Platonic metaphysics and the ontology of international relations: A sketch

Abstract

This article offers a reading of Plato in light of the recent debates concerning the unique ‘ontology’ of International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline. In particular, this article suggests that Plato’s metaphysical account of the integral connection between human individual, the domestic state and world order can offer IR an alternative outlook to the ‘political scientific’ schema of ‘levels of analysis’. This article argues that Plato’s metaphysical conception of world order can not only provide IR theory with a way to re-imagine the relation between the human, the state and world order, but also Plato’s outlook can highlight or even call into question the post-metaphysical presuppositions of contemporary IR theory in its ‘borrowed ontology’ from modern social science, which can in turn facilitate IR’s re-interpretation of its own ‘ontology’ as well as its distinct contributions to the understanding of the various aspects of the social world and human life.

In an important and much-debated 2016 article, Justin Rosenberg calls for the study of International Relations (IR) to stop relying on ‘an ontology borrowed from Political Science’, and to identify (and develop) its own unique ‘ontological premise’ of ‘the international’ as to ‘reground’ itself in its ‘own ontology’. ¹ In Rosenberg’s view, the most promising candidate for IR’s own unique ‘ontological premise’ is what he calls ‘societal multiplicity’: ‘the multiplicity of coexisting societies’. ² While Rosenberg’s account of IR’s ontology of ‘societal multiplicity’ has generated much debate and discussion, the question of the ‘ontology’ of IR is, of course, not new to IR theory. ³ Since the turn of the century, IR theory has witnessed a series of interesting and important works that reflect on the ontological and epistemological foundations of IR. ⁴ Indeed, one may even trace this quest for ontology back to one of the foundational texts of IR as a discipline: Martin Wight’s ‘Why is there no International Theory?’, first published in this journal in 1960. ⁵

In this classic essay, Wight argues that although the study of the order and nature of the political state known as ‘political theory’ has existed ‘from Plato onwards’, there have been scarcely any accounts of ‘international theory’ which concern the relation between states in the western intellectual tradition let alone the classical world. For according to Wight, ‘while the acknowledged classics of political study are the political philosophers, the only acknowledged counterpart in the study of international relations is Thucydides’. ⁶ There is undoubtedly much truth in this picture of the history of thought. However, against Wight’s claim, this article seeks to derive or even uncover an ‘international theory’ or what Wight’s fellow ‘English School’ colleague Charles Manning would call a ‘social cosmology’ from Plato’s philosophy. ⁷ Instead of (re)reading Plato as a ‘political theorist’ of the domestic state along the lines of conventional reception, ⁸ this article presents an experimental if speculative interpretation of Plato as an ‘international theorist’ or even a ‘social cosmologist’, ⁹ whose insights are particularly of interest for IR’s reflections on its own ontology for two reasons. ¹⁰

First, as Rosenberg notes in his aforementioned article on the unique ontology of IR, the post-Enlightenment idea of the international system – ‘the nation-state, let alone a global sovereign state system’ – is ‘a very recent development in world history’. 11 As opposed to modern (post-)Enlightenment ‘disenchanted’ accounts of the global order, the pre-modern world often assumed there is a metaphysical connection between the order of the cosmos and the order of polities – what Jens Bartelson describes as ‘a very intimate relationship between cosmology and the nature of human community’. ¹² As a thinker whose work postulates – or indeed exemplifies – such a conjunction between cosmology and politics or ethics, Plato can give us a sense of the pre-modern and indeed metaphysical conception of world order as an alternative to the ‘post-metaphysical’ presumptions about the international order that we find in contemporary IR theory. ¹³

Second, following the metaphysical conjunction he posits between cosmology and ethics, Plato’s understanding of the world or cosmos may be said to be first and foremost philosophical (or metaphysical) and only then secondarily political. In Plato’s pre-modern outlook, what we have is an ontological account of the ‘world’ or cosmos which grounds one’s ethical or indeed ‘political’ conception of the state or polis. As opposed to an ‘ontology of political power’ which defines the ‘international’ in terms of the ‘political’, Plato’s philosophy presents us with a directly opposite theoretical framework: Formally speaking, the ‘political’ is not that which grounds the ‘international’ or ‘supra-national’; to the contrary, it is precisely the ontology of the ‘world’ or the ‘cosmic’ which grounds our understanding of the ‘political’. ¹⁴ In this regard, for Plato, the ‘international’ or ‘supra-national’ world order may be said to be ‘supra-political’ both in the sense that it exists at a level above the domestic political state (polis) and in the sense that such an order is not one that is confined to the analysis of politics. ¹⁵

This article begins with a review of Richard Ned Lebow’s engagement with Plato in his endeavour to construct ‘a new ontology’ to ‘develop a theory of international relations’ in A Cultural Theory of International Relations. ¹⁶ While Lebow’s impressive book provides an insightful interpretation of Plato’s famous soul-city analogy in the Republic to develop a framework for IR theory, the first section of this article suggests that Lebow’s focus on the two levels of the individual soul and the domestic state does not fully capture Plato’s metaphysical vision. Drawing on other dialogues such as the Timaeus and the Laws in addition to the Republic, this section argues that Plato in fact extends his soul-city analogy to the level of the cosmos: that instead of just the human individual and the domestic state, Plato’s analogical outlook in fact consists of three levels (the human, the state and the cosmos). After engaging with Lebow’s ambitious work, section two then puts Plato into conversation with Kenneth Waltz. By comparing Plato’s metaphysical conception of the three levels of the human, state and cosmos to Waltz’s influential threefold ‘levels of analysis’, this section suggests that Plato’s ‘macro-microcosmic’ analogical outlook can be understood as an alternative framework for IR to conceive of the relation between three ‘images’ of human, state and world. Lastly, this article concludes by drawing on some insights from the late Nick Rengger to highlight how Plato’s metaphysical outlook can offer perspectives for IR to re-imagine not only its ‘ontological premise’ but also its unique contributions to the study of social reality or indeed what Rosenberg calls ‘human life in general’. ¹⁷

The soul-city analogy and beyond

Whereas Thucydides has received much attention in recent IR scholarship, there has been relatively little literature on Plato and IR theory. ¹⁸ One of the few notable exceptions is Richard Ned Lebow’s treatment of Plato as a philosophical resource for IR in his 2008 book, A Cultural Theory of International Relations. ¹⁹ In this impressive treatise, Lebow seeks to develop a theory of IR grounded in an ancient ‘Greek’ understanding of human nature – or more accurately, the human psyche. According to Lebow, what ‘the Greeks’ offer is a triadic understanding of the human psyche as consisting of three ‘fundamental’ drives: appetite, reason and spirit. These three psychological drives provide for Lebow a useful framework to develop models of ‘ideal-type worlds’ as expressions of these different drives – appetite-based worlds, reason-based worlds and spirit-based worlds – for the analysis of political order. According to Lebow’s critical diagnosis of contemporary IR theory, whereas realism overemphasises ‘reason’ and sees the political world as driven by reason and fear, liberalism overplays the role of ‘appetite’ and understands the world in terms of human appetite and interest. What has been forgotten in modern political thought and IR theory is the third psychic drive of ‘spirit’ which Lebow associates with honour. As such, Lebow sees post-Enlightenment political science and political theory as impoverished with the lack of a ‘spirit-based paradigm’ of analysis that sufficiently accounts for honour – that which human ‘spirit’ strives for – as a key factor and motive for political action. ²⁰

While Lebow does not focus on Plato alone but discusses Plato’s insights alongside those of Thucydides and Aristotle, there are two notable reasons why Plato may be regarded as the most important Greek thinker for Lebow’s thesis in A Cultural Theory. ²¹ First, as Lebow explicitly acknowledges, the triadic classification of human psychic drives he derives from ancient Greek thought is most directly found in and inspired by Plato’s well-known tripartite account of the human psyche – the human ‘soul’ (psuché) – in the Republic. ²² Second, Plato’s well-known soul-city or psyche-polis analogy in the Republic is also the main theoretical model that underlies the connection that Lebow draws between the understanding of the human psyche and of the political world as expressions of the three fundamental psychic drives. ²³

This second point is particularly important for Lebow’s deployment of ancient Greek thought as a resource for developing a theory of IR. ²⁴ For Lebow, Plato’s soul-city analogy provides an alternative theoretical approach to the isolated analysis of different ‘levels’ of political units and structures in the contemporary framework and ethos of ‘levels of analysis’:

Plato and Aristotle explicitly, and Thucydides implicitly, use the traditional Greek three-fold division of the psyche to develop proto-theories of change that bridge levels of analysis. Their core insight is that balance or imbalance at any level of analysis – but especially imbalance – are likely to produce similar changes at adjacent levels of analysis. ²⁵

‘None of these thinkers’, Lebow contends, ‘frames problems in terms of levels of analysis’ – as we often find in IR theory after the field-changing or indeed field-defining work of Kenneth Waltz (as further discussed in the next section). ²⁶

While Lebow’s reading of Plato and other ancient Greek thinkers provides IR theory with many powerful and compelling theoretical insights, his exposition of Plato’s soul-city analogy in the Republic could be extended beyond the levels of the individual psyche and the domestic state and further onto the ‘higher’ level of the cosmos. This expansion of the soul-city analogy onto the structure of the cosmos is found in the interpretation of the Republic’s concluding ‘myth of Er’ in the commentarial tradition of Neo-Platonism. ²⁷ In the reading of prominent Neo-Platonists spanning from Plotinus through Iamblichus to Proclus ‘the Successor’ (as the head of the Platonic Academy in Athens in the fifth century), Plato’s final ‘myth of Er’ about the fate of souls in the afterlife in the Republic is in fact concerned with ‘a principle of order in the cosmos, whereby to each soul is assigned its due, its proper place, above or below, in the order of being’. ²⁸ Just as the individual soul is depicted as a well-ordered community and the polis as the structure of the soul on an enlarged scale throughout the Republic, what the dialogue’s final myth does is to repeat the structure of the soul and city on an even larger scale – in Proclus’ words, ‘the same thought on a still larger scale’ (tà aúta meizónos). ²⁹ Plato’s famous soul-analogy is thereby extended to the entire cosmos: What we find in the traditional neo-Platonic reading of the Republic is a full-scale theory of the soul and city as microcosmic orders.

Although at first glance this reading of the Neo-Platonic commentarial tradition may appear to go far beyond Plato’s written text, the correlation between the structure of the cosmos and the order of the individual soul and city is clear when one reads the Republic alongside other Platonic dialogues such as the Timaeus and the Laws. ³⁰ While the Timaeus is most commonly known as Plato’s treatise of cosmology, ³¹ the dialogue not only begins with a discussion of the composition of the polis as a preamble to its detailed main account of the structure of the cosmos. ³² Moreover, Plato’s account of the cosmos in the Timaeus also concludes with a remark that it belongs to the nature of the human soul to know and assimilate itself to the harmonies and motions of the cosmic order – and for the soul to assimilate itself ‘according to the original nature’ (kata tēn archaian physin). ³³ To the extent that the Timaeus – Plato’s so-called ‘treatise of cosmology’ – is bookended by discussions about the polis and the psyche, one can certainly make a strong case that Plato’s conception of the cosmos is intrinsically bound up with his understanding of the political state as well as the human individual. ³⁴

Indeed, the twentieth-century Plato scholar Paul Friedländer goes so far as to argue that one can only truly understand the myth of Er and indeed the ‘entire construction’ of the Republic when it is read through the ‘cosmological’ lens of the Timaeus:

As soon as we look forward to the Timaeus. . . the symmetry between individual soul and cosmos is perfectly clear. The structure of the Republic rests entirely upon the homology between soul and state. And it must be a reading in Plato’s sense when we see the final myth as the fulfilment of the entire construction: human soul, state, and cosmos conceived as three forms symmetrically placed around the same centre. . . as man, according to his nature, belongs to the state, so he also seems to belong, according to the same nature, to the cosmos. ³⁵

Now, even if one finds this cosmological if Neo-Platonic interpretation of the Republic and its final myth of Er overly speculative, the intrinsic relation Plato sees between the human soul, state and cosmos is (even more) evident in his other major dialogue on the issue of politics and social order: the Laws. ³⁶

As the title given to the dialogue suggests, the principal theme examined in Plato’s last and longest dialogue is nothing other than ‘laws’. However, ‘laws’ in this dialogue do not simply refer exclusively to written laws of a city-state: Plato notably draws an etymological connection between ‘law’ (nomos) and ‘reason’ (nous, sometimes translated as ‘mind’ or ‘intelligence’) at various points in the dialogue, ³⁷ arguing that the written laws of polities are nothing more than mimetic representations of the unwritten laws of nature of the cosmos. ³⁸ As Glenn Morrow remarks his landmark commentary on the Laws:

Nous then, is the source of law. . . As a cosmic factor, Nous is the source of the orderliness of the heavenly bodies. . . But nous is also a constituent of human nature. . . the highest of various manifestations of intelligence in man. ³⁹

For Plato, to properly follow the law and constitutional order of the ideal city envisioned in the Laws is thus to follow something that is immaterial or indeed unwritten: It is to imitate (mimeisthai) the ideal philosophic life of pure reason. ⁴⁰ With this understanding of the written law of the polis as an imitation or mimesis of the unwritten cosmic laws of reason, Plato’s notion of ‘law’ does not simply refer to the legal regulations of the state or polis, but also to the human being’s individual ‘reason’ as well as the ‘laws of nature’ that belongs to the cosmos. ⁴¹

As such, for Plato, nomos is something that brings together three levels of order: the human, the political and the cosmic. Plato’s famous soul-city analogy in the Republic is thus further developed and expanded in the Laws to the cosmic level. As John Gunnell puts it: ‘From the Republic to the Laws, the correspondence between city and psyche is maintained, but now the analogy extends to the cosmos. . . In the Republic only the individual soul was integrated with the cosmos, but [in the Laws] it is a question of the state as a whole’. ⁴² Just as the Republic speaks of the ordered individual human soul is a kind of image that imitates the political order of the polis, in the Laws, Plato envisions the political order of the domestic state to be one which imitates the ‘supra-political’ structure of the cosmos. Both the soul and the polis are literally microcosms that are brought together by the order of the cosmos. ⁴³

There is thus for Plato an intrinsic macro-microcosmic correlation between soul, city and cosmos: the legal order is at once that which ‘knits together’ (syndésas) different individual citizens within Plato’s ideal city, ⁴⁴ as well as that which aligns the individual citizen beyond the domestic political state with the supra-domestic or indeed supra-political order of the cosmos. ⁴⁵ Underlying Plato’s structural assimilation of the political order to the cosmic order is what Gunnell calls ‘the integration of man, state and cosmos’. ⁴⁶ Just as the ideal political order or constitution (politeia) is said to be the imitation (mimesis) of the ‘most beautiful and best way of life’ in the Laws, ⁴⁷ for Plato, the ‘well-ordered’ macro-microcosmic inter-relation between the human, the political state and the supra-political cosmic order is to be realised through mimesis: the human soul, the polis and the cosmos are to imitate each other – to become ‘images’ of one another. ⁴⁸

Levels of mimesis

If the western intellectual tradition has been a series of footnotes on Plato, then one may be tempted to (mimetically) say that much of the theoretical ‘tradition’ of IR has been ‘a series of footnotes on Waltz’. ⁴⁹ While Kenneth Waltz’s classic work Man, the State, and War (1959) is arguably now slightly dated, as Rosenberg points out in his aforementioned article, its account of ‘levels of analysis’ is unrivalled in terms of its enduring influence on IR theory with its conception of ‘the international as separate from, and counterposed to, the domestic realm’. ⁵⁰ However, as Rosenberg also notes, although Waltz ‘certainly did assert the distinctiveness of the international’, his influential framework for IR theory ‘emphatically did not embrace a wider condition of internationality with implications beyond Political Science’ as it insisted that IR theory ‘had nothing to say [about the domestic social world], except to note how different it was from the world of international politics that existed alongside it’. ⁵¹

While Plato’s ancient account of the world or indeed cosmos cannot be directly equated with Waltz’s third image of the ‘international’ which is generally regarded as the primary or even exclusive subject of study in contemporary IR, some parallels can nonetheless be drawn between Plato’s and Waltz’s respective ‘three-storied’ outlooks. ⁵² In a not dissimilar fashion to the schema of three separate levels of the human individual, the sovereign state and the international system as three distinct ‘images’ in Waltz’s influential ‘levels of analysis’, one can also find in Plato’s macro-microcosmic outlook three levels of the human soul (psyche), the state (polis) and the world (cosmos). ⁵³

However, unlike Waltz’s ‘levels of analysis’ which isolates the different images from each other for independent analysis, ⁵⁴ at the heart of Plato’s macro-microcosmic outlook is what Gunnell calls ‘the integration of man, state and cosmos’, in which the three ‘levels’ of the human, the polis and the cosmos are envisioned to ‘image’ each other in harmonic mimetic pattern. ⁵⁵ For Plato, the ‘third-image’ cosmic order is not to be analysed or understood in isolation from the two other ‘levels’: Contrary to Waltz’s isolation of the third-image of the international, for Plato, it is none other than the ‘third image’ of the cosmic order that provides the ideal theoretical framework for understanding – or even ordering – of the constitution of the ideal polis and human psyche. After all, in the Platonic outlook, the ‘first-image’ human agent as an intellectual being can only come to know and reflect on the various levels by participating in the cosmos in the first place. ⁵⁶ The cosmos is the ontological order, so to speak, that ‘knits together’ the human individual’s relations with other entities – whether they are other humans, non-human agents or indeed the political state. ⁵⁷

However, while the politeiai of Plato’s various ideal cities are to imitate the same universal cosmic order, they are nevertheless explicitly said to have distinct social structures: although both of the cities envisioned in the Republic and Laws may be said to be idealised societies, they have notably different laws and constitutions. As Morrow points out:

[As] an ‘imitation’ of the ideal. . . Plato’s construction [of model city-states] does not preclude the possibility of other constructions, for the ideal can be imitated in many ways and under varying conditions. ⁵⁸

To this extent, what we find in Plato’s ideal depictions of various city-states or social structures across (and within) his dialogues is an overarching metaphysical account of a ‘societal multiplicity’ not dissimilar to that which Rosenberg posits as the unique ‘ontological premise’. ⁵⁹

But unlike Rosenberg’s conception of ‘societal multiplicity’, what we find in Plato’s metaphysical outlook is an alternative ‘macro-microcosmic multiplicity’: Plato’s macro-microcosmic account of multiplicity is one which seeks to find the ‘cosmos’ at multiple levels of structures and entities – not just the ‘third-image’ level international or inter-societal order, but also the levels of states and of individual citizens. ⁶⁰ To quote Friedländer:

The vision to which Plato himself progressed was as follows: he saw the small cosmos included in the large cosmos, and both of them as ‘living souls’, again in necessary mutual relation. . . [as] the perfect human soul reflects the ordered movement of the universe. . . Cosmos is the structure of the world as it is of the state and of the [individual human] soul. ⁶¹

Not only are the three levels or ‘images’ of the human, the state and the world intrinsically interrelated and bound together in Plato’s metaphysical vision, Plato’s conception of the ‘cosmos’ is a structure or order which is in some sense mimetically found at every level of existence across his macro-microcosmic vision. ⁶² Thus, for Plato, the cosmic is not a reified ‘third-image’ level that exists above – and in theoretical isolation from – a ‘second-image’ level of domestic politics. Plato’s theory of the cosmos or indeed of ‘cosmic integration’ is what Friedländer calls ‘frame of reference’ that unifies and underscores the ‘mutual relation’ between the (microcosmic) human individual, the state and the world. As if anticipating Waltz’s remark that international theory offers us a way of ‘viewing the first and second images in the perspective of the third’, ⁶³ Plato’s cosmic ‘third image’ is a framework which sees the world or cosmos not an object of analysis, but as a way or perspective of analysis which brings together different ‘levels’ or ‘images’. ⁶⁴

While one may of course question whether such a metaphysical conceptual framework of the cosmic order can sufficiently explain or account for developments and changes in the international order, it is perhaps not unreasonable to see some kind of correlation between one’s ontological conception of the cosmos and one’s account of human community, as Jens Bartelson has shown in his important study of pre-modern accounts of world order. ⁶⁵ Although Plato’s metaphysical account of the world or cosmos is indeed not directly translatable or convertible with the notion of ‘the international’ in contemporary IR theory, ⁶⁶ the way in which Plato conceives of the interrelation between the three levels of the individual, the state and the world can perhaps still provide IR with some insights as it seeks to reconceptualise its distinct ‘ontological premise’ and its relation to other academic disciplines. ⁶⁷ The ideal integration of human, state and cosmos envisioned in Plato’s macro-microcosmic vision not only highlights the ‘methodological’ conjunction between cosmology and ethics paradigmatic to pre-modern accounts of the world, a comparison with Plato’s metaphysical outlook can moreover bring to light or even call into question some of the meta-theoretical presuppositions that – implicitly or explicitly – underlie the academic study of IR, such as the ‘post-metaphysical’ framework which largely dominates contemporary IR theory and modern social sciences more broadly. ⁶⁸

Conclusion

In a review of Rosenberg’s earlier work, the late Nick Rengger argues that although ‘Rosenberg stand[s] outside this “mainstream” of contemporary “International Relations” scholarship’, he nonetheless remains ‘firmly in the mainstream of Enlightenment social science’ which is part of the broader ‘post-metaphysical turn’ in contemporary thought. ⁶⁹ Not unlike Rosenberg’s recent portrayal of the ‘imprisoned’ state of IR scholarship, in this review Rengger alludes to Plato’s famous allegory of the cave (and its prisoners) in the Republic to describe the ‘post-metaphysical’ condition of IR scholarship. ⁷⁰ Rengger notes:

Some [prisoners] insist that the cave is all there is, but others claim that there is light outside the cave and that, perhaps, it is only because of this light that we see in the cave at all. In our current context, let us suggest that most ‘International Relations’ scholarship either assumes that the ‘cave’ – international society, the international system or what you will – is all there is (that is relevant), or is agnostic (and uninterested) concerning the possibility that there might be anything outside. ⁷¹

While Rosenberg sees IR as being ‘trapped within a borrowed ontology’ from political science, ⁷² Rengger argues that IR theory – including (early) Rosenberg’s – is often held captive in the ‘cave’ of the dominant ‘post-metaphysical’ ontological outlook of Enlightenment social science. ⁷³

But whereas Rosenberg argues that the way IR scholarship can escape the ‘prison’ is by identifying a unique or even exclusive ‘ontology’ of its own, Rengger suggests that the way for IR to transcend the ‘cave’ of modern Enlightenment post-metaphysical thinking is by going ‘outside’ and become more engaged with other intellectual disciplines and modes of thinking. ⁷⁴ In particular, Rengger holds that one specifically fruitful way to look ‘outside’ the post-metaphysical cave of Enlightenment social science – and, by extension, the ‘prison’ of political science – is by seeking inspiration from ‘older’ ideas of thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle, who ‘see politics and ethics as integrally connected with one another, and indeed with questions in metaphysics and even wider areas of the human sciences’. ⁷⁵

However, according to Rengger, such an emphasis on the integral connection between these different intellectual disciplines does not necessarily entail the collapse of the distinction between ‘domestic’ politics and ‘international’ theory. ⁷⁶ Indeed, as we saw with the possibility of variances between different ideal political structures in Plato’s conception of domestic political order, while there is an intrinsic connection between the orders of the ideal polis and of the cosmos in the Platonic outlook, Plato’s macro-microcosmic vision is by no means advocates a monolithic ideal order to be imposed on all domestic states which would eradicate any meaningful distinctions between the ‘domestic’ and the ‘international’. ⁷⁷ Nonetheless, if the ‘international’ is, as Rosenberg submits, fundamentally ‘a feature of human existence’, ⁷⁸ then the study of IR must always already be connected to the questions of (‘domestic’) politics, ethics and metaphysics, insofar as they all pertain to a concern with what Rosenberg calls ‘the human world’. ⁷⁹

Of course, one does not need to draw on Plato or classical metaphysics to come to such conclusions or make such observations. ⁸⁰ However, as alluded to above, Plato’s metaphysical account of the human, state and cosmos can bring to light or even at times challenge the (implicit) meta-theoretical presuppositions of different theories within IR scholarship, such as the dominant ‘post-metaphysical’ outlook highlighted by Rengger. Such critical attention on the meta-theoretical assumptions of IR theory would obviously be key to the search for IR’s unique ‘ontology’ insofar it would reveal what kind of theories or even theorists are presumed to be off limits for the theorisation of IR. Undoubtedly, some ‘post-metaphysical’ IR theorists would deem Platonic metaphysics too speculative or indeed too ‘unscientific’ for IR theory. However, as we saw with Lebow’s turn to Plato in his search for ‘a new ontology’ to ‘develop a theory of international relations’ (in section one), ⁸¹ Platonic thought has much to offer contemporary IR theory in its quest for its own ‘ontology’. For Plato’s micro-macrocosmic outlook not only presents a three-storied metaphysical picture which parallels Waltz’s influential ‘levels of analysis’ (as we saw in section two). Moreover, insofar as much of the intellectual tradition may be regarded as a series of footnotes on Plato – just as the theoretical ‘tradition’ of IR has been said to be ‘a series of footnotes on Waltz’, ⁸² taking inspiration from Plato would give IR theory a useful common ground in its conversation with other academic disciplines and schools of thought. ⁸³ Indeed, such conversations and dialogues with other subjects are crucial for IR in its reflection on its ‘ontology’ in terms of both its similarities with and differences from the ‘ontological premises’ of other intellectual disciplines as well as the unique contributions IR can make to our understanding of ‘social reality’ or indeed the ‘human world’. ⁸⁴

In his response to commentators on his aforementioned article on the unique ontology of IR, Rosenberg speaks of three levels of theory: (1) theories which generate specific hypotheses about actual historical events and international phenomena, (2) ‘grand theories’ like realism or Rosenberg’s own preferred theory of uneven and combined development which offer models of how various international phenomena may be connected in a systematic way and (3) some even ‘grander’ theory at a ‘third, “ontological”, level’ which ‘specifies IR’s distinctive contribution to social theory’ and makes ‘a “grander” IR claim about human life in general’. However, according to Rosenberg’s reading, such a ‘crucial, discipline-defining moment of “grander theory” has ‘never happened in IR’. ⁸⁶ Although Plato’s metaphysical account of the cosmic order is obviously not a theory that can produce specific hypothesis about the international arena in the twenty-first century (like Rosenberg’s level-one theories) or give a systematic account of how different contemporary international phenomena are connected (like Rosenberg’s level-two ‘grand theories’), it is without a doubt one that is intimately concerned with the ‘grander’ claims about what Rosenberg would call ‘human life in general’. ⁸⁷

Indeed, as this article has sought to show, Plato’s reflections on ‘human life in general’ are not limited to the levels of the individual psyche and the political state but extend to a supra-political or supra-statist level of the cosmos. While Plato’s account of the cosmic order is not, as noted above, directly translatable or applicable to the contemporary realm of ‘the international’ as we know it, his account of the integral connection between the human, the state and the world provides us with a theoretical model where the world or the cosmic – or even, if you will, the ‘international’ – order plays the role of a unifying ‘frame of reference’ which highlights aspects of ‘human existence’ that are not reducible to the levels of the individual psyche or the domestic state. ⁸⁸ If IR is indeed – as Rosenberg contends – concerned with ‘the international’ as a fundamental feature of human existence per se, then an engagement with Plato’s philosophical reflections can not only highlight the unique contributions which IR as the study of ‘the international’ can make to our understanding of ‘human life in general’. ⁸⁹ Even if Plato’s account of the cosmic order may not be able directly provide IR with the ‘crucial, discipline-defining moment of “grander theory” that has simply never happened in IR’, ⁹⁰ perhaps the grandiose scope and imaginative vision of Plato’s macro-microcosmic outlook can at the very least provide contemporary IR scholarship some inspiration and illuminating ideas to develop the ‘grander’ theoretical endeavours envisioned by Rosenberg and his fellow-travellers in the quest for IR’s unique ontology. ⁹¹