The problem of understanding political foundings is situated at the nexus between political philosophy and political science. This thesis rethinks founding by asking both the philosophical question of how political order comes into being, and the political science question of how to understand particular founding moments. These two questions stimulate and structure a dialogue between the works of Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin. The approach of founding in all three has a common starting point: they begin from ordinary experience and outline a political science that is mindful of the phenomenality of political life. I show that Strauss’s return to ordinary experience is partial. By limiting political life to the normative claims raised in it and submitting them to philosophical judgment, Strauss moves too quickly beyond political phenomena. His account of founding, as a consequence, vacillates between understanding particular founding acts and conceiving the perfect founding moment in abstract thought. Arendt’s work decisively shifts the problem on the side of practical understanding. Yet, her ontological account of action as appearance subtly displaces her concern for understanding historical actions. I move away from approaching historical foundings as a mode of appearing in the world, by recovering an account of action as experience. On that basis, I suggest a hermeneutics of experience which approaches foundings in light of the quest for meaning. With Voegelin founding is recovered as a symbol that exists only in the quest of understanding. Founding occurs in the experience of struggle to restore a reality that has become symbolically opaque. This experience is shared by the philosopher and the political actor; therefore to understand moments of founding requires the interweaving, and not separation, of political philosophy and political science. At the end, the quest of understanding founding moments is neither derivative, nor preparatory, but encompassing the philosophical question of how order comes into being.

[pt] Esta dissertação objetiva promover uma possibilidade de reflexão filosófica pós-fundacionista em torno das reconstruções da relação entre legitimidade e legalidade na disciplina de Relações Internacionais (RIs), em interseções pontuais desta com o campo do Direito Internacional (DI). Essa investigação é motivada, em particular, por contexto e discursividade que procuraram reconstituir essa relação em termos da diferença (ex: ilegal, porém legítima) ou semelhança potencial (ex: ilegal, porém legítima, porém quase-legal) entre os dois ente-conceitos, tal como em tentativas de ordenamento epistêmico e político dos eventos relacionados ao uso da força pela Organização do Tratado do Atlântico Norte (OTAN) na região do Kosovo em 1998-1999. Ao longo deste trabalho, tal perspectiva teórico-filosófica pós-fundacionista assumirá diferentes facetas, transitando transdisciplinarmente nos campos da Filosofia (Ludwig Wittgenstein e Jacques Derrida), das Relações Internacionais (construtivismo, pós-colonialismo e pós-estruturalismo) e, pontualmente, do Direito Internacional (estudos críticos legais) e da Sociologia do Conhecimento (etnometodologia), com vistas a deslocar as expectativas quanto à condição ontológica da legitimidade e da legalidade - isto é, ao entendimento destas como ente-conceitos plenos de sentido em si mesmos e articulados com estratégias de ordenamento epistêmico e de delimitação da imaginação política internacional - e, com isso, reconstruir (e não abandonar) o conhecimento e a política da relação legitimidade/ legalidade nas RIs. Investiga-se particularmente a possibilidade de uma reflexão sociológica politicamente engajada com essa relação, ou seja, uma forma de engajamento epistêmico-político na qual a suspensão do sentido do legal e/ou do legítimo configura momento-chave de abertura política a uma sensibilidade investigativa contínua em relação aos limites desenhados pelas tentativas de encerramento de um devido ser do mundo; este, por sua vez, limitadamente articulado enquanto uma impressão sociológica contingente através da performance contextual e discursiva do julgamento normativo vinculado à relação legitimidade/legalidade. / [en] This Master s thesis seeks to promote a possible post-foundational philosophical investigation on the reconstructions of the relation between legitimacy and legality by International Relations (IR), in specific juxtapositions with the field of International Law (IL). This research is especially motivated by those context and discourse that sought to reconstitute this relation in terms of differentiation (e.g. illegal, yet legitimate) or potential similarity (e.g. illegitimate but legitimate, albeit quasi-legal) between the two concepts/entities, such as the attempts to epistemically and politically order the events concerning the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) s use of force in Kosovo in 1998-1999. Throughout this piece, this postfoundationalist theoretical-philosophical perspective takes on different facets, transdisciplinaryly moving around the fields of Philosophy (Ludwig Wittgenstein e Jacques Derrida), International Relations (constructivism, post-structuralism, and post-colonialism) and, occasionally, International Law (critical legal studies) and Sociology of Knowledge (ethnomethodology), while seeking to displace the expectations on the ontological character of legitimacy and legality - i.e. the understanding of them as meaningful concepts/entities in themselves which are intertwined with strategies of epistemic ordering and circumscription of political imagination - and thus to reconstruct (and not to reject) the knowledge and politics of the legitimacy/ legality in IR. This work particularly investigates a possible sociological form of reflection that is politically engaged with this relation, that is, a form of epistemic-political engagement in which the suspension of the meaning of the legitimate and/or the legal constitutes a key moment for a political opening towards a continuing investigative sensibility vis-à-vis the limits that have been designed by the attempts to delimit a right-being of the world; which is in turn limitedly mobilized as a contingent sociological impression through the contextual and discursive performance of a normative judgement attached to the legitimacy/legality relation.

This research seeks to adopt a post-foundationalist practical theology paradigm, as discussed by J C Müller, in order to create a bridge between the three concepts of the pastoral care perspective, the narrative perspective based on social-constructionism and post-foundationalism. Furthermore, I made use of Müller’s seven movements of methodology which laid a strong foundation to base my research on regarding married migrant women living within Korean multicultural families. Korean society which is a homogeneous culture is currently facing many challenges as a result of becoming more and more multicultural. These multicultural issues are becoming major social and political issues in South Korea. The main reason that South Korean society has become more multicultural is because of intercultural marriages which have also resulted in an increase in multicultural families. These migrant women are faced with many kinds of discrimination and prejudice as a result of their different appearance, culture and language. Furthermore, Korean culture often deprives women of having any position above men especially once they are married. After being married a woman should become invisible, voiceless, and nameless in order to become culturally acceptable. This often results in a migrant woman feeling stressed, fearful, isolated and alone which often results in the development of a low self-esteem, a lack of self-confidence and a low self-image. In my research, I sought to listen to and identify the stories of migrant women, namely foreign women who have married Korean men with a focus on the impact on their identities within a Korean multicultural family through a narrative perspective in order to have a positive growth and outcome from their intercultural differences within South Korea. I decided to view my co-researchers not as co-researchers but as companions on a journey which we could undertake together. The use of the metaphors ‘journey’ and ‘companions’ seemed to give my companions the freedom to speak more openly and placed us on an equal level. Furthermore, I not only discovered my companions’ identities through their own stories, but also developed my companions’ true identities/multi-identities through the broader, inter-relational stories of other people within multicultural communities through a six step process of Listening to the voice, Gaining voice, Giving voice, Finding alternative voice, Retelling voice and Creating future voice. I made use of the narrative approach in order to listen to my companions so that a unity would exist between their past, present and future stories. As I listened to the stories of my companions from a narrative perspective new possibilities were opened which lead to alternative and future stories. Furthermore, my companions were given the opportunity to find themselves and make new identities on the real journey of life. Through the process of my research I also developed a multicultural identity model specifically for married migrant women in South Korea, but ultimately the purpose of my research was not to show or develop a multicultural identity model regarding migrant women, but was more to help these migrant women find their identities themselves and in this become self-empowered to become contributors to Korean society. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / Practical Theology / unrestricted