radical philosophy

Between sharing and antagonism

London calling

Why talk about communism today?* A first point everybody will be agreed upon: the spectre of communism is not haunting Europe, nor for that matter any other region of the world. The only place where ‘communism’ is a positive name for anything is China, where it designates the ruling party of one of …

Notes on nuance

Thinking politically with Merleau-Ponty

Adorno on late capitalism

In his appraisal of mass societies, Theodor W. Adorno briefly discussed those changes in Western economies that had helped to transform the earlier liberal phase of ʻfree marketʼ capitalism at the turn of the twentieth century. Responding in part to these changes, governments legislated into existence social welfare institutions and agencies that quickly became more or less permanent fixtures in their …

Intersubjectivity and openness to change

The work of the German philosopher Michael Theunissen spans a forty-year period from 1958, when he published his doctoral thesis The Concept of Earnestness in Søren Kierkegaard, to the present. His general intellectual trajectory can be divided into four loosely distinct phases, developing from an early interest in existentialism, via a period focused on communication …

The tremor of reflection

At first glance, the work of the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek seems to offer an irresistible range of attractions for theorists wishing to engage with contemporary culture, without accepting the flimsy postmodernist doxa which is often the only available gloss on it. Zizek’s thought is still strongly coloured by his Althusserian background, and …

Truth and Relativity: An Exchange

Why Should a Dialectician Learn to Count to Four?

Boundaries Versus Binaries

Hegel’s Theory of the Syllogism and its Relevance to Marxists

The Frankfurt School and the Problem of Critique

Marx’s ‘Social Revolution’ and the Division of Labour

What Makes Critical Theory Critical?

Marxism and the Dialectical Method

Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx and Negativity

In Search of a Method

Liberty, Authority and the Negative Dialectics of J.S. Mill

Lukács, Heidegger and Fascism

Objectification and Alienation in Marx and Hegel

A Comparison of Marxist and Hegelian Dialectical Form