CAUSES OF WAR

Abstract

Since the beginning of its history philosophy deals with the question for the meaning of war. This question, however, was always understood as the question for the causes of war: Why is there war? Where does it come from? The article presupposes that only this question and the attempts to respond to it can shed light onto the interpretation of the historical reality of war, which is finally the only reason to reflect on its causation. The article refers to a set of notions and texts, which belong to a discourse on war unfolding through the centuries of European thinking. These notions are: contradictions (Heraclitus), body (Plato), justice (nature) (Cicero), nature (Hobbes), right (Hegel), politics (Clausewitz), and morals (C. Schmitt). Even if this sequence is only one possible sequence of the philosophical reflection on warfare, I consider it to be one of greater importance. We see, how a plurality of causes creates a context, in which we could try to analyze actual events: For it is evident that no war has only one reason. And the article has finally one other intention, namely to show that probably every possible sequence of causes of war will have the same consequence. This con-sequence will be the final destruction of the world, the coming of the ash.