Lelle:rs Dear Editors Jerry M Cohen in his discussion of Roy Edgley’s article ‘Reason and Violence’, presents himself as both a victim of, and propagandist for, a brand of doublethink increasingly popular amongst our so-called radicals. on the one hand, he argues that we should have no truck with the meaning of words (a pursuit […]

Lelle:rs Dear Editors Jerry M Cohen in his discussion of Roy Edgley’s article ‘Reason and Violence’, presents himself as both a victim of, and propagandist for, a brand of doublethink increasingly popular amongst our so-called radicals. on the one hand, he argues that we should have no truck with the meaning of words (a pursuit […]

ested in people’s wills was not relevant to the will of the people. In other words, I think that the key to the difference between the images of man embedded in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ paradigms lies in the psychologist’s relationship to his subject – who is, in the one case, an entity to be […]

RADIEAL PHILOSOPHY 5 It has always been intended that the editorship of this journal should circulate regUlarly from one group to another. This intention is now to be put into practice; and with the next issue the work of production and distribution will be taken over by a group in London based at the Middlesex […]

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••• mEDTAllllDESS AS A mORAL [OD[EPT ………………………. SEAnSAVERS (, The concept of mental illness has been the subject of heated controversy in recent years; and this debate has caught the attention of a wide public. The reason for this is not simply that the debate has sometimes been conducted in heated terms; but, more importantly, […]

TRUTH AnD PRA[TI[E Andrew [allier of scientific enquiry and experiment, this is common ground not only of all Marxist theories, but of intelligent bourgeois theories as well. Peter Binns’ paper ‘The Marxist Theory of Truth’ in Radical Philosophy 4 exemplifies what seems to have become a new orthodoxy among Marxists, as well as many bourgeois […]

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• SEARLE’S IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Colwyn W’illiamson The following remarks are about the nature of universities and their supposed political neutrality, about relations between students and teachers, and about the notion of the ‘academic’. To gain a foothold in the problems arising from these topics, I will focus attention on a book written […]

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 […]

A note on R. S. Peters Bob Borsley ” The ideological character of academic philosophy is much clearer in the work of some philosophers than others. One philosopher in whose writing it is particularly clear is R S Peters. In his ‘Social Principles and the Democratic State’ (written with S I Benn) , and ‘Ethics […]

THE mARHIST THEORY OF ART ************************ ****************************************** Rager Taylar Therefore, concepts have histories and that this is so has rich implications for conceptual enquiries, for with the demise of essences concepts become no more and no less than historical phenomena, so that their history is not incidental to what they are. Thus, conceptual investigation must […]

REVIEWS The new journal Economy and Society declared its stand under the banner of serious scholarship. Its editorial statement noted that ‘The search for new orientations (in social science) has led to a revived interest in ~Iarxism, Structural i sm, and Phenomenology in its various forms, to attempts to create a ‘critical’ theory. Thesd’new interests, […]

REPORTS ~ time to take this on would be one in London based mainly on people at Middlesex Polytechnic. It was agreed that they should take over the production work starting with RP6 at the end of the summer. The editorial work of reading and evaluating contributions would continue to be done by a wider […]

RADIEAl PHIOSOPHV 4 With this issue, Radical Philosophy is one year old: During this year the movement has created a good deal of interest and received a lot of support. However, this success has also served to highlight the long struggle which will he needed if we are to have significant effects. The features of […]

THE mARHI5T THEORY OF TRUTH Peter Binns One of the main problems facing marxist theory is that of its own status. On the one hand the theory of the formation of ideology seems to suggest that all beliefs are relative to the believer’s society; while on the other hand there is the assumption that marxism […]

••••••••••••••••••••••••• a Eritique 01 R.D.lAln6’S SO[IAL PHILOSOPHV part 1 • JOE WARRID&TOD ••••••••••••••••••••••• •• Introduction No-one is an expert on the question as to what madness is, nor on its significance. This is a baffling yet fundamental field not just in theory but in relation to our very lives. Men like R D Laing have […]

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 […]

REAson AnD UIOlEn[E A fragment of the ideology of liberal intellectuals Ray Edgley The antithesis between reason and violence: some contemporary examples I want to consider a version of the ic!ea that violence is contrary to reason, or to put another way what may seem to be the same point, that reason and violence are […]

Sexism, Gapitalism ” the ramil, I~_ __ Bosalind Delmar (This paper was written for the Womens Liberation Conference, London, November 1972) The relation between sexism and capitalism is often expressed as an opposition: is it a sexist society or a capitalist society? Are we interested in feminism-or socialism? We see socialist women denouncing feminism as […]