Ex Nihilo in Mundum: A Reply to Paipais
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829816630080 |
| Author | Sergei Prozorov |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Solicited Article |
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2016, Vol. 45(1) 72 –79
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829816630080
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Ex Nihilo in Mundum: A Reply
to Paipais
Sergei Prozorov
University of Helsinki, Finland
Abstract
In this reply to Vassilios Paipais’s review of my Void Universalism books I focus on two main points
of my disagreement with Paipais. The first concerns the possibility of deriving universalist axioms
of world politics from the ontology of the void discussed in the first volume, Ontology and World
Politics. While Paipais rejects such a possibility and posits a contentless ontology of the political, I
argue that it is possible to derive from void ontology the political axioms of community, equality
and freedom understood as attributes of indiscernible ‘whatever being’. The second pertains
to the limitations on the world-political subject addressed in the second volume, Theory of the
Political Subject. While Paipais is entirely correct in arguing that my notion of political subjectivity
combines purism on the level of content with prudentialism with regard to form, I demonstrate
that this combination is not a contradiction but is rather the precondition of politics as free
praxis, whereby the politicisation of particular worlds in accordance with universal axioms always
remains up to the subject.
Keywords
ontology, universalism, subjectivity
I am thankful to Vassilios Paipais for his incisive and stimulating review of my Void
Universalism books, which not only succeeded in succinctly addressing the key issues
raised in the two books but also launched what I very much hope will be a wider debate
about the relation between ontology and world politics. In this response I will address
two main points of my disagreement with Paipais. The first concerns the possibility of
deriving universalist axioms of world politics from the ontology of the void discussed in
Corresponding author:
Sergei Prozorov, Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 37,
Helsinki, 00014, Finland.
Email: sergei.prozorov@helsinki.fi
630080MIL0010.1177/0305829816630080Millennium: Journal of International StudiesProzorov
research-article2016
Solicited Article
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