War/Truth: Foucault, Heraclitus and the hoplite Homer

This article extends and critiques Michel Foucault's political sociology of war by taking it beyond its modern subjects. Positioning his work alongside Homer, Heraclitus and Plato, it analyses relations between war, truth and race in the transition from Archaic to Classical Greece. In doing so, it approaches philosophical texts as direct reflections on specific historical experiences of war, making the case for a political theory of fighting as a necessary and under-developed aspect of critical war studies. Such an approach, the article concludes, opens up new scholarly possibilities for the political sociology of war and resources political intervention against war-waging powers whose authority-inside and outside the academy-derives from a supposedly authoritative relation to the history and conduct of fighting.