Article archive

Guy Debord is a time bomb, and a difficult one to defuse. And yet people have tried. And they are still trying. They try to neutralize him, to water him down, to aestheticize him or to deny his originality. It never works. The dynamite is still there, and it might explode in the hands of […]

The work of the German philosopher Michael Theunissen spans a forty-year period from 1958, when he published his doctoral thesis The Concept of Earnestness in Søren Kierkegaard, to the present. [1] His general intellectual trajectory can be divided into four loosely distinct phases, developing from an early interest in existentialism, via a period focused on […]

The question of Martin Heideggerʼs Nazism, and its potential relevance to an appreciation of his philosophy, has been discussed over several decades. But most accounts of the debate assume that it began after the Second World War, in particular with the articles published in Sartreʼs journal Les Temps Modernes in 1946. Indeed, it is often […]

for all its voluminousness. This is testament, no doubt, to the historical power of Benjaminʼs writings, but also to a certain more contemporary need for what they have come to represent. For if Benjamin has prospered, in part, from the notorious multiplicity of his personae – and hence from a seemingly endless capacity for reinvention […]

Mind, reality and politics Andrew collier this list a few pages without getting controversial. Some of the facts about human nature have clear implications for legislation. For instance, the fact that our physiology is such that the present level of motor pollution in the UK leads to nearly thirty deaths a day implies that, other […]

Social scientists have long grappled with ideas about race. In recent years, discussion on the significance of these ideas – particularly in exploring notions of identity, and the cultural and political options these appear to make available – have penetrated other areas of the humanities. A spate of recent publications signals that it is philosophyʼs […]

In his appraisal of mass societies, Theodor W. Adorno briefly discussed those changes in Western economies that had helped to transform the earlier liberal phase of ʻfree marketʼ capitalism at the turn of the twentieth century. Responding in part to these changes, governments legislated into existence social welfare institutions and agencies that quickly became more […]

Philosophy in Germany Simon critchley and axel honneth SC: Simply as a way of initially organizing our discussion, we both agreed to read a short article by Dieter Henrich that appeared in Merkur in his philosophy column, ʻEine Generation im Abgangʼ (ʻA Passing Generationʼ). [1] Henrich rightly claims that a change of generations is coming […]

Symposium Cornelius Castoriadis, 1922–1997Last of the Western Marxists Perhaps it was most of all the personal presence and vitality of this great intellectual of the European Left which impressed people, indeed could overwhelm them: the mighty bald head, out of which blinked two alert and sensitive eyes; the mouth which was always shaped by an […]

The institutionalization and codification of Cultural Studies continue apace. This is evident, for example, in the recurring debates and anxieties about disciplinary boundaries, artistic and ethical values, and the de-radicalization of Cultural Studies itself. Meanwhile, an apparently endless stream of publications – readers, textbooks and collections of (more or less) concrete analyses – feeds the […]

ʻWe do not publish our own drafts, that is, our own mistakes, but we do sometimes publish other peopleʼs.ʼLouis Althusser, 1963ʻWhat use is Althusser?ʼ The question rhetorically posed on the Left Bank in 1968, as structures took to the streets, invites reactions other than the blunt rien of (some of) those who recently marked the […]

Time and the working mother Kristeva’s ‘Women’s Time’ revisited Carol watts why it should be women, and indeed certain women, who come to the fore in a part-time, low-wage economy, and why their acceptance of ʻflexibleʼ working conditions makes them a model for the future. The possibility thus arises for a renewal of a feminist […]

It was a matter of analyzing … the problemizations through which being offers itself to be, necessarily thought – and the practices on the basis of which these problemizations are formed. Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasure1Michel Foucault is well known for having periodically redescribed his previous studies in light of his current project. [2] […]

Left Rawlsianism and social philosophy A response to ‘Philosophy in Germany’ Alessandro ferrara Reading ʻPhilosophy in Germanyʼ, the exchange between Simon Critchley and Axel Honneth in Radical Philosophy 89, I found myself perplexed by a basic assumption the participants appear to share: namely, that so-called ʻLeft Rawlsianismʼ and ʻsocial philosophyʼ are alternative paths for the […]

In his defence of Richard Rorty against various ʻsalt-of-the-earth socialist internationalistsʼ such as Norman Geras, Roy Bhaskar and Terry Eagleton (ʻRortyʼs Nationʼ, Radical Philosophy 87) Jonathan Rée confesses himself puzzled by Rorty on one point. He ʻcannot quite understandʼ Rortyʼs ʻaffectionʼ for the bureaucratic collectivist utopia of the nineteenthcentury American socialist and novelist Edward Bellamy. […]

This article is intended to raise a number of connected issues. It concludes by suggesting that certain theories of self-organization, in particular the theory of autopoiesis developed by Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela and, latterly, Fritjof Capra, might help us to reassess how we view the relationship between discipline, subjectivity and freedom. However, the first half […]

Nazis as an event that had spelled out ʻwith unparalleled clarity the essential uncertainties of our timeʼ. [4] And yet, as early as 1951, Arendt had explicitly stated what was at stake in her work, notably in the preface to the 1951 English edition, which was entitled The Burden of Our Time. That title is, […]

I wasnʼt clear enough in my book, Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric, if Lorraine Code thinks that it meant to include pragmatist philosophy in the ʻunrelievedly masculine and androcentered traditionʼ that feminists need radically to criticize. [1] Quite the contrary! Not only is William Jamesʼs and John Deweyʼs pragmatist critique of the tradition […]