Introduction

Praxis fittingly brings together Friedrich Kratochwil’s lifelong work and passion (! – I use the word passion despite Kratochwil’s reliance on Hume, and later Arendt, to call for ‘sober and cool’ [Kratochwil, 2018: 475] analysis) for anti-theory, or more accurately, a ‘meta-theoretical stance characterized by certain “ontological” assumptions concerning human actions – or praxis’ (Kratochwil, 2018: 18). In this chapter, I call Kratochwil’s stance a ‘theology of action’, and I refer to Kratochwil himself as a ‘prophet of doubt’. Thus, the question mark in the title is not a reflection of my own argument but is instead directed to what Fritz himself might prefer, as he is unlikely ever to refer to himself as a prophet of anything.

I argue, nevertheless, that Kratochwil’s elucidations – throughout his career and culminating in this volume – of the ills of social science theorizing, in particular their philosophical problems and historical inconsistencies, is very like the role of the prophet in Jewish, Christian and Islamic theologies. Of course, it is necessary to state how I see that role and what validity I can claim for my stance. My own ongoing work on religion/ secularism, tensions in Christian ethics, Muslim and Christian ethics in humanitarianism (vis-à-vis neoliberal and security pressures), and interpretation vis-à-vis post-colonial and racialized assumptions in the field of International Relations (IR) have required that I delve more into theology, decoloniality and particular social theory articulations of the ethical vis-à-vis the existence of precarity. In addition, my work has taken me to religious studies and theology, which are two different disciplines that sometimes overlap in their debates but frequently deploy a critical stance towards each other. Both critical social theory and critical theology lead to an appreciation of the prophetic that moves away from the usual, ‘secularized’ understanding of the term. As a result, this chapter on Kratochwil’s opus reflects issues that have arisen in my own investigations on practice over a period of time.