PARATAXIS: MODERN WRITING RIGHTS IN CHINA WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? RESIGNATION FROM THE COLLECTIVE Parataxis: modernism and modem writing is a new journal devoted to the critical rethinking of modernism and the publication of contemporary writing. At a time when the concept of modernism has come to seem merely historical, and when the critical vocabulary of […]

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 […]

The Inorganic Body and the Ambiguity of Freedom Andrew Collier The universality of man manifests itself in practice in that universality which makes the whole of nature his inorganic body, (1) as a direct means oflife and (2) as the matter, the object and the tool of his life activity. Nature is man’s inorganic body, […]

Ethical Dimensions of Human Attitudes to Nature Radim Bures In this paper I intend to pursue the question as to how ethics can make a contribution to human efforts to protect, or rescue the environment. A complementary question is how the continuing environmental crisis can influence the development of ethical theory itself. Historically speaking, the […]

Reason and Emotion Miranda Fricker The question of how emotion relates to reason acquires its importance from an apparent conflict between the implicit teachings of Western philosophy and and feminism. If philosophy advises that we should place our trust, if anywhere, in reason; and if feminism has learned that it is a political imperative to […]

Television Fictions Quality and Truth-Telling John Mepham There is now going on a debate about the future of British television broadcasting. This debate was sparked off by issues of broadcasting policy, by specific new proposals for the financing and regulation of television broadcasting. These proposals have seemed to many to threaten the quality of television […]

The Lonely Hour of the Last Instance LOUIS PIERRE ALTHUSSER, 1918-1990 Against what common sense, the common sense of financiers and lawyers, tell us, there are many writings that blow away, but a few words that remain. No doubt because they have been inscribed in life and history. Louis Althusser on Jean Hyppolite, 1968 The […]

Andrew Collier, Socialist Reasoning: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Scientific Socialism Maurice Cowling, Mill and Liberalism, Second Edition Milton Fisk, The State and Justice: An Essay in Political Theory Carol G. Gould, Rethinking Democracy: Freedom and social cooperation in politics, economy and society Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community and Culture Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred […]

NEWS SWANSEA APPEAL In RP 56 Peter Osborne reported on the troubles in the Philosophy Department at University College Swansea. A number of philosophers there had alleged breaches of academic standards by the examining board for the M.A. in Philosophy and Health Care, and in response to requests by five members of the department, together […]

LETTERS Dear Radical Philosophy, I am writing to make some criticisms of Kate Soper’s article ‘Feminism, Humanism and Postmodernism’ in RP55 (Summer 1990). I would first like to challenge the following passage: . . If this sameness itself is challenged on the grounds that there is no ‘presence’ of womanhood, nothing that the term ‘woman’ […]

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 […]

Ecosocial ismUtopian and Scientific Tim Hayward One of the most urgent intellectual tasks of our time is to understand the implications of ecology for social and political theory. Given that environmental degradation is increasingly undermining the biological (and in some ways the psychological) basis of human social life, it is evident that no social theory […]

The Artificial Womb Patriarchal Bone or Technological Blessing? Carl Hedman Every area of technological innovation has an idea that can serve as a kind of ‘Rorschach Test’ for revealing some of our deepest intuitions.l Consider, e.g., the idea of a fully automated factory. This idea can be used to bring out a person’s intuitions as […]

Writing the Revolution The Politics of Truth in Genet’s Prisoner of Love Simon Critchley , … Saintliness cannot be placed in question. Emmanuel Levinas 1 The last thing Jean Genet’s work needs is another philosopher’s commentary. After Sartre’ s monumental Saint Genet and Derrida’ s equally monumental-although anti-Sartrean -Glas, it might seem prudent, indeed respectful, […]

Cornelius Castoriadis An Interview The following interview with Cornelius Castoriadis took place at the University of Essex, in late Feburary 1990. Castoriadis is a leading figure in the thought and politics of the postwar period in France. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s he was a member of the now almost legendary political organization, Socialisme […]

Geoffrey Scarre, ed., Children, Parents and Politics Carolyn Steedman, Childhood, Culture and Class in Britain: Margaret McMillan, 1860-1931 David Archard Alison Assiter, Pornography, Feminism and the lndividual Jean Grimshaw Otto Pöggeler, Martin Heidegger’s Path of Thinking Jonathan Rée David Gooding, Trevor Pinch, Simon Schaffer, eds., The Uses of Experiment Jonathan Powers Morwenna Griffiths and Margaret […]

NEWS ETHICS FOR SALE? Inquiry into the Swansea Centre for Philosophy & Health Care The impact of market forces on academic standards in the brave new world of enterprise culture has been a central issue in the educational debates of the last decade. Market guarantees or the sale of degrees? Proponents and critics of recent […]

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 […]