“Fully constructed theories are complicated formations. In a sense they are works of art” (Luhmann, Introduction to Systems Theory 253). We deduce from this statement not only that works of art are themselves “complicated formations” but also that this judgment applies primarily to “fully constructed theories.” Consistent with his vast project in systems sociology, Luhmann’s polemical edge reveals itself in this stealth mode of expression. In other words, Polemos covertly accompanies the unveiling of theory as art. With this allegorical image in mind, we invite papers that address one of the following questions: 

How central is creative strife – passing through or bypassing the conflict of interpretations – to theorizing and to the art of theory? 

Does theory become art only when the rhetorical mastery of staging intellectual-affective debates is combined with the flair for witnessing the constant struggle between episteme and doxa, between philosophy and the lifeworld?

What role does polemos play in theories that refuse to be directly polemical and to theorists that avoid encounters with potential antagonists?

If polemos – in its multiple meanings, as debate and dispute, struggle and contestation – stands for theory in its artful form, we want to suggest, it is not merely because one’s thinking and rhetorical style are often sharpened by disagreement. Is it also because one is aware of the “burden” of one’s argument? Should the theorist-artist learn how to carry a polemic towards one’s own argument?