Contingency, Crisis, and the Political: Political Ontology in the Post-Truth Epoch

Dear Colleagues,

The field of political theory stands at a moment of radical epistemic and ontological dislocation: the emergence of the so-called post-truth condition—marked not merely by disinformation or ideological distortion, but by the structural deactivation of truth as a shared ground of discursive legitimacy—demands a critical rethinking of its very foundation. This Special Issue interrogates the post-truth condition not as a contingent anomaly, but as a symptom of a deeper and more fundamental crisis: the exhaustion of metaphysical guarantees—or, more precisely, the destabilization of the very question of foundation in the recent political thought—that once underpinned political order, legitimacy, and meaning. From this perspective, post-truth is not simply a crisis of facts or truth; it is a crisis of political ontology. The central question thus arises: What becomes of political normativity, critique, collective subjectivity, and the political, in general, when truth can no longer serve as a foundational referent?

To address this question, this Special Issue aims to anchor its inquiry into the tradition of post-foundationalist political thought, which holds that the political is grounded neither in necessity—objectivity, a solid and completed foundation or universality—nor in the epistemic nihilism of pure groundlessness and singularity, but in contingent acts of institution, radical negativity, and the ever-present possibility of contestation within an ongoing and unfinished process of grounding. Thinkers such as Claude Lefort, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Judith Butler, Oliver Marchart, Jacques Rancière, and Étienne Balibar have articulated political ontology as fundamentally open and antagonistic, wherein the absence of ultimate grounds is not a deficiency to be overcome but the very condition of democratic politics.

Post-foundationalism offers a crucial framework for confronting the post-truth condition—not as an epistemic anomaly, but as a symptom of a more fundamental crisis: the dislocation of foundation itself. In this view, the political is revealed as constitutively groundless, shaped not by necessity or universality, but by contingency, antagonism, and hegemonic articulation. This Special Issue invites contributions that problematize this ontological void—not by seeking a return to a solid and complete foundation, nor by collapsing into the abyss of epistemological nihilism, but by thinking the political through the very condition of contingent grounding as the site of conflict, construction, and contestation.

Thematic Axes (Suggested Topics):

We welcome original research articles, reviews and philosophical and theoretical essays that engage with—but are not limited to—the following themes:

• The disintegration of epistemic authority and the myth of the necessity of neutral foundations;
• Politics in the post-truth epoch and its various global manifestations;
• Truth and hegemony—how Laclau and Mouffe’s discursive theory unsettles Enlightenment notions of rational consensus;
• Heidegger, politics, Beyng and the issue of the foundation;
• The symbolic void in Lefort’s political ontology—reconsidering the empty place of power in post-truth democracies;
• Antagonism, not deliberation—Mouffe’s agonistic model and the limits of rational consensus in post-truth politics;
• Rancière’s disagreement (désaccord) and the esthetics of truth disruption;
• Epistemology, post-foundationalism, and the critique of non-foundationalism and anti- foundationalism;
• Post-foundationalism, the social and the political;
• Democracy without guarantees—can post-foundationalism sustain normative critique?
• Post-foundationalism, contingency, post-truth, and the problem of foundation;
• The collapse of the fact–value distinction and the new terrain of political affect;
• Balibar on equaliberty and transindividuality—toward a relational and post-foundational normativity;
• Temporalities of post-truth—crisis, rupture, and the politics of historical re-inscription;

This Special Issue invites contributions that take seriously the collapse of ontological and epistemological foundations—not to restore lost certainty, but to explore how the political can be rearticulated through contingency, antagonism, and the absence of ultimate grounds.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Abbas Jong
Guest Editor

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