This book presents a critical view of international law as an argumentative practice that aims to 'depoliticise' international relations. Drawing from a range of materials, Koskenniemi demonstrates how international law becomes vulnerable to the contrasting criticisms of being either an irrelevant moralist Utopia or a manipulable facade for State interests. He examines the conflicts inherent in international law - sources, sovereignty, 'custom' and 'world order' - and shows how legal discourse about such subjects can be described in terms of a small number of argumentative rules. This book was originally published in English in Finland in 1989 and though it quickly became a classic, it has been out of print for some years. In 2006, Cambridge was proud to reissue this seminal text, together with a freshly written Epilogue in which the author both responds to critiques of the original work, and reflects on the effect and significance of his 'deconstructive' approach today.

From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument

From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument.

Interpretive accounting research

The received understanding of Winch’s critique of social science is that he propounded a radically relativist, anti-explanatory and a-critical conception of the legitimate task of ‘social studies’. This conception is presumed to be predicated upon an extension of Wittgenstein’s critique of philosophy. I argue, against this view, that Winch reads Wittgenstein through a Kantian framework, and that in fact he advanced a rigorously essentialist and universalist picture of ‘social phenomena’. It is Winch’s underlying Kantian metaphysics that has made his ideas attractive to contemporary architects of critical social theory, such as Giddens and Habermas. However, in opposition to the latter, and in spite of his Kantianism, I discern in Winch a genuinely critical attitude towards social understanding.

Winch, Wittgenstein and the Idea of a critical social theory

Opladen; Farmington Hills, MI : Budrich UniPress 2012, 460 S. - (Erziehungswissenschaft) - (Berlin, Univ., Diss., 2011 )
Padagogische Teildisziplin: Allgemeine Erziehungswissenschaft; Bildungs- und Erziehungsphilosophie;

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Sollace Mitchell

Papers

The Need for Interpretation: Contemporary Conceptions of the Philosopher's Task