Ideas y Valores (Dec 2014)

The Finitude of War or the Infinite War

  • Alexander Muriel Restrepo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.15446/ideasyvalores.v63n156.37250
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 63, no. 156
pp. 223 – 241

Abstract

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On the basis of the difference between M. Foucault and Th. Hobbes regarding war as a principle and foundation of power, the article shows the importance of this conceptual difference for contemporary political analyses. Foucault argues that in modern Western societies, the political community and, more specifically, politics itself, has been the space of a war waged by other means. By extension, this thesis entails the inversion of von Clausewitz’s principle, namely, that war is the continuation of politics by other means.

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