Global Constitutionalism (2020), 9:1, 158–168 © Cambridge University Press, 2020 doi:10.1017/S204538171900042X 158 Theorising praxis and practice(s). Notes on Silviya Lechner’s and Mervyn Frost’s Practice Theory and International Relations gunther hellmann Goethe University – Campus Westend – PEG-Gebäude, Institute of Political Science – Box 24, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, D-60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany Email: g.hellmann@soz.uni-frankfurt.de Abstract: Silviya Lechner’s and Mervyn Frost’s book Practice Theory and International Relations offers a new approach to theorise international relations in terms of ‘practices’. It is a welcome contribution to an intensifying debate about ‘praxis’, ‘practice’ and ‘practices’ because Lechner and Frost actually engage key authors of praxis, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, who, in IR, have often only been referenced in passing. While the rediscovery of Wittgenstein as praxis theorist is welcome, the reading of his approach to praxis is irritating because ‘internalism’ and ‘descriptivism’ – two concepts which Lechner and Frost highlight as central in both Wittgenstein’s work and their new practice theory – are interpreted in ways which are difficult to reconcile with Wittgenstein’s late philosophy. This critique offers a different reading of Wittgenstein’s approach to praxis and argues that such an alternative reading opens up an understanding of praxis which, if adopted more widely, would also free IR theorising from self-imposed strictures. Keywords: practice theory; praxis; Wittgenstein; descriptivism; ordinary language philosophy The unspeakable diversity of all the everyday language games does not enter our consciousness, because the clothing of our language makes them all alike. The New (Spontaneous, ‘Specific’) is always a language-game. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1 1 Wittgenstein 2009 (1953), Philosophy of Psychology (henceforth PP) § 335; fragment xi, at 236), my translation; the German original reads as follows: ‘Die unsägliche Verschiedenheit aller der tagtäglichen Sprachspiele kommt uns nicht zum Bewußtsein, weil die Kleider unserer Sprache alles gleichmachen. Das Neue (Spontane, ‘‘Spezifische’’) ist immer ein Sprachspiel.’ The English translation provided in Wittgenstein 2009 (1953) PP, xi, 236 e is somewhat different. https://doi.org/10.1017/S204538171900042X Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core . IP address: 176.198.167.180, on 02 Apr 2020 at 15:22:46, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms .