Pieces by Ted Benton

COMMENTARY Clause 4 Ted Benton , C o m e on lads – we all prefer nice things to nasty’: this desperate moral appeal, delivered above the chaotic mania of classroom rebellion, was the habitual resort of an old schoolmaster of mine. For those of us close enough to hear, it evoked peals of derisive […]

NEWS Massacre of the Innocents: Derrida and the Cambridge Dons On 21 March, at a lofty conclave of dons at Cambridge University, something happened. The matter for discussion was a list of academic aristos to be invited to receive an honorary doctoral degree from the Duke of Edinburgh. (Honorary degrees are solemn rewards for those […]

Alan J. Friedman and Carol C. Donley, Einstein as Myth and Muse Jonathan Powers Mike S. Dufrenne, In the Presence of the Sensuous Matthew Rampley Louis Althusser, Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of The Scientists and Other Essays Alison Assiter, Althusser and Feminism Andrew Collier, Scientific Realism and Socialist Thought Ted Benton Andrew Benjamin, Translation […]

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 […]

Humanism = Speciesism Marx on Humans and Animals Ted Benton INTRODUCTION This paperl is intended to fonn part of a more extended exploration of some key texts ofMarx from the standpoint of the so-called ‘new’ social movements (though some of these pre-date the Marxist tradition itself!). Here, I shall be focussing on the early work […]

NEWS The Situation of Philosophy in South Africa P. Kirsten has noted in an issue of the South African Journal of Philosophy (Vol. 2, No. 3, 1983) commemorating the centenary of Marx’s death and calling for a more open-minded attitude towards Marxism: ‘I~ological bias, public ignorance and academic indifThere has been no ‘Graceland’ for South […]

NEWS International Philosophers for Peace In RP41 we reported the formation of International PhiTos0r,hers for the Prevention of Nuclear Omnicide (IPPNQ~ Thegroup has now heTd its first mternational conference. The folJowing is an edited version of the report on the conference by John SomervilJe, the cochairperson of the North American section of IPPNO. At the […]

EDITORIAL ” Environmental politics has so far remained organisationally fragmented and limited in its effects in Britain, compared, for example, with Australia or West Germany. This is also .true of the scale and quality of theoretical contributions on environmental questions in the literature of the Left in Britain. Radical Philosophy has itself so far :nade […]

Realism and Social Science Some Comments on Roy Bhaskar’s ‘The Possibility of Naturalism’ Ted Benton 1 Introduction An increasing body of philosophical work l is now available which (a) presents a ‘realist’ alternative to the hitherto predominant ‘positivist’ and ‘conventionalist’ currents in the philosophy of science and (b) attempts to use this realist account of […]

Cutler on Laws of Tendency Ted Bentan Some Notes on Cutler et.al. on Laws of Tendency (Cutler et.al., Marx’s Capital and Capitalism Today, Vol.I, chapters 4, 5 and 6.) Cutler et.al. declare themselves opposed to the epistemological privileging of any level of discourse, but prefer, instead, to engage in discursive analyses of specific problems. Nevertheless, […]

This lies, first, in the clarity of his presentation of the various approaches to ideology, and his critical discussion of each. Secondly, it lies in the questionopening form of many of his comments. For example, he criticises (p120) Goldmann’s attempt in the critique of literature to distinguish that which is expressive of a worldview of […]

RBVIBWS SOCIOBIOLOGY D. Barash, Sociobiology and Behaviour, Heinemann, 1979, £3.95 pb T. Clutton-Brock & P. Harvey, Readings in Sociobiology, W.H.Freeman, 1979, £4.95 pb W. Mackensie, Biological Issues in POlitics, Manchester UP, 1978, £3.95 hc M. Midgley, Beast and Man, Harvester, 1979, £7.50 hc M. Ruse, Sociobiology: Sense or Nonsense? D. Reidel, 1978, no price E.O.Wilson, […]

‘ Radical Philosophy :Thl.. leell Wlllch, WIII,gellslelll alld Ma.. xlsm ~. Ted Benton A Introduction This paper suffers from a certain ‘instability’ deriving from its having been written some years ago, and then substantially modified more recently to serve quite different purposes. This modification,has, unfortunately, been insufficiently thorough, although the instability of the paper may […]

DISCUSSION Ranciere~a~d Ideology The article by Jacques Ranciere, ‘On the Theory of Ideologv’ (Radical Philosophy 7) is one of the most powerful critiques of Althusser’s work so far to have been produced from the left. Given the wide reception that Althusser’s work is now receiving in Britain it is vital that the issues which Ranciere […]

nOTES state, and therefore teach people not to depend on and fetishize the State as an omnipotent and eternal form on which they depend? In the absence of a coherent theory, situated in the debates that have occupied Marxists (or maybe even Anarchists) for a hundred and some years, I really don’t see that Radical […]

Symposium Thomas Kuhn, 1922–1996Paradigms as soft structures Kuhnʼs The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was, despite the modesty of its author, a revolutionary work. Like Darwinʼs Origin of Species (with which it shares many other likenesses), its wider cultural and political resonances far exceeded the intentions and expectations of its author – both in scope and […]

Interview kate soper An alternative hedonism tb: iʼve been influenced by your work over many years, and oneof the things that has impressed me is the way that your writings have always seemed timely. Re-reading your work forthis conversation I was struck by the continuities running through it. Youʼre not just responding to intellectual fashions; […]

power, or by the view that market mechanisms and profit are the solutions to environmental problems, to gather together, to reject Kyoto, to tell the world why this system is no good, and to force real changes based on social justice, leading to wider economic transformation. Sources World Bank carbon website: www.prototypecarbonfund.org/. [archive]Equity Watch, Centre […]

Reviews Revenge or revival? Daniel Bensaïd, Marx for Our Times: Adventures and Misadventures of a Critique, trans. Gregory Elliott, Verso, London and New York, 2002. xvii + 392 pp., £20.00 hb., 1 85984 712 9. ^ The translation of Marx for Our Times presents to an Anglophone readership one of the more ambitious and, in […]

Obituary Ian Craib, 1945–2002 Oan Craib, who has died at the age of fifty-seven, had a long association with Radical Philosophy. He wrote extensively for the journal in the early years, especially through his reviews, and was a member of the editorial group in those days. He was appointed as a lecturer in sociology at […]