Contraria sunt complementa: global entanglement and the constitution of difference

The physicist Niels Bohr identified a parallel between quantum physics and Daoism and Buddhism. The parallel maps onto two debates regarding Global IR, on the one hand, and the implications of quantum physics for the social sciences, on the other, highlighting the potential for a conversation between them. The quantum arguments unsettle the hierarchy between ‘positivists’ and ‘reflectivists,’ raising a question of which science, while Daoism and Buddhism, as traditions that have for millennia explored questions of language, agency and ethics, provide a point of departure for thinking about the human and social implications of more recent discoveries in quantum physics. Starting with Bohr’s concept of complementarity, the argument moves to an analysis of Karen Barad and Alexander Wendt’s work on quantum physics and the social sciences, and then explores Bohr’s parallel to Daoism and Buddhism. The structuring of the article around a series of oppositions, including particle/wave, ontology/epistemology, materiality/consciousness, egoism/relationality, East/West, highlights the relationship between global entanglement and the constitution of difference with it.