Tragedy or Scepticism? Defending the Anti-Pelagian Mind in World Politics

Bibliographic Data

ID4445484
AuthorsNicholas Rengger (University of St Andrews, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume19
Issue3
Pages321-328
Publication date2005-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Relations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-1178 • E-ISSN: 1741-2862
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0047117805055409
OpenAlexW4249215839
LanguageEN
Citations received13

This article discusses the claims of Mervyn Frost and James Mayall that scholars of politics and international relations should take the notion of tragedy much more seriously than they, generally, have done, at least recently. It does this by also considering the arguments in favour of a tragic vision of politics outlined in Ned Lebow's influential restatement of the realist tradition, The Tragic Vision of Politics, and traces these concerns back to their locus classicus in twentieth-century realism, Hans Morgenthau. It then considers Michael Oakeshott's critique of Morgenthau, and argues that to develop an 'anti-Pelagian' political theory (as both Morgenthau and Oakeshott sought to do) we would be better to follow Oakeshott's scepticisms than Morgenthau's sense of the tragic

Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Realism · Skepticism · Social science · Sociology · Tragedy (event) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Philosophy · Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub