Towards a phenomenological ontology of war

Abstract This paper offers a critique of war from an existentialist-phenomenological perspective. Drawing on Martin Heidegger’s theory of ontology and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception, it develops a framework which integrates war and the body – and thus ontology and embodiment – in Critical War Studies. Two arguments are advanced: first, that war is in so far as we embody it (implying that the way in which we embody it determines the way in which it is ); second, that the embodiment of war is essentially an agential activity. Thereby, this paper provides impetus for an ontological and moral re-avowal of war in critical academic discourse (for understanding war not primarily as a tragic fate but as our shameful doing). This, in turn, facilitates new perspective for interpretation and critique – to the extent, for example, that understanding the logic of war’s agential embodiment discloses what would constitute, and be necessary for, its disembodiment. Moreover, the paper points to clear possibilities for future research – for clarifying, for instance, the ontological upheaval latent in the prospect of future war.