The Conceptual Neighborhood

Abstract

We have, so far, outlined a theory of truces and defended it against charges of cynicism and appeasement. We have also established that truce thinking has a “deep” history in the West’s intellectual tradition. It is now time to situate truce thinking in a more contemporary “intellectual neighborhood.” In this chapter I examine how it is related to recent debates in political philosophy and international relations theory. Specifically, I examine its ties to the “political theory of modus vivendi” developed since the start of this century by thinkers such as John Gray and John Horton, to philosophical accounts of political reconciliation in the aftermath of mass violence, and to discussions about the meaning of containment in international relations. This chapter should both orient the reader as to the place of the proposed theory of truces in the current scholarly literature and further bring into focus, by means of comparison, some of the theory’s most distinctive features.