Commentary archive

THE TROUBLE WITH CONTRADICTIONS Joe In a critical comment in Radical Philosophy 16 Russell Keat has raised some interesting objections to Ray Edgley’s account of the significance of the dialectic for social science (1). Pro.minent among them is the charge that while this account ‘succeeds in showing the critical practical function of scientific knowledge’ the […]

THE PHILOSOPHER IN THE CLASSROOM: A ..epo… f .. om r .. aDce Colin Gordon & Jonathan Ree Aboul GREPB The supplement ‘Philosophy from Below’ in RP15 raised once again the question of whether Radical Philosophy can be content with trying to change the content of philosophy in this country or whether it must also […]

• The ImporlaDce of . SlockhauseD’s IINORl’ Gabriel losi2Qvici On Wednesday 23 Octob-e-r-I-=9=’=7=-4=–a-n-e-v-e-n-t-o-t-o-u-t-s-t-a-n-d—–t-~-:-‘o-n-s-t-o~b-e-u-n-de-r-t-a-k=–e-n-,-g-e-s-t-ur-e-s-t-o–b-e-ma-d-e-,-w-o-rds ing artistic importance took place at the London Coliseum: th~ first English performance of Stockhausen’s latest work, Inori, subtitled ‘Adorations for Soloist and Orchestra’. The soloist on this occasion was a mime, the extraordinary Elisabeth Clarke, and I am not sure whether […]

27 28 29 individual as a matter of course, or else it offers only inapplicable good advice and is therefore not worth a brass farthing to people who are without these means. To avoid misunderstanding, let me say that (i) I don’t see much danger of revolutionary organisations propagating the ideas of the official bourgeois […]

The examined life is nol worlhliving George Molnar The sort of tests which involve graded assessment of students for purposes of certification, I’ll call examinations. Examinations characteristically, though not invariably, issue in little or no feedback on the details of the performance to the student. For purposes of present discussion I shall not in general […]

Common sen’se State power conceal what it doesn’t want to know a ‘theoretical’ laboratory which has ‘been found to be well-equipped for this universal function of non-thought, the effects of which can be spotted as much in the discourse of Marxist scholars as in that of professional revolutionaries. ——————————————————–(Note added February 1973) Correct ideas, says […]

Nol in fronl of Ihe sludenls JonDavies ‘Because of the Welfare State’, wrote one of our first year students, ‘there has been a great increase in participation.’ (She had been reading a textbook). I asked her: ‘On what public issue or what public debate have you personally ever participated, even just by writing a letter […]

8 Ralf Dahendorf, quoted in Musgrove, op. cit. 9 R. K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure The Free Press, 1968 10 Basil Bernstein, ‘Sociological Aspects of Classifying and Framing Educational Knowledge’, quoted in Musgrove, op. cit. 11 C. Wright Mills, op. cit. 12 Ibid. 13 Anthony Ryle, Student Casualties, The Penguin Press, 1969. 14 […]

became more apparent to him. Tern never acted wrongly ‘without feeling and suffering for it’. ~8 It will perhaps be evident to some readers that I am making a point parallel to the point which leads Wittgenstein to reject the possibility of ‘private’ assignments of names to referents. The parallel is cernplex, and hardly worth […]

Ma:rxlsm and pl’oletal’ian sel’emancipalion Norman Geras I claim no novelty for these ideas. Some of them are discussed in a recent article by Hal Draper. 1 They are treated at greater length, and in greater depth, in Michael Lowy’s book on Marx’s theory of revolution. 2 Going back to Marx himself, in 1864, in the […]

TIB QUBSTIOI or BB8BI1011 G. lowell Smith The question of hegemony can be posed as a political problem. How does it come about that a class or group struggling to free itself from oppression or exploitation remains subordinated politically to the group which oppresses or exploits it? And how does it break free from this […]

Against this apparatus, which does not merely reproduce bourgeois relations in the form of ideological representations but controls access to knowledge and the instruments of power, the subordinate social groups have, traditionally, little to offer. However, two things can happen or be made to happen. One is that the hegemonic apparatus, so massively and yet […]

our kind of society people are taught to completely obey their parents simply in virtue of biological status, which by itself is no guarantee of wisdom. Injunctions from whatever source should only be considered reasonable if they are means to some rational end and this is something not at all determined by mere authority. The […]

nOTES state, and therefore teach people not to depend on and fetishize the State as an omnipotent and eternal form on which they depend? In the absence of a coherent theory, situated in the debates that have occupied Marxists (or maybe even Anarchists) for a hundred and some years, I really don’t see that Radical […]

new world. Tradition and faith were two of the most powerful bulwarks of the old regine. and the philosophical attackes constituted an immediate historical action. Today. however. it is not a matter of eliminating a creed. for in the totalitarian states. where the noisiest appeal is made to heroism and a lofty Weltanschauung, neither faith […]

THE EXPERIENCE OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY TOADULTS Noel Parker Even in the least partisan formulation of its objectives, Radical Philosophy believes in a philosophy ‘relevant to people’s wider lives and interests’. Though many of us may find or hope to find guidance for radical political or social activity in the philosophy we study, the fact remains […]

posItIve suggestions I have made: but I think it symptomatic of our state that we don’t have lots of ideas – and activities going about this. Maybe not everyone in sympathy with the general idea of radical philosophy feels these needs. When talk about new modes of communicating, this must include more or less regular […]

reason for the present neglect of metaphysics, ethics and politics is the relatively exaggerated veneration accorded to logic and theory of meaning. Like Jonathan Ree, I have ungrudging admiration for modern achievements in this field’ but i~ is a.disaster ~hat so many regard it as the primary fi~ld wIth whlch the phIlosopher should concern himself. […]

Now it does seem to me that Norman does trade on this “rationalist” view in his discussion of Tolstoy. For he does say “Andrew’s ‘discovery’ is in each case”‘the acquisition of an enlarged and clearer view of human nature and of man’s relation to the world” (p.9) “The ‘way of seeing the world’ (the “religious […]

grasp Marx’s thought ‘did not succeed in the r intentions,’ above all because they ‘approached Marx ones dely,’ and deliberately ‘isolated the economist, the ph losopher, or the historian,’ etc. Of course there is an element of truth in these remarks, since all scientific work is necessari ly partial and needs to be complemented by […]

support to this non-Cartesian posItIon which one can find, for instance, in both Hegel and Wi ttgenstein – authors whom Laing has read. In Hegel’ s Phenomenology of Spirit, in the section on the dialectic of Master and Slave, the non-Cartesianism is perfectly clear: ating morally would render their children morally dependent. When Laing and […]