Fictive Theories

Exploring the work of fictions in political theories, McManus (political theory, Queen's U., Belfast) considers the epistemological status those fictions claim, and the effects that they secure. She proposes that political theory has worked within epistemologically conservative forms of knowledge, and that the claims to knowledge of political theory are claims to power that work toward coherence, containment, and control. In trying to ground political theory in substantive norms such as nature and the real, she says, this mode of theorizing effaces, negates, and forgets its own creative epistemology. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR