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This paper is the first stage of an attempt to answer the question ‘What is dialectic?’ I assume no prior knowledge of the subject and only a minimal prior knowledge of philosophy. I am aware that this task has been attempted many times before. But one of the things which I have found particularly confusing […]

as I ~have already said, this seems too banal and obvious. Hopefully not that’ everything is always changing’, since this is false. There is stability within change. We cannot describe change except by talking about ‘things which change’, and to say that a thing is changing is . to imply that within the process of […]

Philosophy in China What Can We Learn From It ? Jonathan Ree China and Chinoiserie I went on a three-week general tour of China in November 1975. I know very well that this does not make me an expert on China; nevertheless many of the rumours about China that circulate in the West derive from […]

Science, Social Science, and Socialist Science RBASON AS DIALBCTIC Roy Edgley The Q1lrrent ~risis, soc ial and Intellectual In both fields one can trace in the analytical tradition a more or less gradual relaxation of the constraints thought to be implicit in the idea of science am:. reason. In the philosophy of science Popper sought […]

PiRSONAL AUTONOMY a: HISTORICAL MATERIALISM Richard Archer The following is largely a criticism of some of the mistakes and certain tendencies antithetical to an historical materialist conception of the world found in Eoss Poole’s paper ‘Freedom and Alienation’. (Radical Philosophy, Winter 1975). Basically the criticism is this: because Poole never entirely leaves the framework employed […]

expected is an analysis of our present situation with s’ome general guidelines for the transition to socialism. Dialectical change provides us with ever new situations which for an understanding demand that a wide range of experience .be drawn upon from within and without the revolutionary core. This in turn requires a respect for the opinions […]

Joseph Dj-elzgeD This article is the first of a series on neglected philosophers. Some subjects will, like Dietzgen, be largely unknown, others simply forgotten by British philosophy departments. Later articles will (we hope) include introductions to Merleau-Ponty, Cassirer, Collingwood and Fouca~lt. Other suggestions would be welcome JOSEPH DIETZGEN is indeed a neglected philosopher. How many […]

ana Action ‘in the Huntinglon Affair I’nedom of Speech and Acaclamlc ….eedom Thought RoyEdgley ,. In Summer 1973 a group of students at Sussex University prevented Samuel P. Huntington, an American professor, from giving an academic lecture (see centre pages of RP7). They objected to his having played the par~f a ~new mandarin~ in the […]

Anll·MoJlallsm Peter Binns Marx, Tony Skillen correctly tells us, spoke with contempt of morality while at the same time condemning capitalism as an utterly evil system. ‘Why is this attack on capitalism reconcilable with the rejection of “the moral point of view”?’ Tony asks. His answer is: ‘Because morality is one of the (real) evils […]

The pl’oducl.ion of mOl’al ideology Andrew Collier Vly aim in this paner is to throw some light on the nature of moral i~eology hv examining its origin and function in terms of nsvchoanalytical theory, as well as of ‘1″rxi sm, ‘Iv assumntions at the outset are that anv moral irteologv serves a socially renressive function, […]

them, but they are arhitrary in the sense that there is no rationale behind them. [Radical Philosophy 5, p34J Klein, I think, must berated among the most perceptively biting of these cynics, these nasty people who try their damnedest to upset the cultural applecart. The Neo-Dadaists set out to shock the ‘cultured classes from their […]

4 5 HMSO, 1963, App.Two(A), Annek K. 6 Cited in Danie1s and Schouten, op. cit., pp16ff. The same conclusion has been drawn from the observation of constant pass rates in the British GCE (a-level) over the years despite a tremendous increase in numbers of candidates. Cp. John Pearce, School Examinations (Macmi11an, London, 1972, p103): ‘The […]

Ma..xism and mo..alily Tony Skillen You just about need a pass to piss. Tha t a.in’ t no joke. You raise your little hand i f you want to go wee-wee. Then wait maybe half an hour ’till they find a relief-man. And they write it down every time too – cause you’re supposed to […]

Libe..al democ..alic ideology. unde.. sl..aln Allende’s Chile and IThe Economlsl’ John Krige In political, philosophical and ideological struggle, the words are also weapons and explosives or tranquillizers and poisons. Louis Althusserl This paper 2 explores some of the ways in which the ideological discourse associated with liberal democratic theory masks our cognitive access to social […]

an astronomer predicts that a comet will appear over Britain in January 1974, the fact that he or she, as an expert, thinks that this is so, is a good reason that a layman can have for thinking that the comet will appear. As a layman, the reasons which the astronomer has for thinking this […]

l is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to. -The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question. The clarity that we are aiming at is’indeed complete clarity. But this simply means the philosophical problems should completely […]

On Ihelheo.-y of ideology Ithe politics of A.lthussel’) Jacques Ranciere ‘Certainly it is an interesting event we are dealing with: the Dutrescence of the absolute spirit (Marx: German Ideology Part 1) ‘All the mysteries which lead theory into mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the understanding of that practice’. For a […]

flock; but can any claim their exertions have sufficed? Nor was it only with England and her white colonies that Berkeley was concerned. His benevolence spread to all people of the earth, and especially to the savage natives of America. At a time when these savages are showing such a want of civic or spiritual […]

Mo..al might be or are applied. To investigate the latter is to raise political or moral or religious, but not philosophical, problems or questions. 2 philosophy wilhoul ..o ..alily? Richard Norman I Of the traditional areas of philosophy, moral philosophy is one in which the inadequacy of recent work has been most obvious. The writings […]

3 The Object of Morality, p.17 4 Cf. Erich Framm: Man For Himself, ch.IV section 1. Despite its limitations, Fromm’s discussion, and the book as a whole, are a useful application of psychological ideas to philosophical ethics, and far more valuable than most recent moral philosophY,in the analytical tradition. S I have in mind such […]

Whomakas hislory? Allhassel”s anli-hamanis.. John Mepham Introduction I am very much aware that in what follows I solve no philosophical problems. I attempt some conceptual clarifications and I propose some interpretations of theses of Louis Althusser. I hope this will at least make it possible to pose some problems more clearly than they are posed […]