A rival Enlightenment?

What is it about?

This article proposes an understanding of critical international theory as a historical rather than philosophical mode of knowledge. It takes seriously the programmatic statements of Robert Cox to engage with realism and historicism and then builds on the method of contextual intellectual history to recover historical modes of theorising international relations that extend from Renaissance humanism through Absolutist historiography to Enlightenment civil histories.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Critical international theory (CIT) has been dominated by various normative, reflexive and social philosophies as if theory were the exclusive source of philosophy. This article challenges the dominant assumption that philosophy alone is in a position to decide what counts as 'theory', 'international', and 'critical'. It seeks to rehabilitate history and historiography as crucial resources for critical international theory by recovering a rival Enlightenment as a source of CIT.