Article archive

Introduction to (ieorges Canguilhem Mike Short/and Take away Canguilhem and you will no longer understand much about Althusser, Althusserianism and a whole series of discussions which have taken place among French Marxists; you will no longer grasp what is specific to sociologists such as Bourdieu, Castel, Passerson and what marks them so strongly within sociology; […]

Abstrac:tion: A Realist Interpretation Andrew Saver The relations between the theoretical and the empirical, the abstract and the concrete, have always been problematic in marxism. Marx’s disdain for knowledge based upon mere appearances has meant that few marxists have accepted the empiricist doctrine of the theory-neutrality of observation. But while, in a negative way, there […]

‘eorg Lukuc:s, Waiter Benjamin, and the Motivation to make Politic:al Art Jennifer Todd In this paper I re-explore the relations which do and which should hold between art and politics. I reaffirm the traditional Marxist view that there is an overlap between socialist politics and aesthetic activity from which both politics and art should benefit. […]

Rawls’ Theory of Justice and ‘Market Socialism’ Carl G. Hedman 1 Market Socialism and Individualism One of the intuitions behind recent attempts to combine a socialist perspective with a limited reliance on market mechanisms is that a genuinely democratic socialism is incompatible with the bureaucratic tendencies of a command economy. David Schweickart has put this […]

Statistical Democracy: an Alternative to Democratic Centralism and Communalism John Burnheim 1 The Problem The central failure of socialist thinking in this century is its failure to produce a plausibly realistic and attractive conception of how a socialist society might operate. The two major contenders for the allegiance of socialist theorists are either unattractive or […]

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 […]

Heidegger: an Assessment Roger Waterhouse This is the last of three articles on Heidegger. The first traced Heidegger’s early development. The second analysed the argument of ‘Being and Time’. This third considers his later career and assesses his philosophy as a whole. After Being and Time was published in 1927 IIeidegger found himself acclaimed throughout […]

Personality and the Dialectic of Labour and PropertyLocke, Hegel, Marx. Chris Arthur Introduction One of the earliest objections to communism claims that ‘the complete abolition of private property’ makes no sense because people have an inalienable property in their own individuality, which comprises all those features that are peculiar to the person who has them […]

Scientific Explanation and Human Emancipation Roy Bhaskar 1. Introduction What connections, if any, exist between explanations in the human sciences and the project of human emancipation? I want to addr~ss this issue in the light of the transcendental realist reconstruction of science (2) and the critical naturalism which that reconstruction enables (3). My main target […]

Heidegger’5 ‘Being and Time’ Roger Waterhouse This is the second of three articles on Heidegger. The ‘first traced Heidegger’s early development. This second article analyses the argument of ‘Being and Time’. The third will consider his later career and assess his philosophy as a whole. ‘Being and Time’ was published in February 1927. It appeared […]

the context of an entrepreneurial ethos, the implication is that those who have proved their individual merit and social worth by attaining positions of leadership in industry and elsewhere are best equipped to maintain a civilized and integrated society. Their tutelage should extend to those who, having failed to make a success of their lives, […]

SOCIALIZATION AND TBE SELf JEAN GRIMSHAW The problems inherent in theories which present human selves as nothing but the products of social conditioning have long been recognised. Marx, for example, wrote: The materialist doct.rine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of other circumstances and changed upbringing, […]

WBY BA.BERMAS ? LINDA J. NICHOLSON’ There exist two ways to deny an idea. One is to label it false. The other is to call it non-important, more effectively achieved by not discussing it all. Mainstream philosophy in both England and the United states has skilfully employed the art of nondiscussion to deny ideas antithetical […]

THI ‘NIW PHILOSOPHIRS’ AND THI IND or LlrTISM Peter Dews Introduction Fashion moves fast in Parisian salons, and the taste for intellectual scandal demands the constant breaking of fresh taboos. Three years ago, in the spring of 1977, a group of young authors styling themselves the ‘New Philosophers’ moved rapidly to the centre of attention, […]

ANARCHISM AND PRIVATI PROPERTY Derek Browne No more government of man by man, by means of the accumulation of powers; no more exploitation of man by man, by means of the accumulation of capital. Proudhon (1) The majority of anarchists have been dedicated opponents of capitalism, of those forms of society which arise on the […]

Locke also has a principle – we should notice which limits the volume of goods that may be accumulated to that quantity which can be properly used or disposed of. A person ‘offended against the Law of Nature’ if he allowed the things in his possession to spoil or perish ‘without their due use’ (25). […]

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 […]

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, […]