Introduction

The Introduction sets out the approach to intellectual history adopted in the book. Influenced by the Cambridge School intellectual historians—Quentin Skinner and J. G. A. Pocock—the chapter defends a contextual and empirical approach designed to avoid the anachronism and presentism that often mar studies of international relations theory and to situate theoretical developments and receptions in argumentative context. The chapter also pursues two further objectives. First, to distance itself from the dialectical-philosophical approaches that dominate critical international theories informed by German idealism and historical materialism. Second, following Ian Hunter’s investigations into the ethico-spiritual exercises performed on the self to problematize prior ethical imperatives and social comportments, the Introduction directs attention to the cultivation of the critical intellectual persona through exercises in philosophical self-fashioning.