BDITOIWlL NODS OAY SCHOOLS AND SOCIOBIOLOGY The main Radical Philosophy activity recently has been the holding of day schools. Two have been held so far this year, and a third is planned for the autumn. We see these as serving an important purpose. It has always been difficult, within the Raiical Philosophy movement, to develop […]

MARXIST MODIS lonathan Rea 1 Here is a tempting book* – a kind of teach-yourself the new semiotics, a simple primer about Barthes, Lacan and post-Althusserian Marxis m. I came across it by accident, when I saw it peeping out of a friend’s luggage. ‘It’s very good, ‘ I was told: ‘inspiring and clear ‘. […]

PHILOSOPHICAL MATERIALISM OR THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION or HISTORY Alison Assiter Introduction ‘Marxism is a materialism’. This idea has become co.mmonplace. Usually, it amounts to placing Marx and Marxism inside a philosophical tradition; one whose roots lie in the atomistic philosophies of De.mocritus and Epicurus. Much r~cent ‘Marxist’ materialism imitates or reproduces many of the ideas […]

SCIENTifiC SOCIALISM, Jl POSITIVIST DELUSION? Russell Reat In Radical Philosophy 21, Roy Edgley replied to some criticisms I made, in RP16, of his article on ‘Science, Social Science, and Socialist Science’ in RP15. I don’t finj his comments at all convincing, and I will try to say why. At the end, I will briefly indicate […]

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 […]

exclusively human characteristic. A spider conducts operations which resemble those of the weaver, and a bee would put many a human architect to shame by the construction of its honeycomb cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that the architect builds the cell in his mind before he constructs […]

such things as human motivation, human development and selfhood, and so on. There is still, I think, an i.mplicit tendency in Kathleen Wilkes’ book to regard everyday explanations of behaviour as interesting, perhaps, and practically essential in the conduct of life, but otherwise as rather inferior and unsatisfactory if co.mpared with anything that can be […]

EDITORIAL: THE POLITICS or CLARITY Jonathan Ree’s editorial in Radical Philosophy 20 raised important questions about the role of Radical Philosophy in relation both to the political left and to the acade mic establishment – questions about the dangers of academicism, about the kinds of political and cultural action appropriate to Radical Philosophy, and so […]

rather than sweep them away in a torrent of technical jargon. On the other hand, there can be no general recipe for clarity and good style, if only because the personal flair of the writer will always, and rightly, be a contributory factor, and because the nature of the material under consideration must to some […]

TOWARDS A MATERIALIST THEORY or mEOLOGY: The IQ Debale as a Case Sludy Les Levidow In the Race-IQ debate which has resurfaced in Britain and the USA since 1969, socialist critiques of IQ science have centred upon some notion or other of ‘ideology’. That term has been invoked largely as an insult, intended to mean […]

, UTOPIA OR PHANTASY • . A Reply 10 OlllDan on Man’s David Murray Vision of ConIlDunisID Anyone who has argued for the desirability of socialis m will be familiar with this response: There’s a lot wrong with our society, but it’s better than Russia – if that’s socialism, you can keep it. But anyway, […]

‘ON PRACTICE’ III · Reply 10 NOI’. .aD *” Rip Bulkeley Richard Norman may have some cause to complain of my coyness and reluctance to set out my own ideas. But fo r my part, I think he might have been less hasty in constructing my position for me. For I wholly agree with him […]

REVIEWS ANOTHER GOODBYE TO ALL THAT Charles Bettelheim, Questions sur la Chine apres la mort de Mao Tse-Tsoung, Maspero (Serie., Economie et Socialisme) 1978. English translation in Monthly Review, issue of July / August 1978 This long essay by Bettelheim was written in response to a Canadian resident in Peking, Neil Burton, who had questioned […]

NEWS a: COMMENT RADICAL PUBLICATIONS GROUP CONFERENCE On Saturday 17 February there was a conference on ‘Publishing and Politics’ at the ICA in London. It was organised by the Radical Publications Group, a federation of left/alternative magazines including Radical Philosophy. The idea was to consider the whole field of publishing – books as well as […]

EDITORIAL NOTES Although we have received few contributions in response to our request for articles on racism, we still hope to receive enough material to enable us to devote the whole, or a large part of, a future issue to this. In the meantime we publish in this issue a substantial, and no doubt in […]

RACISM – THE NEW INIIIRITORS Martin Barker PART I – THE NEW RACISM “1 think the nation can expect that, when they are announced, the Conservative proposals on immigration will be common-sense proposals. ” (William White law , March 1978) “Common-sense is the practical ideology of the ruling class. ” (Gramsci) 1 Introduction The resurgence […]

AN INTRODUCTION TO DERRIDA DC.Wood Introduction In 1967 Derrida made an impressive entrance onto the French intellectual stage by publishing two collections of essays and a short study of the early Husserl (1967, 1,2,3). The importance of this intervention stemmed from the fact that while he endorsed the critical distance from phenomenology that was de […]

DIALICTIC: A RIPLY TO KIAT A.ND DBWS RoyEdgley In an article in Radical Philosophy 15, ‘Science, Social Science, and Socialist Science: Reason as Dialectic’, I argued that one of the central doctrines of dialectical materialism, that there are contradictions in reality, and with it the claim that science can be critical of its real object, […]