engleski

War and 'dediscoursation': a research frame

Drawing on a number of examples, the paper gives a brief introductory outline of the theory of ‘dediscoursation’ which attempts to explain an important part of the genealogy of war. The theory is set on discourse-ethical premises, but it is not couched in terms of strict and inflexible rules that define discursive rights and duties in the fashion of Jürgen Habermas. As the theory stipulates, a rationally motivated loss of faith in the use of discourse as a problem-solving means, that is followed and underlined by deterioration of a discursive agent’s moral standing, plays an important causal role in the genealogy of armed conflict.The paper contends that such deterioration of moral standing can be satisfactorily explained only in terms of the violation of four key parameters, or key values/functions, of moral matrix of language: ‘meaning’, ‘truth’, ‘reason-giving’, and ‘promising’ (Part I). This simple theoretical frame can be appropriately diversified in a number of ways as argued in the first section of Part II of the paper. The second section of Part II places the theory in relation to some major perspectives on war and contrasts it with some contemporary theorizations of language as related to violent conflict. Most importantly, the section states the theory’s adherence to a long rhetorical and humanistic tradition of recognizing Logos (i.e. reasonable discourse) as a distinctive mark of humanity, and points to some avenues towards further development and corroboration of the theory.

the causes of war theory ; "dediscoursation" ; discourse-ethics ; a skeleton of theory

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