The Promise of Ontology: Nihilism for a Pluralist World
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Author | Vassilios Paipais |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829816630079 |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review Article |
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2016, Vol. 45(1) 64 –71
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829816630079
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1. As Prozorov himself notes citing Bruno Bosteels: ‘the original Aristotelian sense of ontol-
ogy as “first philosophy”, a science of “being qua being” frequently gives way to a rather
more loose understanding of ontology in terms of “the basic presuppositions behind a given
politico-philosophical stance, the bedrock of fundamental assumptions and unshakable com-
mitments”, which might better be described as “political anthropology” or even “ideology”’
(See Sergei Prozorov, ‘What Is the “world” in World Politics? Heidegger, Badiou and Void
Universalism’, Contemporary Political Theory 12, no. 2 (2013): 105).
2. See, entirely indicatively, Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life,
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); and Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2005); Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2000); Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Alain Badiou, Being and Event (London:
Continuum, 2005); and Alain Badiou, Theory of the Subject (London: Continuum, 2009).
The Promise of Ontology:
Nihilism for a Pluralist World
Vassilios Paipais
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Sergei Prozorov, Ontology and World Politics: Void Universalism I
(London and New York: Routledge, 2014, 192 pp., $44.95 pbk).
Sergei Prozorov, Theory of the Political Subject: Void Universalism II (London and New York:
Routledge, 2014, 160 pp., $44.95 pbk).
Sergei Prozorov’s two-volume magnum opus, Void Universalism, is one of those works
that appear on the intellectual firmament with the distinctive purpose not simply to cause
a stir, but rather to trigger a revolution in the way we approach and theorise world poli-
tics. The fact that Prozorov’s project has not yet generated the debate that it deserves is
revealing not only of the nature of disciplinary hierarchies, even within critical circles,
but also of the philosophical poverty (with some exceptions, of course) that characterises
meta-theoretical debates in the field.1 Void Universalism bears the potential to change all
this and set us on an ambitious track to address urgent issues surrounding the interpreta-
tion of pluralism in a global era. Indeed, its expressed goal is to challenge us to reconcep-
tualise world politics from the perspective of an ontology of the void that its author
synthesises from the writings of Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Rancière
and, above all, Alain Badiou,2 who casts his shadow over the entire project.
630079MIL0010.1177/0305829816630079Millennium: Journal of International StudiesBook Review
research-article2016
Book Review Article
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