Reason, Culture, Religion The Metaphysics of World Politics

by Pettman, Ralph

• ISBN13: 9781403965059
• ISBN10: 1403965056
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-04-03
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

In this book, Pettman calls for wider recognition of, and greater commitment to, the "new" international relations, a discipline much more comprehensive and cosmopolitan than the "old". He first documents the way modernist analysts describe and explain world politics.The book then explores two ways in which the constraints on modernist thinking are transgressed: communalist ("pre-modernist") alternatives to the modernist project and sacralist ("anti-modernist") alternatives to the Christian tradition of which the modernist project is a part. It examines the implications these two ways of thinking has for world affairs. In the end, Pettman foreshadows the form of a field that does not yet exist, namely, a study of world affairs worthy of the name.

Author Biography

Ralph Pettman holds the foundation Chair of International Relations at the Victoria University of Wellington. A graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, his previous appointments include teaching and research posts at the University of Tokyo, Princeton University, and the Australian National University, as well as administrative posts at the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau and the Australian Human Rights Commission. Among his published works are: Commonsense Constructivism, or the Making of World Affairs (2000), Understanding International Political Economy, with readings for the fatigued (1996), State and Class: a Sociology of International Affairs (1976), and Human Behavior and World Politics: a Transdisciplinary Introduction (1975). He is currently writing a phenomenology of world affairs.

Table of Contents

Preface * Introduction: The Metaphysics of World Affairs * Modernity* World Affairs - the modernist project * World Affairs - the movie * Community* The World Politics of World Heritage * The World Politics of World Heritage - Japan* Spirituality* Taoist Strategics * Buddhist Economics * Islamic Civics * Confucian Marxism * Hindu constructivism * Pagan feminism * Animist environmentalism * Conclusion: A World Affairs for All the World

Preface * Introduction: The Metaphysics of World Affairs * MODERNITY * World Affairs - the modernist project * World Affairs - the movie * COMMUNITY * The World Politics of World Heritage * The World Politics of World Heritage - Japan* SPIRITUALITY* Taoist Strategics * Buddhist Economics * Islamic Civics * Confucian Marxism * Hindu constructivism * Pagan feminism * Animist environmentalism * Conclusion: A World Affairs for All the World