This chapter explores what is made invisible in traditional understandings of knowledge in political science, the disciplinary politics of knowledge construction, and the exclusionary impacts of knowledge-policing standards. Given these problems, there is advantage in valorizing failure in knowledge production, and understanding knowledge cumulation in IR as productive fantasy. The chapter concludes by contending that the future of the discipline is in the manifestation of the productive fantasy of knowledge cumulation in argumentation. The chapter uses the democratic peace research program as an example of the ways in which the fantasy of knowledge production is produced and reified, and to envision possible alternative futures for IR.