Editorial archive

This is the fiftieth issue of Radical Philosophy. The first issue was published in January 1972, and we reprint below the statement that appeared in that first issue. The aims of the group were to publish the magazine, set up a network of local activities and groups, and hold national conferences. The magazine has appeared […]

EDITORIAL One of the strengths of Radical Philosophy is its ability to put together a thoroughly disparate set of articles, and point out the obvious theme linking them; and then to make a virtue for itself out of having done that. This virtue is carried through into this issue, in that each of the articles […]

EDITORIAL , 1988′-for almost anyone on the Left, this date must trigger the thought of ‘twenty years on’; and no doubt the anniversary will be marked on many occasions during the coming year. Radical Philosophy, of course, had anticipated such events by organizing, in 1986, a conference on ‘Philosophies of the Left since 1968’. One […]

EDITORIAL There is a style of editorial which sets out to demonstrate that the contents being introduced are both necessary and timely, and that it is ‘no accident’ that they are all together here and now. Radical Philosophy however, is a more contingent affair. Its purpose is to provide a forum for philosophical work and […]

EDITORIAL j i ! J This issue carries a wide-ranging series of articles ranging from the historical – consideration of Bergson’s influence on Sorel – to the immediate: Martin Barker’s analysis of the mass media and ideology. Readers will note Radical Philosophy’s steady expansion both in articles and reviews, a move in the opposite direction […]

EDITORIAL This issue of RadIcal Phllosophy covers a range of topIcs central to the journal’s concerns: the Frankfurt School, sodaHsm and democracy, feminist aesthetIcs, and reflections on the state of being a philosopher. Joseph McCarney’s article on the Frankfurt School in RP 42, ‘What makes CritIcal Theory CritIcal?’ is the subject of a reply by […]

EDITORIAL A number of recent issues of Radical Philosophy have had a central theme or focus: women, gender and philosophy; political philosophy; science, history and philosophy; social theory. This issue is not a theme-based issue in that sense, but the articles we are publishing address, in different ways, a number of concerns which are central […]

EDITORIAL l 1 i 1 J j j This issue of RP focusses on social theory and contains three analyses of issues which are central to different areas of debate on the left. Istvan Meszaros presents a new and important perspective on the prospects for a transition to social.ism. Couched not in terms of the […]

EDITORIAL Following on from the debate on ecological theory in RP40 we publish a critique of alternative medicine by a group-of Dutch writers. In this area the phllosophical and the political intersect in social relations which are increasingly under debate as the very notion of medicine itself is questioned. Looking at the rise of holistic […]

Editorial ‘After some probably avoidable delays in the appearance of RP37 we nearly return to schedule with this ‘ordinary’ issue of RP38, which contains a wide range of essays and reviews. We apologise to our readers for these delays and, through changes we are instituting, hope that they will not recur. The Collective has not […]

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 […]

Editorial Radical Philosophy has never had radical political philosophy at its centre. This stark fact, contrary to the aims and to the self-consciousness of the ‘Group’, requires explanation. It was as if, in the heady early days, the validi ty of some socialist political philosophy or other (untainted by the evils of actually existing socialism) […]

EDITORIAL Marksism: The Shape of Things to Come? Following the success of the first Radical Philosophy special number (RP34 on Women, Gender and Philosophy), and as an extension of our long-standing interest in the subject, we are devoting this issue to the theme of Science, History and Philosophy. As Peter Osborne explained in the last […]

EDITORIAL 1984 and all that Recent re-organisation of the Editorial Collective’s working practices, aimed at a more equitable distribution of the work-load, has given rise to the new position of ‘issue editor’. Although basically administrative in character (the Collective as a whole still takes editorial decisions), this position is enlivened by carrying with it the […]

RADICAL PHILOSOPHY SPECIAL ISSUE: EN, GENDER, AND PHILOSOPHY INTRODUCTION Here we present the first ever special issue of Radical Philosophy on Women, Gender and Philosophy. Much has been written in the past ten years in this country by feminist women working in the social sciences and in economics – on women and the state; on […]

EDITORIAL CoIcI War Thinking No-one will expect us to have such illusions of grandeur as to publish a condemnation of the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Big powers are not to be bothered by such Lilliputian salvoes. Nonetheless, we should be bothered by it, or rather by the way that the western media, western politicians, and […]

Should we defend philosophy? ‘Fight the cuts~’ The slogan has obvious validity when it is a matter of axing hospitals and nursery schools, of increasing the sizes of school classes and closing old people’s homes. And so the same slogan comes easily to hand when the proposed cuts are aimed at higher education. ‘Fighting the […]

BDITOIWlL NODS OAY SCHOOLS AND SOCIOBIOLOGY The main Radical Philosophy activity recently has been the holding of day schools. Two have been held so far this year, and a third is planned for the autumn. We see these as serving an important purpose. It has always been difficult, within the Raiical Philosophy movement, to develop […]

EDITORIAL: THE POLITICS or CLARITY Jonathan Ree’s editorial in Radical Philosophy 20 raised important questions about the role of Radical Philosophy in relation both to the political left and to the acade mic establishment – questions about the dangers of academicism, about the kinds of political and cultural action appropriate to Radical Philosophy, and so […]

EDITORIAL NOTES Although we have received few contributions in response to our request for articles on racism, we still hope to receive enough material to enable us to devote the whole, or a large part of, a future issue to this. In the meantime we publish in this issue a substantial, and no doubt in […]

NLB, are a token of this continuing diffusion.) Sec oodly, as Patton,,-shows, Althusser t s critics have been heavily selective in their lines of approach. Professor Julius Gould, whose Report on the radical The (once talismanic) Althusserian concept of ‘threat’ to higher education is examined in the news theoretical practice is here analysed in depth […]