The Importance of Being Ironic: A Postcolonial View on Critical International Relations Theory

Abstract

In oppositions such as meaning/form, soul/body, intuition/ expression, literal/metaphorical, nature/culture, intelligible/ sensible, positive/negative, transcendental/empirical, serious/ nonserious, the superior term belongs to the logos and is a higher presence; the inferior term marks a fall. Logocentrism thus assumes the priority of the first term and conceives the second in relation to it, as a complication, a negation, a manifestation, a disruption of the first.1