and sincere.

For Habermas, the ideal speech situation is not only a description of a context in

which truth could be established, but it is also a picture of a particular kind of society,

one in which individuals lead free lives and the “force of the better argument

prevails”30

. Habermas, following Kantianism, seeks to avoid the simplistic

objectivism of positivism, and simultaneously he refuses to endorse the kind of

relativism implicit in traditional hermeneutics. Just as for Kant all rational beings

25

David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,

1980. 26

Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, Cambridge: Polity, 1987 (first

published 1968). 27

Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 2: The Critique of

Functionalist Reason, Cambridge: Polity, 1987. 28

William Outhwaite, Habermas –A Critical Introduction, Cambridge: Polity, 1994, p. 40. 29

Ibid, p. 40. 30

Ibid, p. 40.

25

have the capacity to make synthetic a priori judgments, so for Habermas all language

users, by their use of language, have the capacity to create free, equal and open

societies.

In order to avoid the fallacies of rationalism, the philosophy that invokes the

dialectic of kairicity argues that the dialectic of kairicity should substitute for the ideal

speech situation in Habermas’s critical theory.

Postmodernism

Whereas critical theory attempts to reconstitute a guarantee that the Enlightenment

project of rational autonomy can be fulfilled, postmodernism seeks the overthrow of

virtually all preceding positions of epistemology and rational morality.

Postmodernism is strongly influenced by the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Michel Foucault, one of the most influential postmodern scholars, argues that

“nothing in man –not even his body– is sufficiently stable to serve as the basis for

self-recognition or for understanding other men”31

; therefore, there is no constant

human subject in history, and power is an integral component in the production of

truth: “Truth is a thing of the world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of

constraint. And it induces the regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of

truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is the types of discourse which it accepts and

makes function as true”32

.

Nietzsche33

has posed the following question: “What in us really wants ‘truth’?”

His own answer to the previous question is the following: the will for power. This is

Foucault’s epistemological thesis, too. Moreover, following this Nietzschean

epistemological argument, Jacques Derrida, one of most influential post-modern

scholars, developed the theory of deconstruction, according to which texts collapse

under their own weight once it is demonstrated that their ‘truth content’ is merely the

“mobile army of metaphors” identified by Nietzsche34

.

According to Nietzsche, a false judgment can be seen as an expression of creativity,

and, hence, it can be interpreted as a consequence of a dynamic attitude to life. But,

by identifying will as such with truth, Nietzsche’s philosophy is necessarily

indifferent as to whether a false judgment underpins injustice and violence. Nietzsche

respects creativity as such, without any presuppositions. Thus, Nietzsche’s approach

to creativity is unable to provide a firm foundation for human knowledge and human

values.

31

Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, ed. D.F. Bouchard, Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press, 1977, p. 153. 32

Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge, ed. C. Gordon, Brighton, Sussex: Harvester, New

York: Pantheon, 1980, p. 131. 33

Friedrich Nietzsche, Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. and ed. W. Kaufmann, New York:

Random House, 1968 [Includes The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music; Beyond Good

and Evil; On the Genealogy of Morals; and Ecce Homo.] 34

Christopher Norris, Derrida, London: Fontana, 1987

26

Nietzsche argues that philosophers are dishonest because they pretend that their

thoughts echo objective reality, whereas, for Nietzsche, what they really do is to

reduce their prejudices, their ideas, to “the truth”35

. From Nietzsche’s viewpoint

philosophers merely defend judgments that are equivalent to advocates’ tricks or their

own hearts’ desires and they present them in abstract forms. The previous

Nietzschean thesis underpins Richard Rorty’s post-modern approach to epistemology,

according to which philosophers should give up on the idea that our knowledge

‘mirrors’ nature and instead adopt a pragmatic theory of truth, which is compatible

with Rorty’s self-description as a “postmodern bourgeois liberal”36

. However,

Nietzsche and in general postmodern scholars fail to see that the validity of truth

depends on its logic, its consistence, and the logic of truth, in turn, depends on the fact

that it can harmoniously unite a multitude of data into a meaningful system.

Therefore, philosophers are not as dishonest as Nietzsche contends.

Kairos: beyond realism and idealism

‘Kairos’ means literally the ‘opportune moment’. The concept of kairos can be

traced back to the ancient Greek philosophy and religion. In particular, in the ancient

Greek mythology, the notion of kairos was divinized, and Kairos was a son of Zeus.

For instance, Aesop (Fables 536, from Phaedrus 5:8) writes: “Running swiftly,

balancing on the razor’s edge, bald but with a lock of hair on his forehead, he wears

no clothes; if you grasp him from the front, you might be able to hold him, but once

he has moved on not even Jupiter [Zeus] himself can pull him back: this is a symbol

of Tempus [Kairos] (Opportunity), the brief moment in which things are possible”.

The famous Greek travelogue Pausanias, in his Description of Greece, 5.14.9

(trans. W.H.S. Jones), writes about Kairos: “Quite close to the entrance to the stadium

[at Olympia] are two altars; one they call the altar of Hermes of the Games, the other

the altar of Kairos (Opportunity). I know that a hymn to Kairos is one of the poems of

Ion of Khios [5th century BC poet]; in the hymn Kairos is made out to be the

youngest child of Zeus”. Moreover, Callistratus (Greek rhetorician who flourished in

the 3rd

/ 4th

century AD), in his Descriptions 6 (trans. by A. Fairbanks), wrote about

Kairos: “On the statue of Kairos (Opportunity) at Sikyon. I desire to set before you in

words the creation of Lysippos [4th century BC sculptor] also, the most beautiful of

statues, which the artist wrought and set up for the Sikyonians to look upon. Kairos

(Opportunity) was represented in a statue of bronze…but a man who was skilled in

the arts and who, with a deeper perception of art, knew how to track down the marvels

of craftsmen, applied reasoning to the artist’s creation, explaining the significance of

Kairos (Opportunity) as faithfully portrayed in the statue: the wings on his feet, he

told us, suggested his swiftness, and that, borne by the seasons, he goes rolling on

35

Ibid. 36

Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Vol. I, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 197-202.

27

through all eternity; and as to his youthful beauty, that beauty is always opportune and

that Kairos (Opportunity) is the only artificer of beauty, whereas that of which the

beauty has withered has no part in the nature of Kairos (Opportunity); he also

explained that the lock of hair on his forehead indicated that while he is easy to catch

as he approaches, yet, when he has passed by, the moment of action has likewise

expired, and that, if opportunity (kairos) is neglected, it cannot be recovered”.

One of the pioneering philosophers of kairos, Evangelos Moutsopoulos, has

stressed that the concepts of kairos and kairicity37

do not merely refer to the sense of

timing, but they signify something much more important than that. They signify that,

even though the reality of the world is not a projection of human consciousness, it

can, under certain conditions, be utilized and restructured by the intentionality of

human consciousness.

Philosophical realism sees the Greek god Kairos as if he were totally bald, i.e. it

fails to notice and grab the lock of hair that exists on Kairos’s forehead. On the other

hand, idealism sees Kairos as if he had hair on the back of his head, too, i.e. it fails to

understand that Kairos cannot be arbitrarily manipulated. Contra realism and idealism,

a kairic consciousness recognises and respects the existential ‘otherness’ of the reality

of the world, but simultaneously it acts in order to impose its intentionality on the

reality of the world. Moreover, Hunter W. Stephenson38

has drawn an analogy

between kairos and archery, and he argues that kairos represents the moment in which

one may fire an arrow with sufficient force to penetrate the target.

Moutsopoulos has explained that the philosophical method that invokes the

kairicity of consciousness is derived from the synthesis between structuralism and

hermeneutics. As a criterion of reality and action, kairicity stems from consciousness,

but, since it is not committed to idealism, it is activated only when it is possible to be

applied on objective reality. The method of kairicity is based on the ontological

position that objective reality is actively present in consciousness when consciousness

assigns meaning and significance to objective reality. Even though reality is

multidimensional, it becomes significant for consciousness according to the manner in

which and the extent to which it is related to the intentionality of consciousness.

Therefore, the knowledge of reality that is based on the method of kairicity is in

agreement with both the nature of consciousness and the nature of cosmic reality.

According to Moutsopoulos, the notion of ‘kairos’ (i.e. ‘opportune moment’) is

combined with Aristotle’s notion of ‘metron’ (i.e. ‘right measure’), and it appears

under the form of the temporal categories of ‘not yet’ or ‘too early’, and ‘never again’

or ‘too late’39

.

37

Evangelos Moutsopoulos, Kairos –la mise et l’ enjeu, Paris: Vrin, 1991; Evangelos

Moutsopoulos, “Sur les dimensions ‘kairiques’ de la structure de l’ être”, Homage à François

Meyer, Aix-en-Provence, Publications de l’ Université de Provence, 1983. 38

H.W. Stephenson, Forecasting Opportunity –Kairos, Production and Writing, Lanham,

Maryland: University Press of America, 2005. 39

Evangelos Moutsopoulos, “Kairos ou minimum critique dans les sciences de la nature selon

Aristotle”, Revue Philosophique, Vol. 24, 1999, pp. 481-491.

28

In psychoanalysis, the concept of kairos plays a very important role, too. Daniel N.

Stern has stressed the importance of our “need for intersubjectivity”, and, hence, our

ability to share our mental states with other persons40

, and, he has focused on the so-

called “now moments”41

, during which the patient, most often unconsciously, needs

the therapist to actively and directly intervene in the process of psychotherapy (“the

moment of kairos”), thus transcending the normal role that the psychoanalyst plays in

the context of psychotherapy. Harold Kelman has described kairos as the right and

unique moment for the psychoanalyst to be “totally present” and to “actively

intervene” in a longer psychological process within the patient, and he mentions that

this opportunity is “unique and will not reappear”42

.

The method of kairicity consists in the following four-fold dialectic, which –

following Moutsopoulos’s terminology– I shall henceforth call the dialectic of

kairicity:

(i) consciousness imagines a better world and intends to intervene in the

reality of the world in order to improve its existential conditions;

(ii) consciousness endorses the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean, and,

therefore, when it acts, it attempts to avoid causing uncontrolled

turbulence, which could ultimately put the continuity of existence in

danger;

(iii) when the turbulence that is caused by the action of consciousness on the

world tends to become chaotic, consciousness attempts to reduce the

negative consequences of its action by taking new action that balances its

previous action (i.e. consciousness follows a policy of risk management

that prevents the emergence of a totally unknown new order of things);

(iv) during its action on the reality of the world, consciousness intends to

create the necessary conditions that will allow consciousness to act again

on the reality of the world in the future.

Whenever a conscious being follows the previous four-fold dialectic, we say that it is

characterised by kairicity, or that it acts kairically.

The dialectic of kairicity implies that there is a dynamic continuity between the

reality of the world and the reality of consciousness. Therefore, policy analysis should

be understood as a process for organizing and managing information about the reality

of the world as a tank of opportunities and about the reality of consciousness as a tank

of intentions, in order to help policy-makers act according to the dialectic of kairicity.

This statement is the essence of what I call kairopolitics.

40

Lennart Ramberg, “In Dialogue with Daniel Stern: A Review and Discussion of the Present

Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life”, International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 15,

2006, pp. 19-33. 41

D.N. Stern, The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life, New York: Norton, 2004. 42

Harold Kelman, “Kairos: the Auspicious Moment”, The American Journal of Psychoanalysis,

Vol. XXIX, 1968; Harold Kelman, Helping People, New York: Science House, 1971.

29

Chapter 2

THE RISE AND FALL OF INTERNATIONAL ORDERS:

THE TWO WORLD WARS IN FOCUS

The diplomatic tradition that was dominant in Europe from the 17th

to the 19th

centuries is known as “Realpolitik”. This tradition consists in two principles, which

have been analysed by Henry Kissinger as follows: (i) the principle of ‘reason d’état’

(reason of the State), according to which the interests of the state justify whatever

means are necessary to pursue them, and “the success of a policy of reason d’état

depends above all on the ability to assess power relationships”43

; (ii) the principle of

the balance of power. In the European international order that emerged from the

principle of reason d’état, “states were no longer restrained by the pretense of a moral

code…The stronger would seek to dominate, and the weaker would resist by forming

coalitions to augment their individual strengths. If the coalition was powerful enough

to check the aggressor, a balance of power emerged; if not, some country would

achieve hegemony”44

. Thus, “a sort of equilibrium gradually emerged out of this

seeming anarchy…no state…was strong enough to impose its will on all the others

and thus form an empire. When any state threatened to become dominant, its

neighbours formed a coalition…out of pure self-interest to block the ambitions of the

most powerful”45

.

The European system of balance of power collapsed dramatically in 1914, when

World War I began. The fact that the European system of balance of power could not

any more safeguard a sort of equilibrium became clear due to the following reasons:

(i) The power of Germany increased at extremely high levels vis-à-vis the power of

Great Britain46

. In particular, at the beginning of the 20th

century, the growth of the

German GNP was twice that of Great Britain. Moreover, in the middle of the 19th

century, Great Britain had one-quarter of the world’s industrial production, but by

1913 that had been reduced to 10%, whereas Germany’s share had risen to 15%.

Germany used its industrial strength in order to increase its military capability. Great

Britain reacted to the rise of Germany’s power by changing its diplomacy. In

particular, in 1904, Great Britain ceased to function as the balancer47

of the European

balance of power and established an alliance with France, and, in 1907, the Anglo-

43

H.A. Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994, p.63. 44

Ibid, p. 67. 45

Ibid, pp. 69-70. 46

See: J.S. Nye Jr., Understanding International Conflicts –An Introduction to Theory and

History, New York: HarperCollins, 1992, pp. 59-60. 47

In the 18th and the 19

th centuries, England was the one European country whose reason

d’état did not require it to expand in Europe. Perceiving its national interest to be in the

preservation of the European balance, “it was the one country which sought no more for itself

on the Continent than preventing the domination of Europe by a single power” (H.A.

Kissinger, op. cit. (ref. 34), p. 70).

30

French partnership broadened to include Russia, thus giving rise to the Triple Entente.

As a reaction to the Triple Entente, Germany tightened its relations with Austro-

Hungary. These two alliances were becoming more and more rigid, and therefore the

diplomatic flexibility that was underpinning the European balance was lost. The

traditional European balance was based on shifting alignments that were not allowing

any country to achieve hegemony. After 1907, this was not the case any more. The

major powers were divided in two rigid alliances.

In addition, two more factors contributed to the loss of flexibility in the early 20th

century balance of power. As first we should mention the fact that, for 40 years, the

great powers had not been involved in a major war in Europe had eroded their

political judgment, and thus they were thinking complacently that the established

international system could continue automatically deterring long and major wars. On

the other hand, the diplomacy of all the great powers was founded on a simplistic

application of Darwin’s principle of survival of the fittest in politics, and thus the

diplomacy of each and every great power was becoming more and more egocentric

(i.e. more and more nationalistic) and short-sighted.

The second factor that contributed to the loss of flexibility in the early 20th

century

balance of power was the confusing and vague character of the German diplomacy. In

particular, Germany was pursuing its “world ambitions” by antagonizing all other

great powers at the same time48

. As the British diplomat and historian Sir Eyre Crowe

(1864-1925) has pointed out, Great Britain, France and Russia failed to understand on

time the “world ambitions” of Germany and they complacently believed that a long

war was unlikely and that short wars won by the strong would not cause unwelcome

consequences. However, Sir Eyre Crowe, in his 1907 Memorandum on the Present

State of British Relations with France and Germany, opposed appeasement of

Germany by arguing that “to give way to the blackmailer’s menaces enriches him, but

it has long been proved by uniform experience that, although this may secure for the

victim temporary peace, it is certain to lead to renewed molestation and higher

demands after ever-shortening periods of amicable forbearance”.

(ii) Changes in the domestic society and politics of the Austro-Hungarian and the

Ottoman Empires and of Germany undermined the efficiency of the European balance

of power. In particular, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman Empires were

multinational empires, and, therefore, their integrity was threatened by the rise of

nationalism. Moreover, the Treaty of London which was signed on 30 May 1913, to

deal with territorial adjustments arising out of the conclusion of the First Balkan

War49

, terminated officially the five-century rule of the Ottoman Empire in the

Balkans.

48

Germany antagonized Great Britain by starting a naval arms race, it antagonized France

over a protectorate in Morocco, and it antagonized Russia over issues in the Ottoman Empire. 49

The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912, when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro

and Serbia, having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked

the Ottoman Empire.

31

In addition, German social problems were important contributors to the outbreak of

World War I. According to Fritz Fischer50

, the German political and economic elite

followed expansionist policies in order to overcome the problems of the established

socio-economic system without reforming it substantially and in order to react against

mounting socialism51

, which was threatening the German political and economic

establishment.

However, the previous factors are not enough in order to articulate a complete

explanation for the collapse of the European balance of power. In fact, the previous

factors describe the collapse of the balance of power but do not really explain why

that system collapsed. As we have already mentioned, Realpolitik can be summarized

as follows: “The ruler’s, and later the state’s, interest provides the spring of action; the

necessities of policy arise from the unregulated competition of states; calculation

based on these necessities can discover the policies that will best serve a state’s

interests; success is the ultimate test of policy, and success is defined as preserving

and strengthening the state”52

. In the light of the previous definition of Realpolitik, we

can understand the defects of the thesis that the European balance of power collapsed

because (i) the hegemonic tendency of Germany was not deterred by the creation of

the adequate alliance, (ii) the alliance system became rigid, and (iii) domestic political

and economic developments in certain great powers influenced their capabilities and

the manner in which they defined and pursued their national interest. The previous

thesis about the collapse of the European balance of power describes how exactly the

European balance of power collapsed, but it does not explain why this happened.

The reason why the European balance of power collapsed is because Realpolitik (or

the balance-of-power system) is inherently unable to provide a viable international

order. In a balance-of-power system of international politics, the behaviours of the

states are not coordinated with each other by any universal moral code. On the

contrary, the states’ behaviours serve the logic of selfish historical goals and

particularly are based on the calculation of necessities of policy that arise from the

unregulated competition among them. The calculation of necessities of policy can

only temporarily balance the explosiveness of the expansionism of the state and

harmonize it with a form of social consciousness, which is necessary in order to create

anti-hegemonic alliances and thus sustain equilibrium. The calculation of necessities

of policy can only temporarily balance the explosiveness of the expansionism of the

state because, according to the system of balance of power, the state –with its selfish

goals and requests– is the ultimate criterion of balance-of-power politics. When the

individual state –with its selfish goals and requests– is the ultimate criterion of an

international order, and when an international order is not guided by any universal

values that could transcend the sovereignty of the state (due to their universality), then

such an international order is self-destructive and ends up in war, not because states

50

F. Fischer, World Power or Decline: The Controversy over Germany’s Aims in the First

World War, New York: Norton, 1951. 51

In 1912, the Social-Democratic Party (SDP) became the biggest party in the German

Parliament. 52

K.N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979, p. 117.

32

stop calculating their interests, but exactly because they calculate the maximization of

their interests independently of any moral code and culture as the source of that moral

code. In other words, since the state –with its selfish goals and requests– is the

ultimate criterion of balance-of-power politics, an international order based on

balance of power makes the states more and more ego-centric and hence less and less

social, and this means that states become less and less capable of creating viable

alliances among them in order to keep the international system in equilibrium.

A balance of power is not a self-sufficient ideal. Power is sought for certain ends,

which reflect the value systems of different societies. The first Europeans who talked

of redressing the balance and formed coalitions were fighting for concrete values

against concrete threats. In particular, they were protecting their political and religious

liberties. For instance, when William of Orange (1650-1702) taught the British to

think in terms of the balance of power, it was because Britain was threatened with an

invasion that would end up in the restoration of a despotic king. Moreover, when The

Right Hon. William Pitt (1759-1806) revived the principle of balance of power

against Napoleon, he was representing a nation that was fighting for hearts and

homes. Neither William of Orange nor William Pitt aspired to a balance as a principle

good and necessary in itself, or as a necessary condition for Europe.

When a statesman –such as Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642)– talks of a balance as

an end in itself, he usually means a balance favorable to himself. Without any

agreement on common values and institutions, the balance-of-power system means

that all negotiation is carried on according to power calculations. Therefore, this

system urges the actors of the international system to negotiate in order to maintain

the status quo, and at the same time it urges them to continually increase their power,

since their arguments are weighed by the power of each actor. Hence, the balance-of-

power system ends up in catastrophic results, as great powers become more and more

concerned with the maximization of their power, since they do not share a common

set of moral and institutional commitments, or as all great powers are regimented –as

they were before World War I– in one coalition or another and thus they lose the

advantage of open-mindedness in political problem-solving.

The balance-of-power system recognises the significance of collective action for

the maintenance of international order, but the absence of common values and

institutions and the obsession with power calculations implant mutual hatred and

suspicion and they make the states split into factions, at feud with one another and

incapable of undertaking effective initiatives of joint action. The major consequences

of the spiritual poverty of the balance-of-power system is, apparently, to make united

action impossible because of factions and quarrels and also to set every member of the

international society at enmity with any opponent and with the powers that want to

maintain the established international order. By eroding the social consciousness of

the members of the international society, the balance-of-power system incubates

results that it is supposed to deter –namely, nationalism and/or rigid coalitions.

Woodrow Wilson, the American President during World War I, openly blamed

balance-of-power politics for the war. According to Wilson, “the balance of power is

the great game now forever discredited. It’s the old and evil order that prevailed

33

before this war. World War I was to do away with an old order, one that was unstable.

The balance of power is a thing that we can do without in the future”53

. Woodrow

Wilson was right in pointing out the instability of balance-of-power politics; for, the

ultimate priority of the balance of power is the sovereignty and the interest of the

state, and states must create alliances in order to prevent any state from becoming

preponderant, and thus the resulting balance of power is consistent with war. In other

words, from the viewpoint of Realpolitik, the state makes war, and war makes the

state54

. However, Woodrow Wilson did not fully understand the contradictory nature

of balance-of-power politics. Therefore, instead of emphasizing that balance-of-power

politics weakens the social consciousness of the states as members of an international

system and finally makes them too ego-centric to make the necessary collective

decisions in order to avoid war and preserve order, Woodrow Wilson emphasized the

need to strengthen the right of national self-determination beyond the limits imposed

by a balance-of-power system. In other words, Wilson was right in arguing that

balance-of-power politics is not successful, even according to its own criteria (i.e. in

preserving order), but Wilson’s own proposition was the strengthening of the ego-

centrism of the states and not the strengthening of their social consciousness.

Whereas, in balance-of-power politics, alliances were created against any state that

was becoming too strong, Wilson’s doctrine of collective security was focused on the

aggressive policies of a state rather than its capacity. However, in both cases, the

individual state is the ultimate criterion of the international system. The ‘telos’,

purpose, of Wilson’s doctrine of collective security was not the restoration of the

centrality of universal moral criteria, but its ‘telos’ was the promotion and institution

of an idealistic approach to national self-determination and the domination of a

“procedural morality”, based on external rules guiding international conduct and

interaction. In other words, in Wilson’s system, moral judgments remain dispensable,

and there is no need to differentiate between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’; instead, for

pragmatic reasons of international order, the major distinction is between what is

‘legal’ and ‘illegal’. Therefore, in Wilson’s system, legal procedure, especially

compliance with the Covenant of the League of Nations55

and arbitration within the

53

The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, eds R.S. Baker and W.E. Dodd, Vol. I, New York:

Harper, 1925, pp. 182-183. 54

C. Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States AD 990-1990, Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. 55

Wilson’s doctrine of collective security was embodied in the Covenant of the League of

Nations. In particular, the League of Nations Covenant includes the following articles: Article

10: “The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external

aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the

League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression

the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled”. Article

11: “Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the Members of the

League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League

shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of

nations…”. Article 12: “The Members of the League agree that, if there should arise between

them any dispute likely to lead to a rupture they will submit the matter either to arbitration or

judicial settlement or to enquiry by the Council, and they agree in no case to resort to war

until three months after the award by the arbitrators or the judicial decision, or the report by

34

framework of the League of Nations, substitutes for morality and culture as the source

of that morality. Therefore, the international system remains focused on the self-

gratification of the state. Wilson’s doctrine of collective security and the League of

Nations do not substitute the sovereignty of some universal value for the sovereignty

of the state, but they only establish a different method through which states can

pursue their selfish historical goals.

The system of collective security that was established after the end of World War I

had not overcome the fundamental antinomy of Realpolitik: Realpolitik stresses the

need for alliance between states, but simultaneously it weakens the states’ social

consciousness, because, within the context of Realpolitik, the state is recognised as

the ultimate criterion of the international system. Hence, the system of collective

security that was established after the end of World War I was unable to safeguard a

viable international order. When Hitler’s Germany decided to disregard the political

pretenses of the League of Nations and pursue a ruthless plan of national-interest

maximization, the institutions of multilateral diplomacy not only proved to be unable

to deter German expansionism but they also encouraged the Western Allies,

particularly Chamberlain’s Great Britain, to endorse a policy of appeasement towards

Germany56

. However, appeasement was the wrong approach to Hitler, and thus World

War II was not prevented.

the Council…”. Article 15: “If there should arise between Members of the League any dispute

likely to lead to a rupture, which is not submitted to arbitration or judicial settlement in

accordance with Article 13, the Members of the League agree that they will submit the matter

to the Council…”. 56

P.M.H. Bell, The Origins of the Second World War in Europe, London: Longman, 1986.

35

Chapter 3

THE DEFECTS OF POLITICAL REALISM AND NEOREALISM

The first Chair in International Politics was established at the University of Wales,

Aberystwyth (renamed Aberystwyth University in 2008), in 1919, and the first

university entirely dedicated to the study of International Relations was the Graduate

Institute of International Studies (now the Graduate Institute of International and

Development Studies), which was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1927, to

educate diplomats associated to the League of Nations.

One of the primary concerns of the new academic discipline was the methodical

examination of the reality of its object, i.e. of international politics. This concern was

not only the result of philosophical quests, but it was also the result of the Western

World’s attempt to understand reality in order to cure the social, economic and

political traumas caused by the two prolonged and extraordinarily devastating World

Wars. Thus, the school of political realism emerged, which “is widely thought of as

both the orthodoxy and the classical tradition of thinking about international

relations”57

. The characteristic representative of “classical realism” is Hans

Morgenthau, and the characteristic representative of “neorealism”, or “structural

realism”, is Kenneth Waltz. Both Morgenthau and Waltz present international politics

as a realm of necessity and power politics. “Realism in all of its forms emphasizes the

continuities of the human condition, particularly at the international level. Classical

realists, most notably Morgenthau, tended to find the source of these continuities in

the permanence of human nature as reflected in the political construction of states.

Neorealists find them in the anarchic structure of the international system”58

. In the

sequel of the present section, we shall analyse the theories of Morgenthau and Waltz,

and we shall explain why they have not been successful in their attempt to articulate a

theory of the reality of international politics.

Political realism

Hans Morgenthau states that his purpose is “to present a theory of international

politics” founded on what he has called the “principles of political realism”59

.

Morgenthau argues that, in order to understand the behaviour of states, it is necessary

to have previously understood and explained individual behaviour: “the relations

57

B. Buzan, “The Timeless Wisdom of Realism?”, in: S. Smith, K. Booth and M. Zalewski

(eds), International Theory: Positivism and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1996, p. 47. 58

Ibid, p. 50. 59

H.J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, revised by K.W. Thompson, New York:

McGraw-Hill, 1993, pp. 3-4.

36

between nations are not essentially different from the relations between individuals;

they are only relations between individuals on a wider scale”60

. Additionally, he has

argued that “politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have

their roots in human nature…The operation of these laws being impervious to our

preferences, men will challenge them only at the risk of failure”61

.

Morgenthau argues that, whereas “non-political action is ever exposed to

corruption by selfishness and lust for power, this corruption is inherent in the very

nature of political act”62

. In other words, Morgenthau asserts the autonomy of politics

as a distinct form of social life, which is characterised by the “will-to-power”.

Moreover, Morgenthau considers the structural distinction between international and

domestic politics to be the cause of the continuity of international politics as an arena

of power politics. For, within a state, the “will-to-power” is not allowed free reign as

a result of the existence of civil government. But Morgenthau argues that international

politics is an anarchic system, in the sense that each state claims sovereign control

over its own territory and people and considers itself to be the ultimate foundation of

the norms relating means to ends. Thus, Morgenthau argues that “continuity in foreign

policy is not a matter of choice but a necessity; for it derives from [factors] which no

government is able to control but which it can neglect at the risk of failure”63

.

Morgenthau assigns to a theory of international relations the task of determining

and classifying the patterns that are recurrent in human history and of specifying the

trans-historical conditions that make the genesis of these patterns, their change, or

their disappearance possible64

. According to Morgenthau, power is the key element of

action in international politics, and reason is the factor that determines the goals for

the pursuit of which a state competes in the international arena as well as the means

by which a state pursues its goals.

Based on the assumption that states seek to maximize their power, Morgenthau

argues that all foreign policies reveal three basic patterns of policy: (i) defending the

status quo, i.e. “the distribution of power which exists at a particular moment in

history”65

; (ii) imperialism, i.e. “a policy devised to overthrow the status quo”66

; (iii)

prestige, i.e. a policy devised “to impress other nations with the power one’s own

nation actually possesses, or with the power it believes, or wants other nations to

believe, it possesses”67

.

Morgenthau argues that imperialism is likely to take place when a nation

anticipates victory in war and thus pursues “a policy that seeks a permanent change of

60

H.J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man versus Power Politics, Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1946, p. 43. 61

H.J. Morgenthau, op. cit. (ref. 59), p. 4. 62

H.J. Morgenthau, op. cit. (ref. 60), p. 196. 63

Ibid, p. 66. 64

H.J. Morgenthau, “The Nature and Limits of a Theory of International Relations”, in:

W.T.R. Fox (ed.), Theoretical Aspects of International Relations, Indiana: University of Notre

Dame Press, 1959, p. 25. 65

H.J. Morgenthau, op. cit. (ref. 59), p. 51. 66

Ibid, p. 65. 67

Ibid, p. 85.

37

power relations with the defeated enemy”68

, or when a state has lost a war and desires

“to turn the scales on the victor, to overthrow the status quo created by this victory,

and to change places with him in the hierarchy of power”69

, or when there exist weak

states or politically empty spaces “that are attractive and accessible to a strong

state”70

. However, Morgenthau admits that it is not easy to distinguish between

imperialistic and status quo policies. For, power cannot be accurately quantified,

because, in addition to such quantifiable elements as geography, natural resources,

industrial capacity, population size, military capacity, etc., important non-quantifiable

human elements, such as quality of leadership, national and social cohesion and

character, must be taken into account71

.

Even though Morgenthau acknowledges these difficulties in distinguishing between

status quo and imperialistic policies, he maintains that the outcome of the struggle for

power among states at the international level is the balance of power: “the

international balance of power is only a particular manifestation of a general social

principle to which all societies composed of a number of autonomous units owe the

autonomy of their component parts; …the balance of power and policies aiming at its

preservation are not only inevitable but are an essential stabilising factor in a society

of sovereign nations”72

.

Although Morgenthau argues that an international-political theory should be

consistent with itself and with facts, the pursuit of unitary understanding (“power

politics”) and the tension between the abstracted (necessity in the form of power

politics) and the unabstracted (the realm of freedom and morality, which have been

separated from politics by Morgenthau) undermine the empirical relevance of his

theory and the cognitive significance of his theorems. Having restricted himself to the

abstraction of the ‘political man’ from the real man and of ‘political life’ from the real

life, having made those assumptions and those assumptions alone, Morgenthau’s

theory reduces to a form of monistic realism and fails to understand that, as we

explained in Chapter 1, the reality of the world and the reality of consciousness, even

though they are not one, they are unified and that consciousness is not the field on

which external objects act, but consciousness exerts its intentional influence on

reality.

Morgenthau, having committed himself to the necessity of power politics, is

oblivious of the dialectic of reality, and thus he understands the history of politics as

an expression of universal laws and not as an expression of human creativity.

However, as we explained in Chapter 1, instead of being defeated in his battle against

a necessary historical becoming, man can overcome necessities and restructure reality

according to his intentionality through his kairic action.

As far as the coherence of Morgenthau’s own theory is concerned, we must point

out that the necessity that emanates from the postulate of power maximization

68

Ibid, p. 65. 69

Ibid, p. 66. 70

Ibid, p. 67. 71

Ibid, ch. 9. 72

Ibid, p. 183.

38

contradicts the distinction between imperialist and status quo powers that has been

proposed by Morgenthau. Once there are various kinds of foreign policy with respect

to the pursuit of power, international politics is a struggle for power only to the extent

that state interests are conflicting, and the supporters of Realpolitik apply Realpolitik

in order to solve problems that would not exist if they had not been applying

Realpolitik.

Moreover, Stanley Hoffmann argues that Morgenthau’s power monism cannot

become the ultimate foundation of a theory of international politics because “it is

impossible to subsume under one word variables as different as: power as a condition

of policy and power as a criterion of policy; power as a potential and power in use;

power as a sum of resources and power as a set of processes. Power is a most complex

product of other variables, which should be allowed to see the light of the theory

instead of remaining hidden in the shadow of power”73

.

The manner in which Morgenthau construes the ‘national interest’ is simplistic

because it cannot answer to the following question, originally posed by Plato: “was

this how you meant to define what is right, that it is that which seems to the stronger

to be his interest, whether it really is or not?”74

.

In his Republic, Plato argues that politics would betray itself if its purpose were not

the moral improvement of both the individual and the society. However, in his

History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (ca. 460 BC-ca. 395 BC) puts in the

Athenians’ mouth the following words towards the Melians: “As for the gods, we

expect to have quite as much of their favour as you: for, we are not doing or claiming

anything which goes beyond common opinion about divine or men’s desires about

human things. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a law of their

nature wherever they can rule they will. This law was not made by us, and we are not

the first who have acted upon it; we did but inherit it, and shall bequeath it to all time,

and we know that you and all mankind, if you were as strong as we are, would do as

we do”75

. Furthermore, in his “First Olynthiac” Speech76

, Demosthenes argues that

the policy-maker must make decisions instead of debates and that every policy must

be judged on results and not on moral principles. Walking in the path of

Demosthenes’s pragmatism, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) argued that his

political method consists in drawing maxims or rules for successful political

behaviour from history and experience. Machiavelli’s method is based on a pragmatic

and utilitarian approach to politics77

.

73

S. Hoffmann, Contemporary Theory of International Relations, Englewood Cliffs, NJ:

Prentice-Hall, 1960, p.32. 74

Plato, The Republic, trans. D. Lee, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987, 340c. 75

Thucydides, tr. B. Jowett, ed. A. P. Peabody, Boston: D. Lothrop & Co., 1883, book 5. 76

The Olynthiacs were three political speeches delivered by Demosthenes. In 349 BC, Philip

II of Macedon attacked Olynthus, which at the time was an ally of Athens. In the Olynthiacs,

delivered in 349 BC, Demosthenes urged Athens to help Olynthus. 77

The Portable Machiavelli, selected writings trans. P. Bondanella and M. Musa,

Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.

39

However, Plato has posed a crucial political question which has been rather evaded

in an unsuccessful manner by Morgenthau, Thucydides, Demosthenes and

Machiavelli: “was this how you meant to define what is right, that it is that which

seems to the stronger to be his interest, whether it really is or not?” Contra the self-

complacent ‘political realism’ of the Athenians, their decision to destroy the Melians,

even though it seemed to be their interest, proved to be “wrong and deluded”,

because: “The Athenians look at the present and can see nothing will save Melos.

They are right. The Melians look to the future. They are right too. Melos is destroyed.

But the very next sentence in the history begins the story of the decline of Athens and

the justification of the Melians”78

. Furthermore, if we judge politics on results –as

Demosthenes urges us to do– then history vindicated Philip II of Macedon and

Alexander the Great and not Demosthenes. In addition, Machiavelli wrote the book

Discourse on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy, in which he qualified and moderated

the political model he had previously proposed in The Prince79

.

In the modern era, a policy based on a pragmatic and utilitarian management of

impressions and on the belief that something is right simply because it seems to the

stronger to be his interest caused serious problems to the United States of America.

For instance, in 1953, American covert operatives (“Operation Ajax”) helped

overthrow Iran’s left-leaning government and restored the Shah to power. The CIA

had funded ayatollahs, mobilised the religious right and engineered a sophisticated

propaganda campaign to successfully further its aims, but, finally, Iran’s religious

leaders were among the first to turn against the United States and they established a

theocratic constitution in December 1979. Moreover, during the Cold War, the United

States provided staggering quantities of aid to anti-Marxist Islamic extremists, who

were fighting against the Soviet Union, but, in the post-Cold War era, those very same

extremists became America’s next great enemy.

Furthermore, Hoffmann argues that “the conception of an objective and easily

recognizable national interest…is one which makes sense only in a stable period in

which the participants play for limited ends, with limited means, and without

domestic kibitzers to disrupt the players’ moves…Today, however, survival is almost

always at stake, and technological leaps have upset the hierarchy of stable factors…In

such circumstances, interpretations of the national become almost totally subjective

and the relative weight of ‘objective factors’…is almost impossible to evaluate”80

. For

78

W. Liebeschuetz, “The Structure and Function of the Melian Dialogue”, The Journal of

Hellenic Studies 88 (1968), p. 76. 79

For instance, in The Prince (ch. 14), Machiavelli writes that a “prince should therefore have

no other aim or thought, nor take up any other thing for his study but war and its organization

and discipline, for that is the only art that is necessary to one who commands”; however, in

the Discourse on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy, Machiavelli writes that: “when there is

combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then

these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check” (book I, ch. 2), “in a

well-ordered republic, it should never be necessary to resort to extra-constitutional measures”

(book I, ch. 34), and “the governments of the people are better than those of princes” (book I,

ch. 58). 80

S. Hoffmann, op. cit. (ref. 73), p. 33.

40

instance, P. Seabury81

and V. Van Dyke82

argue that Morgenthau’s claim that the

national interest could be defined independently of any consideration of American

ideals undermines the empirical significance of Morgenthau’s analysis of U.S. foreign

policy.

Morgenthau’s assumption that states tend to maximize their power is not in

complete accordance with the way he considers balance of power to be a condition of

stalemate and mutual deterrence contributing to the maintenance of international

order. Morgenthau, referring to the European balance-of-power system in the 18th

and

19th

centuries, argues that, in order for the balance-of-power arrangement to function

properly, the competing nations must have previously restrained themselves by

consenting to the maintenance of this settlement, and thus this settlement depends on

common mores, civilization and interests83

. Therefore, neither power politics nor the

distinction between domestic and international politics is a fixed static condition.

Apart from ‘power politics’ and ‘national interest’, Morgenthau’s third major

concept is that of the ‘balance of power’. Morgenthau argues that balance of power is

“a universal concept”84

. However, Morgenthau’s attempt to demonstrate the

universality of the balance of power led him to such a broad use of the term that it

produced an inconsistency85

. In particular, Morgenthau uses the ‘balance of power’ to

refer to a situation of equilibrium as well as to any situation characterised by a

struggle for power. Yet, since Morgenthau does not regard equilibrium as inevitable,

the dual use of the ‘balance of power’ becomes a source of antinomies.

In summary, Morgenthau construes international politics as a struggle for power

among states, and he extracts this conclusion from an a priori human nature, which

may cause destructively irrational behaviour unless it is properly constrained by

balance-of-power arrangements. Waltz’s approach to international relations is

different from that of Morgenthau. Waltz maintains that the earlier realists conceived

“anarchy simply as setting problems for statesmen different from those to be coped

with internally and as setting standards of appropriate behaviour”86

, and he argues that

the previous approach is insufficient. Waltz’s position is characterised by the quest for

an analysis of the external context of the state action itself as a distinct factor that

determines state behaviour.

81

P. Seabury, Power, Freedom and Diplomacy, New York: Random House, 1963, ch. 4. 82

V. Van Dyke, “Values and Interests”, American Political Science Review 56 (1962). 83

H.J. Morgenthau, op. cit. (ref. 59), parts 4 and 5. 84

Ibid, pp. 183-185. 85

I.L. Claude, Power and International Relations, New York: Random House, 1962. 86

K.N. Waltz, “Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to my Critics”,

in: R.O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics, New York: Columbia University Press,

1986, p. 336.

41

Neorealism

In order to clarify his views and differentiate them from those of earliest realists,

Kenneth Waltz distinguishes between ‘reductionist’ and ‘systemic’ theories. Waltz’s

analysis of the international-political system is based on the following elements: a set

of interacting units (states) and a political structure. Waltz assumes that an

international-political system arises from the mutual interaction of states, which are

the constitutive units of the system; but, once formed, the structure “becomes a force

in itself, and a force that the constitutive units acting singly or in small numbers

cannot control”87

. Waltz maintains that, whereas reductionist theories are concerned

with unit-level forces, the purpose of a systemic theory of international politics is to

determine what kind of behaviour is encouraged by the international-political

structure and how much of the behaviour is caused by the given structure or by unit-

level forces. As a result, in the fifth chapter of his Theory of International Politics,

Waltz undertakes the task to “contrive a definition of structure free of the attributes

and the interactions of units”88

, and he defines the international-political structure

with respect to three criteria.

The first criterion is that, whereas domestic political systems are hierarchic,

international political systems are anarchic, self-help systems89

. The second criterion

is that, in domestic politics, due to the hierarchy of authority relationships, there is a

functional differentiation among the units in the system, whereas, in international

politics, the units are functionally undifferentiated90

. The third criterion is the

distribution of capabilities among the units of the system: “Although capabilities are

attributes of units, the distribution of capabilities across units is not. The distribution

of capabilities is not a unit attribute, but rather a system-wide concept”91

.

Having defined the international-political structure independently of the attributes

of the units that compose the international system, Waltz studies anarchy as structure

and shows how structure functions as selector in a Darwinian fashion. Waltz

maintains that, under a given distribution of capabilities within the international

system, the enduring anarchic character of international politics explains continuity.

Thus, Waltz’s approach to international order is not based on the evaluation of the

units’ intentions, but it is based on the analysis of the norms of the international

system and on the distribution of capabilities.

Waltz treats the ‘system’ as a homogeneous entity (i.e. as unaffected by unit-level

forces), and also he isolates the study of the ‘system’ from the study of the ‘units’.

But, in order to determine the functioning of the system, one must know, among other

things, the relationships of the ‘components’ to the ‘ensemble’ and the ‘performance’

of the system. However, as J.G. Ruggie has pointed out, in Waltz’s Theory of

87

K.N. Waltz, op. cit. (ref. 52), p.90. 88

Ibid, p. 79. 89

Ibid, p. 88. 90

Ibid, pp. 93-97. 91

Ibid, p. 98.

42

International Politics, “structural features are sharply differentiated from unit-level

processes, and structure is the productive agency that operates at the level of the

system…The problem with Waltz’s posture is that, in any social system, structural

change itself ultimately has no source other than unit-level processes. By banishing

these from the domain of systemic theory, Waltz also exogenizes the ultimate source

of systemic change”92

.

Thus, Waltz, by failing to describe the dialectical relationship between ‘agent’ and

‘structure’, slips into the fallacy of the earliest realists’ reductionism, against which he

has warned us. For, apart from the classical realists’ form of reductionism, according

to which the international-political causes are reducible to the dark nature of the

‘agents’ (or ‘units’), there is another form of reductionism, which consists in the

absence of a dialectical understanding of the relationship between ‘agent’ and

‘structure’; according to this latter form of reductionism the international-political

causes are reducible to structural forces. Therefore, Waltz and other ‘neorealists’, by

failing to understand the kairic character of the human activity in the way that we

explained it in Chapter 1, limit their work to monistic theories, which of course cannot

explain reality.

Furthermore, Waltz, like Morgenthau, by being committed to the necessity of

power politics, cannot differentiate between what seems to be the interest of a state

and what actually is the interest of a state. For instance, the Punic Wars brought Rome

to political supremacy in the Mediterranean in the late second century BC. But those

wars triggered off domestic changes in the Roman Empire that eventually destroyed

it93

. The prolonged campaigning alienated many peasant soldiers from their ancestral

farms, an idle urban proletariat with increasing political significance gathered in

Rome, and simultaneously senators and tax farmers collecting provincial revenues

accumulated unprecedented wealth. Additionally, even though the frontiers of Roman

power continued to expand in the first century AD, its cultural integrity was

undermined by Eastern religions, such as Christianity, and the armies lost their moral

bonds with Rome and became instruments of ambitious generals coveting the imperial

title. The fall of Rome came when peoples who had been Roman subjects turned

against their former rulers. Moreover, the development of armoured cavalry weakened

the long neglected Roman agriculture, which could not satisfy the needs of the

swollen urban population and of the cavalry.

Another weakness of the theories of Morgenthau and Waltz is that they treat the

actors of the international-political system as homogeneous states. However, sub-

national groups and indigenous peoples promote politics of identity that challenge the

traditional conceptions of national community and demand group rights, thus giving

92

J.G. Ruggie, “Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Towards a Neorealist

Synthesis”, in: R.O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics, New York: Columbia

University Press, 1986, pp. 151-152. 93

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London: Saturn Book, 1979.

43

rise to new forms of political community94

. Additionally, the international system

includes non-state actors, such as public international organizations, multinational

corporations, non-governmental organizations, terrorist organizations, etc., which,

together with the states, give rise to a much more complicated international system95

than the one which has been described by Morgenthau and Waltz.

Waltz claims that his theory of international politics is analogous to microeconomic

theory, which “describes how an order is spontaneously formed from self-interested

acts and interactions of individual units –in this case persons and firms”96

. However,

the manner in which Waltz construes microeconomics has undergone serious

criticisms by many economists. In fact, Waltz is intellectually anchored in the

classical view of the firm, whereas, in modern microeconomics, there is a significant

alternative way of studying the firm.

In Waltz’s microeconomic analysis, the firm is an ideal type formulated to fit its

prescribed role in partial-equilibrium economic theory. On the other hand, various

economists have proposed the conceptual autonomy for the ‘firm’, gained by treating

it as a case of the general phenomenon of social organization97

. Where such

organization involves conscious cooperation, as it does in the firm, the key role is that

of the “maximization centre”98

(the peak of the executive organization), which

determines the ends of the organization and the means of coordination for achieving

the ends. The behaviour of the “maximization centre” cannot be explained merely by

means of structural necessities, since it is subject to a variety of influences some of

which affect the value premises while others affect the factual premises of its

decisions. The preference system of the “maximization centre” is a resultant of all

these influences. Therefore, microeconomics is neither just the realm of the firm nor

just the realm of market structures; a microeconomic theory aims at explaining how

economic actors react to modify their environment. In other words, an empirically

meaningful microeconomic theory contains both unit-level and structural

94

See for instance: M. Ringrose and A.J. Lerner (eds), Reimagining the Nation, Buckingham:

Open University Press, 1993; R.B.J. Walker, Inside/Outside –International Relations as

Political Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 95

Writing in 1971, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye defined transnational interactions as “the

movement of tangible or intangible items across state boundaries when at least one actor is

not an agent of a government or an inter-governmental organization” (J.S. Nye Jr. and R.

Keohane, “Transnational Relations and World Politics: An Introduction”, International

Organization 25 (1971)). While arguing that transnational relations had always existed,

Keohane and Nye go on to argue that, in the super-industrial era, governmental control has

been restricted by changes in technology which facilitated interaction among societal actors in

different countries, by the increasing agendas of governments which impinge on more and

more groups in civil societies, and by the acceleration of the flow of information. 96

K.N. Waltz, op. cit. (ref. 52), p. 89. 97

These developments in microeconomic theory started taking place already in the decades of

the 1930s and 1940s. See: C. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, Cambridge, Mass.:

Harvard University Press, 1938; J. von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, The Theory of Games

and Economic Behavior, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947; H.A. Simon,

Administrative Behavior, New York: Macmillan, 1947. 98

The term is originally due to G.F. Thirlby, “Notes on the Maximization Processes in

Company Administration”, Economica XVII (1950).

44

considerations. In general, according to the dialectic of kairicity, which we proposed

in Chapter 1, the continuity of the historical becoming is not completely substituted

by the discontinuity that is caused by the historical action of man, but it is

reconstructed by the imposition of the intentionality of consciousness on time.

45

Chapter 4

THE DYNAMICS OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM

Necessity and Freedom

As we have already argued in this book, there is a structural continuity between the

reality of consciousness and the reality of the world. Therefore, consciousness can

restructure and utilize reality. Furthermore, kairology –namely, the methodical study

of the kairicity of consciousness– implies that the scientific world-conception is not

only determined by the reality of the world, but it is also a creation of consciousness.

Science is an expression of human creativity, in the sense that its purpose is to

create theories that help consciousness to approach reality (both the reality of

consciousness and the reality of the world). The stages of scientific creation are the

following99

: (i) stage one: consciousness has an intuitive, general perception of its

object; (ii) stage two (analysis): consciousness analyses the constituent elements of

the given object in order to investigate it in a systematic way; (iii) stage three

(synthesis): consciousness reassembles the previous elements, so that, through

synthesis, it can arrive at the final interpretation of its scientific object as a whole.

In the light of the dialectic of kairicity, which was defined in Chapter 1, it follows

that analysis and synthesis constitute an important dual instrument by means of which

consciousness restructures and utilizes reality. From this perspective, reality is a goal

towards which scientific consciousness is dynamically directed, and additionally

scientific consciousness pursues its identification with reality. In other words, by

fulfilling its programme, scientific consciousness tends to obliterate the original gap

between itself and its object.

The difference between social science and natural science

As Michael Nicholson has pointed out, “at the most general level a social science is

the study of human beings in a social context”100

, and “international relations is just

one of those contexts and we would expect the same problems and probabilities to be

involved in it as with any other social science”101

. Therefore, according to Nicholson,

“the central question is, to what extent can these phenomena be described by the same

sort of procedures as natural phenomena, such as planets or genes, and are the

99

For an extensive analysis of these issues, see: Martin Curd and J.A. Cover, Philosophy of

Science: The Central Issues, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1998. 100

Michael Nicholson, Causes and Consequences in International Relations: A Conceptual

Study, London: Pinter, 1996, p. 54. 101

Ibid, p. 54.

46

differences, which clearly exit, of such a nature as to preclude their analysis by the

same sorts of methods?”102

.

We can answer the previous question by explaining the difference between the

evolution of the physical world and history103

. The evolution of the physical world

includes several crises. Prigogine and Stengers have emphasized the dynamic

character of the world of nature: “Our universe has a pluralistic, complex character.

Structures may disappear, but also they may appear. Some processes are, as far as we

know, well described by deterministic equations, but others involve probabilistic

processes”104

. However, a crisis of the physical world can be considered as an object

of history or of social-scientific research only if it has an impact on a human society.

History is an exclusively human creation and an exclusive characteristic of human

life. From the perspective of kairology, history expresses the ontological potential of

humanity.

From the previous viewpoint, there is a fundamental asymmetry between physical

(or astronomical) time and historical time, and, therefore, there is a fundamental

asymmetry between natural science and social science. Physical time is, more or less,

uniform, and it is characterised by irreversible processes that involve an “arrow of

time”. In other words, physical universe is characterised by its own entropy105

. On the

other hand, historical time is a free outcome of the action of human consciousness,

and, therefore, it is subject only to the laws imposed upon it by the intentionality of

human consciousness through the ages. Whereas physical time obeys its own entropy,

historical becoming is determined by the kairic activity of humanity. In other words,

historical becoming combines alternatively causality and freedom, progression and

regression, recurrence and uniqueness.

Because we can find causality and recurrence in history, many social scientists –

especially those who follow the positivist-empiricist tradition– are led to “the notion

that we can identify certain sorts of situations as the ‘same’, or at least ‘the same’ in

some crucial and relevant aspects”106

, and, therefore, they argue that “generalization is

possible” and “we can move on to formulating deductive theories of social behaviour

in the standard scientific way and devise a social science of behaviour in this

102

Ibid, p. 54. 103

Evangelos Moutsopoulos, “L’ idée d’ intentionalité en histoire”, Pela filosofia,

Homenagem a Tarcisio Padilha, Rio de Janeiro, Pallas, 1984, pp. 581-585; Evangelos

Moutsopoulos, “Modèles historiques et modèles culturels”, Humanitas, Vol. 22, 1981, pp. 19-

23, and also in Diotima, Vol. 25, 1997, pp. 143-147. 104

In general, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Science (2005), ‘entropy’ is “a measure

of the unavailability of a system’s energy to do work; also a measure of disorder; the higher

the entropy the greater the disorder”. According to the second law of thermodynamics, as one

goes forward in physical time, the entropy of an isolated system will increase. Thus, entropy

measurement is a way of distinguishing the past from the future. For more details, see: Ilya

Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos –Man’s New Dialogue with Nature, New

York: Bentam, 1984, p. 9. 105

Ibid. 106

Michael Nicholson, op. cit. (ref. 100), p. 62.

47

mode”107

. On the other hand, because we can find freedom and uniqueness in history,

idealists, like Peter Winch108

and postmodernists, like Michel Foucault109

, Jacques

Derrida110

and Richard Rorty111

, “are averse to causal analyses of the sort practised in

behavioural political science”112

and argue that “there are no social events but

multiplicities of events – perhaps as many as there are people who have experience of

the event either directly, as observers or by report”113

.

All the above views are partial approaches to reality, and, therefore, they give only

a fragmented knowledge of reality. According to the dialectic of kairicity, history is

characterised by a dynamic, dialectical relation between causality and freedom,

progression and regression, recurrence and uniqueness. Therefore, neither positivism-

empiricism nor idealism-postmodernism can stand as a general epistemological

theory. Positivism-empiricism can be philosophically legitimated by invoking the

existence of causality and recurrence in history, but positivism-empiricism cannot

account for freedom and uniqueness in history. Idealists and postmodernists, on the

other hand, have correctly recognised historical phenomena characterised by freedom

and uniqueness, but they treat history as if it were an outcome of arbitrary idealistic

action, and, thus, they fail to recognise the kairicity of human activity.

History is created by the intentionality of consciousness according to the dialectic

of kairicity. Thus, the most adequate way of studying history consists in the study of

the intentionality, and particularly of the kairicity, of the actors’ conscious minds.

107

Ibid, p. 66. 108

According to Winch, “social relations fall into the same logical category as do relations

between ideas”, and, therefore, “social relations must be an equally unsuitable subject for

generalizations and theories of scientific sort to be formulated about them” (Peter Winch, The

Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy, London: Routledge, 1990). 109

Foucault argues that the development of scholarly disciplines is determined by power

relations and is not a neutral result of scholarly enquiry. As a result, Foucault does not ask for

a correspondence theory of truth, but he construes truth as a tool for resisting power (Michel

Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”, in: P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader,

Harmondsworth, Peregrine Books, 1986, pp. 76-100). 110

Derrida expresses his anti-foundationalist epistemology through deconstructions involving

a reading of a text where the author fails to produce the conclusions he intends (Jacques

Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. and ed. G. Spivak, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1976). Thus, Derrida “refuses to see the knower as a given and instead as

merely one more construction of language and culture”, so that “the knower is always caught

up in a language and mode of thinking which, far from interpreting a world, instead

constructs it” (Steve Smith, “Positivism and Beyond”, in S. Smith, K. Booth and M. Zalewski

(eds), International Theory –Positivism and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1996, p. 30). 111

The task undertaken by Rorty consists in the deconstruction of analytical philosophy. 112

Michael Nicholson, op. cit. (ref. 100), p. 112. 113

Ibid, p. 112.

48

Politics as a phenomenon of conscious communication

In the light of the arguments that we put forward in Chapter 1 and according to

Evangelos Moutsopoulos’s philosophical research in the kairicity of consciousness,

consciousness is not merely a framework within which the accumulation of

experiences takes place, but it is an alive and structured presence that has all the

characteristics of a being –namely: substance, structure, temporal and spatial activity–

and it is continually restructured, instituting the rules of its activity, of its

intentionality and of its integration into the world. Thus, consciousness is the fullest

expression of the reality of the human being. Consciousness is both the ontological

synopsis of the human being and the means by which the human being confirms its

autonomy and its quest for other beings.

Conscious beings interact with each other in the context of their conscious minds.

This interaction takes place in accordance with the intentionality of consciousness and

especially in accordance with the kairicity of consciousness. The means by which

conscious beings communicate with each other are called symbols, which are the

basis for all human understanding. Moreover, symbols are forms, or vehicles, by

means of which conscious beings participate in each other’s mental reality.

Symbols are forms that express collectively accepted intentions and actions and can

have multiple levels of meaning, as opposed to signs, which have only one meaning.

Symbols can be organized in sets that are called codes114

. When conscious beings act

and behave according to common codes, a society of conscious beings is an inter-

subjective and conscious continuum.

By the term ‘formal language’, we mean a set of strings of symbols that may be

constrained by concrete rules. The ‘alphabet’ of a formal language is the set of

symbols/letters/tokens from which the strings of the language may be formed (the

strings formed from this alphabet are called words). Let S and T be two finite sets,

called the source alphabet and the target alphabet, respectively. A code

C: S → T*

is a total function mapping each symbol from S to a sequence of symbols over T, and

the extension of C to a homomorphism of S* into T*, which maps each sequence of

source symbols to a sequence of target symbols, is referred to as its extension.

The elements of a code are sings (a sign is the smallest unite of meaning). Each and

every sign receives a meaning that is related to its acceptance by the users of the

corresponding code and to its participation in the corresponding code. Every code and

every sign have a dynamic structure that makes it possible for them to be functionally

adjusted according to the requests of their users. The functional success of any system

114

Jean Berstel, Dominique Perrin and Christophe Reutenauer, Codes and Automata,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011; Yaser Abu-Mostafa (ed.), Complexity in

Information Theory, New York: Springer-Verlag, 2011.

49

of communication depends on its compliance with a generalized correspondence

between the signifier and the signified115

.

In addition to having a ‘meaning’, i.e. a denotation, or conceptual definition, every

sign also has a ‘significance’, i.e. a mode of relating us to a being (or a collection of

beings) that is denoted by the given sign, transcends the given sign and constitutes the

correct interpretation of the given sign.

In its attempt to assign meanings and significances to things, consciousness has the

continuous tendency to adopt two attitudes –an extroverted one and an introverted

one. When consciousness adopts an introverted attitude, the purposes of its action are

the following: (i) to recognise, look at, its own self in order to structure and

experience it in a more complete manner, (ii) to achieve a high level of existential

security by being sheltered in its own inner world, and (iii) to strengthen its

ontological status by itself. In this way, a being becomes psychologically deeper and,

by refusing to widen itself, avoids the danger of wasting its potential. However, this

entrenchment in the inner ego does not suffice for the psychological integration of a

being, because every being is characterised not only by its autonomy but also by its

participation in other beings. If consciousness persists in intensifying its inner ego,

then the inner ego inhibits the development and expression of the social ego, and,

therefore, such a person cannot utilize the advantages of its spiritual interaction with

other conscious beings, and its social skills remain weak.

In its attempt to endow things with meanings and significances, the ego needs

assistance from and cooperation with other egos. The existence of symbols and signs

corresponds to the need of the ego to be psychologically integrated by means of its

communication with other egos. Symbols and signs elucidate the relations among

conscious beings that partake of common aesthetic experiences or exchange

information with each other.

In the context of communication, consciousness runs two risks: the risk of over-

information and the risk of under-information. The risk of over-information refers to

high information entropy116

. The risk of under-information refers to low information

entropy.

115

According to Ferdinand de Saussure, language is made up of signs and every sign has two

sides: (i) the signifier, i.e. the ‘shape’ of a word, its phonic component (the sequence of letters

or phonemes, e.g. H-O-R-S-E), and (ii) the signified, the ideational component, the concept

or object that appears in our minds when we hear or read the signifier. See: Hadumod

Bussmann, Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, London: Routledge, 1996. 116

In information theory, the concept of ‘entropy’ was originally devised by Claude Shannon

in 1948 in order to study the amount of information in a transmitted message: in this case,

‘entropy’ is the average amount of data deficit (‘Shannon’s uncertainty’) that the informee

(i.e. the person/the machine for whom/which a message is intended) has before the inspection

of the output of the informer (i.e. the producer of the given message). See: Claude Shannon,

“A Mathematical Theory of Communication”, Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 27, 1948,

pp. 379-423, 623-656. Following Shannon, W. Weaver, in his article “The Mathematics of

Communication” (Scientific American, Vol. 181, 1949, pp. 11-15), presented a tripartite

analysis of information in terms of: (1) technical problems concerning the quantification of

information and dealt by Shannon’s theory, (2) semantic problems relating to meaning and

50

Over-information may intensify the social ego, but, by increasing information

entropy, leads to a disorientated being. Under-information may intensify the inner

ego, but it leads to an ego-centric being and to phenomena of aggressive

communitarianism or aggressive traditionalism. The risks of over-information and

under-information can be avoided by following the four-fold dialectic of kairicity.

The political system from the perspective of kairopolitics

In general, by the term ‘system’, we mean a set of elements (known as the members

of the system) endowed with a structure117

. In the mathematical theory of models, by

a ‘real system’, we mean a phenomenon or a situation posed by reality, being

regarded as changes of variable quantities that influence and interact with each other

according to a concrete behaviour. The quantitative study and the analysis of the

entire functional behaviour of a real system presuppose the development of a theory

of the system in consideration, i.e. a set of statements describing and explaining the

behaviour of the given system118

.

The political system is a particular case of the general phenomenon of the

communication among conscious beings. If we leave the realm of unconscious

interdependence –which is the realm of classical and neoclassical microeconomics

and of political neorealism (Waltz’s theory of international politics)– and if we

attempt to deal with problems of deliberate cooperation, we need a new way of

theorizing about the members of the international system based on kairicity. In the

sequel, we shall study the states to which an international-political actor (or the

international system as a whole) is attracted –namely: (i) stable equilibrium, (ii)

instability, and (iii) kairic point.

Stable equilibrium: According Chester Barnard119

, organizations are systems of

consciously coordinated human activities or forces. An organization can emerge only

if the following conditions are met: (i) two or more persons intend to contribute to the

(cooperative) system; (ii) they share a common objective; and (iii) there is a system of

deliberate communication.

Herbert Simon120

has defined the following criterion of efficiency: whenever two

alternatives have the same cost, the members of an organization choose that one

truth, and (3) what he called “influential” problems concerning the impact and effectiveness

of information on human behaviour. 117

Nicolas Laos, Topics in Mathematical Analysis and Differential Geometry, Singapore,

New Jersey, London, Hong Kong: World Scientific Publishing Co., 1998. 118

Nicolas Laos, “A Comparative Study of Linear and Nonlinear Differential Equations with

Applications”, in: S. Bilchev and S. Tersian (eds), Proceedings of the Fifth International

Conference on Differential Equations and Applications, Rousse, Bulgaria: Angel Kanchev

University of Rousse and Union of Bulgarian Mathematicians, 1995, pp. 42-76. 119

Chester Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1938. 120

H.A. Simon, Administrative Behavior, New York: Macmillan, 1947.

51

which will lead to the greater attainment of the organization objectives; and that,

whenever two alternatives lead to the same degree of attainment, that one is chosen

which entails the lesser cost. Furthermore, Simon has analysed the issue of

organizational identification and loyalty: an actor identifies himself with a cooperative

system when, in making a decision, he evaluates the several alternatives of choice in

terms of their consequences for the specified cooperative system.

The purpose of the formal system of an organization is to carry out established,

repetitive, day-to-day activities as efficiently as possible, and, therefore, it must

function according to well-defined hierarchical structures and strictly applied rules

and procedures. Furthermore, in order to be efficient, the formal system of an

organization necessitates that at least part of the interactions that are included in the

organization, and, thus, it tends to resist change and sustain the status quo. Hence, the

formal system of any fit organization is orderly and stable121

. The formal system of an

organization is pulled towards stable equilibrium by the forces of integration,

maintenance controls and the need to adapt to the environment122

.

By the term ‘stable equilibrium’, we mean an equilibrium state of a system in

which the system, if disturbed, tends to return to its former position, as, for instance,

the body A in the following figure.

Stable equilibrium

Whereas the formal system of an organization consists of the organizations’

institutions and technology, the informal system of an organization is the

organization’s culture. In case the above-mentioned pull of the formal system of an

organization towards stable equilibrium is reinforced by the informal system, then the

specified organization as a whole will be attracted to stability. Negative feedback123

drives both formal and informal systems. In organization theory, by the term negative

feedback, we mean the law of diminishing marginal utility124

or to the law of

diminishing returns.

121

For a mathematically rigorous study of the notions of stability and instability, see: Nicolas

Laos, op. cit. (ref. 117). 122

P.R. Lawrence and J.W. Lorsch, Organization and Environment, Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1967. 123

By the term ‘feedback’, we mean a situation when output from an event in the past will

influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same event in the present or future. 124

According to the law of diminishing marginal utility, “as the amount of a good consumed

increases, the marginal utility of that good tends to diminish”; P.A. Samuelson and W.D.

Nordhaus, Economics, 14th edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992, p. 84.

52

In the absence of strong destabilizing conscious and/or unconscious causes,

organizations seem to be attracted to a stable bureaucratic state in which they

maintain the same behavioural rules: this state is the centre of classical and

neoclassical microeconomics, balance-of-power politics and structural realism125

.

Instability: Apart from the forces that pull organizations to stability, there exist

powerful forces of division and decentralization, which pull organizations to

instability126

.

By the term unstable equilibrium, we mean an equilibrium state of a system in

which the system, if disturbed, does not tend to return to its former equilibrium, but it

tends to move farther away from it, as, for instance, the body A in the following

figure.

Unstable equilibrium

Let us consider an organization X. If sufficiently strong forces of division and

decentralization are exerted on the formal system of X, then X becomes fragmented

and unstable127

. Moreover, even if the formal system of X is stable, the informal

system of X may be pulled towards instability by even more powerful forces. It

should be mentioned that informal systems are a device not only for security and

conformity but also for satisfying human desires for innovation, individuality

(experience of existential ‘otherness’) and isolation from the environment.

If informal systems are dominated by behaviour patterns that refer to innovation,

individuality and isolation from the environment, then they pull the entire

organization to fragmentation and instability. According to the terminology of

organization theory, the attractor to instability means that positive feedback128

125

For more details, see: Danny Miller, The Icarus Paradox –How Excellent Organizations

Can Bring About Their Own Downfall, New York: Harper Business, 1990; R.T. Pascale,

Managing at the Edge –How Successful Companies Use Conflict to Stay Ahead, London:

Viking Press, 1990. 126

P.R. Lawrence and J.W. Lorsch, op. cit. (ref. 122). 127

Danny Miller, op. cit. (ref. 125). 128

A system is said to exhibit ‘positive feedback’, in response to perturbation, if it acts to

increase the magnitude of the perturbation. In social-economic systems, positive feedback

effects may also be referred to as ‘virtuous’ or ‘vicious’ cycles.

53

behaviour, such as political interaction and organizational defense mechanisms, cause

disorder in the system129

.

Kairic point: The alternative to either stability or instability lies in the border between

them –namely, at a kairic point. When an organization is at a kairic point, both

negative and positive feedback, both stability and instability, operate simultaneously.

According to the terminology of organization theory, at a kairic point, the formal

system of an organization operates in a stable way in order to secure the survival and

the efficient operation of the specified organization, whereas the informal system of

the specified organization operates in an unstable way in order to cause change. For

an organization to be open to change and innovative, its informal system –namely, its

organizational culture and the shifting network of social and other informal

interactions among people within an organization and across its borders– must be at

the edge of chaos, and it must be managed according to the dialectic of kairicity130

.

The term ‘edge of chaos’ was coined by mathematician Doyne Farmer in order to

describe the transition phenomenon that was discovered by computer scientist

Christopher Langton131

. In science in general, the term ‘edge of chaos’ refers to a

situation in which a system operates in a region between order and either complete

randomness or chaos, where complexity is maximal, as shown in the following figure.

Edge of chaos

129

Chris Argyris, Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organizational

Learning, Boston: Allen & Bacon, Prentice-Hall, 1990. 130

See: R.D. Stacey, Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics, London: Pitman,

1993. 131

Christopher Langton, “Computation at the Edge of Chaos”, Physica, Vol. 42, 1990, pp. 12-

37.

54

The informal system of an organization operates according to the dialectic of

kairicity when opposing behavioural patterns are simultaneously present and the logic

of the system does not eliminate the existential otherness of the system’s members132

.

If an organization is attracted only to the state of behaviour that we call stability,

then it will stop being creative; in fact, Cornelius Castoriadis has argued that: “if the

system were actually able to change individuals into things moved only by economic

‘forces’, it would collapse not in the long run, but immediately…A factory in which

the workers were really and totally mere cogs in the machine…would come to a stop

in a quarter of an hour”133

. If an organization is attracted only to the state of behaviour

that we call instability, then it will be dissolved.

An organization can remain simultaneously orderly and changeable if and only if

the disorderly dynamics of antithesis and dialogue produce a viable new synthesis, i.e.

if and only if it operates according to the dialectic of kairicity.

The dynamics of complex interdependence

The dynamics of complex interdependence, which is associated with globalization,

can be analysed by means of the concept of a Boolean network134

. A Boolean network

is a particular kind of sequential dynamical system, where time and states are discrete.

In the 1970s, complex systems researcher Stuart Alan Kauffman studied organization

and dynamics properties of Boolean networks, and he found out that highly connected

networks behave differently than lowly connected ones. In this way, we can also

analyse Émile Durkheim’s concept of “dynamic density”135

–namely, the quantity,

velocity and diversity of transactions– as a determinant of change in world politics.

A Random Boolean Network (RBN) consists of N randomly connected nodes, each

of which has a binary state: ‘on’ (1) or ‘off’ (0), as shown in the following figure. In

RBNs, every node receives exactly K inputs chosen randomly from other nodes in the

network (each node has its own randomly chosen local state transition rule). The state

of each node in the specified RBN at time t+1 is determined by the states of its inputs

at time t through a randomly generated Boolean function. In an RBN, the Boolean

function for each node maps each of the 2K possible input combinations to an output

state of 0 or 1.

132

See: Ikujiro Nonaka, “Creating Organizational Order Out of Chaos: Self-renewal in

Japanese Firms”, California Management Review, Vol. 30, 1988, pp. 57-73; M.M. Waldrop,

Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos, London: Viking, 1992. 133

Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, London: Polity Press, 1987

(originally published in 1975 by Éditions du Seuil), p. 16. 134

S.A. Kauffman, “Antichaos and Adaptation”, Scientific American, August 1991, pp. 78-

84; S.A. Kauffman, Origins of Order: Self-organization and Selection in Evolution, Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1993. 135

Dietrich Rueschemeyer, “On Durkheim’s Explanation of the Division of Labor”, The

American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 88, 1982. According to John G. Ruggie, such changing

patterns of interdependence could affect world politics even without changes in the structure

of the system, narrowly defined. See: J.G. Ruggie, op. cit. (ref. 92).

55

Example of the topology of a Random Boolean Network

Suppose that each node in a network is randomly connected to others and randomly

assigned a different decision-making rule. Moreover, suppose that we randomly

assign different initial conditions. When every node is connected to every other, the

whole system is attracted to instability (and it may exhibit chaos, which means

persistent instability). When each node is connected to only two others and random

decision rules are assigned to every node, the whole system is attracted to stability.

Furthermore, it should be mentioned that, at a kairic point (at the edge of chaos), the

system behaves in a different manner: coherent structures that grow, split apart, and

recombine in different patterns136

, because the system is at the edge of chaos and it is

managed according to the dialectic of kairicity.

The mutual interactions among the members of a human organization have the

character of a deterministic nonlinear feedback system137

. In any deterministic

nonlinear feedback system, actors must necessarily move around nonlinear feedback

loops, which are formed by the corresponding balance of power or institutional

framework (this is why we call such systems ‘deterministic’). On the other hand,

every time an actor moves around such a loop, he is free to transform, ignore or even

overthrow the given balance of power or institutional framework (this is the essence

of nonlinearity and complexity in international relations). Actors follow decision-

making rules and concrete models of behaviour, but these rules and these models

allow freedom of choice, i.e. they are subject to change (this is why, for instance,

human history includes business innovations, social revolutions, changes in

legislation, changes in morals and customs, creation and collapse of world orders,

etc.).

As we have already explained, the consequences that free choice has for the system

can be divided into the following three categories:

(i) stable outcomes (generalized conformism);

136

For a mathematically rigorous study of these patterns, see: Stephen Wolfram, “Computer

Software in Science and Mathematics”, Scientific American, September 1986, pp. 188-203. 137

By definition, in every feedback loop, information about the result of a transformation or

an action is sent back to the input of the system in the form of input data. In human systems,

feedback loops are nonlinear primarily because of the following reasons: (i) conscious states

are characterised by subjectivity; (ii) an action can be followed by several possible outcomes;

(iii) there are structural causes (group behaviour is something more than the mere sum of

individual behaviours); (iv) small changes can escalate and lead to outcomes of major

significance.

56

(ii) unstable outcomes (all political actors constantly change the rules that

govern their behaviour; when ‘paradox’138 becomes the central issue of

political analysis, political actors are treated as systems out of equilibrium,

and their dynamics are characterised by disorder and evolve through

political processes139 according to a dialectic manner140 and exhibit a series

of crises141);

(iii) kairic state (when a nonlinear feedback system operates in a state

characterised by kairicity, then its behaviour is simultaneously

characterised by stability and instability).

Beyond rational choice theory

In the light of the arguments that we put forward in Chapter 1, when human action

is an autonomous activity, it takes place according to the intentionality and especially

according to the kairicity of the actor’s consciousness.

The links between the consciousness of action and the object of action are known

as ‘values’. Louis Lavelle142

has explained the difference between the terms ‘value’

and ‘price’ as follows: a price is a fact whereas a value is a judgment (an act of

consciousness). Additionally, R. Polin143

has argued that a value is the “centre of

interest” towards which consciousness is oriented whenever it is engaged in a

practical activity. Hence, values transcend action and simultaneously they are

embedded in action, since values constitute the structure of action, and action

confirms the existence of values.

The philosophies of value can be divided into two general categories: objectivist

theories of value and subjectivist theories of value.

René Le Senne144

has summarized several objectivist theories of value and has

argued that values are not mere creations of consciousness, because the fact that

consciousness searches for values implies that consciousness is unable to provide its

own self with values. Similarly, Gabriel Marcel145

has argued that each value is a

particular mode of being, which enriches the set of the basic modes of being that are

studied in ontology.

138

Charles Hampden-Turner, Charting the Corporate Mind, New York: Free Press/

Macmillan, 1990. 139

Andrew Pettigrew, The Awaking Giant, Oxford: Blackwell, 1985. 140

R.T. Pascale, op. cit. (ref. 125). 141

Danny Miller, op. cit. (ref. 125). 142

Louis Lavelle, Traité des Valeurs –Théorie Générale de la Valeur, Paris: PUF, 1951; see

also: J.J. Kockelmans (ed.), Contemporary European Ethics, New York: Anchor Books,

1972. 143

J.J. Kockelmans (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 142). 144

R.W. Sellars, “The Spiritualism of Lavelle and Le Senne”, Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research, Vol. 11, 1951, pp. 386-393; René Le Senne, Le Mensenge et le

Caractère, Paris: F. Alcan, 1930. 145

Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society, trans. G.S. Fraser, St Augustine’s Press, 2007.

57

In contrast to the objectivist theories of value, the subjectivist theories of value

stress the right of each and every conscious being to formulate and defend its values

according to its free will. Sartre146

argues that one’s personal freedom is the ultimate

foundation of values and that no value system is mandatory. For Sartre, the human

being is free because it is not a self (an “in-itself”) but a presence-to-self (the

transcendence or “nihilation” of one’s self). Hence, we are “other” to ourselves, and,

irrespective of what we are or what others ascribe to us, we are “in the manner of not

being it”. According to Sartre, we are responsible for our “world”, we create our

“world”, as our existential horizon, and, therefore, our value system stems from our

life-orienting fundamental “choice”.

In the light of kairology and particularly in the light of the dialectic of kairicity,

which was defended in Chapter 1, the objectivist philosophy of value and the

subjectivist philosophy of value are the two components of the kairological

philosophy of value. According to the kairological philosophy of value, consciousness

is the source of values, consciousness is experienced by itself as the ultimate (i.e. the

supreme) value and as the model for the creation of every other value, but, once

created by consciousness, values constitute a separate mental world147

. Furthermore,

within the framework of a dynamic process of objectivation, values are objectivated

in the fields of language, science, art, action and history.

After their creation by consciousness, values must be objectivated because only

then can consciousness look at them from some distance and, hence, experience them

more fully. According to Lavelle, every value is the object of a desire and of a

judgment, and, therefore, the objectivation of values creates the necessary conditions

for the expression of desire and judgment: consciousness takes some distance from

the values that it creates in order to experience its attraction to them, and values have

a tendency to return to consciousness. In the context of the previous dialectical game,

consciousness acts kairically, because it creates a mental world in which

consciousness moves towards values and values move towards consciousness148

.

Thus, values are determined by the kairicity of consciousness.

Through values and due to values, man is aware that he is not necessarily

determined by the ‘physical objectivity’, but he can control and change the physical

conditions of his existence, instead of being passively controlled by them.

The existence of the human being takes place in the physical realm through natural

functions of the body and the mind149

, but consciousness can intervene in the fields of

146

J.-P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. H.E. Barnes, New York: Washington Square

Press, 1992 (originally published in French in 1943). 147

Evangelos Moutsopoulos, “Fondement ontologique et fondement existentiel des valeurs –

Approche phénomenologique”, Diotima, Vol. 11, 1983, pp. 149-152. 148

Ibid. 149

John Searle has made the following observations: “consciousness…is caused by

neurobiological processes”, but “conscious mental states and processes have a special feature

not possessed by other natural phenomena, namely, subjectivity. It is this feature of

consciousness that makes its study so recalcitrant to the conventional methods of biological

and psychological research”; John Searle, op. cit. (ref.6), pp. 90, 93.

58

biological functions and impulses in order to improve its existential conditions

according to its intentionality. This is the essence of personhood150

.

In the light of the arguments that we have put forward up to this point, if we restrict

ourselves to the rationality postulate without making any additional assumptions, then

we find ourselves on the path to empirically insignificant political theories. Rational

choice theory is intrinsically defective because it treats human beings as if they were

like units of a system, which operates autonomously from the intentionality of human

consciousness. On the other hand, kairology –namely, the methodical study of the

kairicity of consciousness– shows that political reality and reality in general are

characterised by plasticity, and they are submissive to the intentionality of human

consciousness.

Kairopolitics is concerned with the study of the relationship between the political

world as a tank of opportunities and the political actor’s consciousness as a tank of

intentions. From the viewpoint of kairopolitics, the keystone of policy analysis is the

political actors’ ability to restructure and utilize political reality according to the four-

fold dialectic of kairicity.

150

John Searle has mentioned that “conscious states always have a content. One can never

just be conscious, rather when one is conscious, there must be an answer to the question,

‘What is one conscious of?’”; John Searle, op. cit. (ref.6), p. 84. Additionally, see: John

Campbell, Reference and Consciousness, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.

59

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