Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T19:41:46.004Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hope behind the critique of grand narratives of collective salvation: remarks on ‘The power of metaphors and narratives’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2020

Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça*
Affiliation:
Law School, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Ciudad de México, Mexico
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Kratochwil criticizes two important teleological global narratives of universal progress – Luhmannian systems theory and jus cogens – and defends the need for a non-ideal and situated approach to law and politics. Despite the cogency of Kratochwil's analysis, why should we place our hope in his pragmatic program given the complexity of actual decision-making? This paper shows that more needs to be said about the role of hope grounding Kratochwil's account. Which hopes are hopeless, and which warranted? Why should we care and ‘go on’, choosing to be prudential and political rather than focusing on one's inner development or pleasure?

Type
Symposium: In the Midst of Theory and Practice: Edited by Hannes Peltonen and Knut Traisbach
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bueger, Christian. 2021. “Meditating Deformalization: Remarks on ‘Of Experts, Helpers, and Enthusiasts’.” International Theory 13 (3): 546–51.Google Scholar
De Wet, Erika. 2013. “Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes.” In The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law, edited by Shelton, Dinah, 541–61. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kratochwil, Friedrich. 2014. The Status of Law in World Society: Meditations on the Role and Rule of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurowska, Xymena. 2021. “Politics as Realitätsprinzip in the Debate on Constitutions and Fragmented Orders: Remarks ‘On Constitutions and Fragmented Orders’.” International Theory 13 (3): 538–45.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas. 1996. Social Systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Onuf, Nicholas. 2021. “Bewitching the World: Remarks on ‘Inter-disciplinarity, the Epistemological Ideal of Incontrovertible Foundations, and the Problem of Praxis’.” International Theory 13 (3): 522–9.Google Scholar
Peltonen, Hannes. 2021. “Sense and Sensibility or: Remarks on the ‘Bounds of (Non)Sense’.” International Theory 13 (3): 581–7.Google Scholar
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa, and Rodriguéz-Garavito, César A.. 2005. “Law, Politics, and the Subaltern in Counter-Hegemonic Globalization.” In Law and Globalization from Below: Towards a Cosmopolitan Legality, edited by de Sousa Santos, Boaventura and Rodriguéz-Garavito, César A., 126. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shade, Patrick. 2001. Habits of Hope: A Pragmatic Theory. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.Google Scholar
Slingerland, Edward. 2003. Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther. 1997. “‘Global Bukowina’: Legal Pluralism in the World Society.” In Global Law Without a State, edited by Teubner, Gunther, 328. Aldershot: Dartmouth.Google Scholar
Traisbach, Knut. 2021. “On Concepts, Conceptions, and Conceptors: Remarks ‘On the Concept of Law’.” International Theory 13 (3): 530–7.Google Scholar
Vilaça, Guilherme Vasconcelos. 2015. “Transnational Law, Functional Differentiation and Evolution.” E-Pública 2 (3): 4083.Google Scholar
Von Bogdandy, Armin, and Dellavalle, Sergio. 2013. “The Lex Mercatoria of Systems Theory: Localisation, Reconstruction and Criticism from a Public Law Perspective.” Transnational Legal Theory 4 (1): 5982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar