Editorial

Critical projects that seek to sustain themselves over a long stretch of time have to change if they are to avoid becoming part of an establishment. And if they are prepared to change, they have to change more than once. Radical Philosophy emerged out of the long 1960s, framed politically by the student movement and […]

Political physics

EDITORIAL Intellectual journals have their moments; if they’re lucky more than one. But to sustain themselves over decades, they have to change (or become part of an establishment), and change more than once. With this issue, Radical Philosophy marks forty-five years as a collectively edited, selfpublished and still largely self-produced print journal. It is still […]

Announcement

Radical philosophy 200 (November/December 2016) will be the final issue of the current print edition of the journal. Plans are under way to relaunch Radical Philosophy in a new form in 2017. Please keep an eye out for announcements on our website in the new year. All subscribers whose subscriptions end with RP 199 will […]

66 Editorial

EDITORIAL – . =.. .:’1._”it!!!! • =:-= -=111 .,-. · ~-1-. 1 …. – -= – -:. I — ..-. 1=1 .– 11 I . -• • -~-EE A letter recently leaked to The Observer (10.10.93) revealed that government scientists are privately extremely concerned about the problem of long-term nuclear waste storage. Behind the facade […]

65 Editorial

EDITORIAL The Radical Philosophy Group, so the mission statement on the inside cover used to announce, grew in part out of opposition to ‘the sterile and complacent philosophy taught in British universities and colleges’. And, as any radical philosopher would have told you, nothing more typified this sterility and complacency than the school of ‘linguistic […]

64 Editorial

EDITORIAL ‘The world grows old. ‘ We live at a time when the intellectual scene increasingly resembles a mortuary or some nether region of etiolated successor states. The chief object of all this’ endism’ and ‘postism’ is, of course, history itself. The starting point for Gregory Elliott’ s reflections in this issue is the recent […]

63 Editorial

EDITORIAL L ,. One major preoccupation of recent critical debates has been the attempt at a philosophical definition of the present through an account of our relations to the Enlightenment. Whether for or against ‘modernity’, contributors to these debates have tended to identify modernity with the Enlightenment, and to make their respective philosophical stands on […]

62 Editorial

EDITORIAL ~ /’~~ Socialism has typically presented itself as a project of human emancipation, based on a moral vision of the future, and on a critical diagnosis of the present – informed both by that vision of human possibilities, and by a theoretical grasp of what stands in the way of their realisation. It has […]

61 Editorial

EDITORIAL Since the late ’80s, all those with sympathies on the Left have had to reconsider their position. In the editorial of the last RP, Greg Elliott, from a knowledge of the recent history of Western Marxism, considered the changed situation of marxist philosophy over the twenty years of RP’s existence. He expressed opposition to […]

60 Editorial

EDITORIAL Charles 11 once invited the members of the Royal Society to explain to him why a dead fish weighs more than the same fish alive; a number of subtle explanations were offered to him. He then pointed it out that it does not. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue Who ate the fish? A heckler’s response […]

59 Editorial

EDITORIAL One of the central themes of a great deal of recent philosophy has been that of ‘anti-foundationalism’. The view that the Enlightenment search for the ‘foundations’ on which knowledge or moral principles could be built is in some way in a state of terminal crisis has been shared by philosophers who otherwise often seem […]

58 Editorial

EDITORIAL The break-up of the Soviet bloc and the breakdown of the consensus about Western welfare capitalism have, each in their turn, prompted debates about the alignments that can be drawn between various forms of marxism and contemporary political standpoints. This issue of Radical Philosophy focuses on these debates as they have emerged from both […]

57 Editorial

EDITORIAL The recent death of Louis Althusser revived the sharp but usually unproductive exchanges over the value and nature of his intellectual legacy. Andrew Collier’s piece should enliven the controversy. He situates his ideas about the way the social and natural environment provides an extension of individual human agency within an Althusserian framework. His stance […]

56 Editorial

EDITORIAL In this issue of Radical Philosophy, we offer a characteristically varied collection of contributions: two pieces which explore the relationships (actual and potential) between diverse social movements, a literary-philosophical analysis of Genet’s Prisoner of Love, and an interview with one of France’s leading post-war radical theorists, Cornelius Castoriadis. One of the most promising and […]

55 Editorial

EDITORIAL RP55 kicks off with an article by Sadie Plant on the Situationalist International. This politically radical art movement, with its desire to subvert the banality of everyday life, flourished back in the ’50s and ’60s but has since fallen into relative obscurity. Plant’s particular concern is to identify the links, in her view too […]

54 Editorial

EDITORIAL It can be unsettling to consider how the theoretical ground we choose to stand on shifts across the different layers – intellectual, political, professional and personal – of our lives. No debate illustrates that more vividly, or more significantly, than the enquiry which surrounds the moral subject. ‘Consider this and in our time’, began […]

53 Editorial

EDITORIAL Not the least striking feature of the term ‘postmodernism’ is the manner in which – enacting one of its own central theoretical claims – it has bridged the gap between the pretensions of the academy and the wider social and cultural world. There is the postmodernism of Beckett, but also of Ballard, of Kruger […]

The Weight of History

EDITORIAL THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY You will certainly have heard by now that 1989 is the bicentenary of the French Revolution. In many quarters there will be events – be they sentimental, thought-provoking, spectacular or brash – to mark the occasion. All in all, in this issue you will fmd various pieces referring to the […]

51 Editorial

EDITORIAL In this, the 51st issue of Radical Philosophy, we are publishing a couple of articles that survey a range of material. Following Martin Barker’s study (RP 46) of the way in which the media transmits its message, David Buckingham examines a profusion of material on TV literacy. Val Plumwood pursues the arguments of her […]

50 Editorial

This is the fiftieth issue of Radical Philosophy. The first issue was published in January 1972, and we reprint below the statement that appeared in that first issue. The aims of the group were to publish the magazine, set up a network of local activities and groups, and hold national conferences. The magazine has appeared […]