Truth and Relativity: An Exchange: 1. Sean Sayers' Relativism; 2. Once more on Relative Truth: A Reply to Skillen

TRUTH & RELATIVITY: AN EXCHANGE Sean Sayers’ Relativism Tony Skiffen For some years Sean Sayers has been urging, against empiricism and anal ytical philosophy, the virtues of dialecticallogic. Such logic, he believes, is essential to a proper understanding. I take issue with this view at the level of ‘logic and language’. It seems to me […]

Is Bhaskar’s Realism Realistic?

Is Bhaskar’s Realism Realistic? A/an Chalmers In this paper I begin by briefly outlining what I consider to be the key features of Roy Bhaskar’s realist account of laws of nature. l I regard his account to be the best available. However, I do not think his case can be established as conclusively as is […]

Response to Archard’s Review of Sartre’s Freud Scenario

Philosophy and Medical Welfare Under the auspices of the Royal Institute of Philosophy the Philosophy Department, University of York (UK) is holding a conference on Philosophy and Medical Welfare from 11 to 13 September 1987. Speakers will include Martin Hollis (University of East Anglia), John Harris (University of Manchester), Michael Lockwood (University of Oxford). Further […]

Materialism, Realism and the Reflection Theory

Materialism, Realism and the Reflection Theory* Sean Savers I The reflection theory is the traditional theory of knowledge of Marxism. It is this theory which is put forward by Engels and which is developed and defended at length by Lenin in MateriaZism and EmpirioCriticism [1]. The basic principles of this theory are simply stated and […]

A Critical Note on Bhaskar and Systems Theory

A Critical Note on Bhaskar and Systems Theory* G. Carchedi Von Bertalanffy’s article ‘The Theory of Open Systems in ~hysics and Biology’, published in 1950 [1], is widely regarded as having started the systems-thinking movement. In the words of F.E. Emery, scientific interest was mobilized by von Bertalanffy’s ‘rigorous distinction between open and closed systems’ […]

Abstraction: A Realist Interpretation

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 […]

Realism and Social Science: Some Comments on Roy Bhaskar's 'The Possibility of Naturalism'

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

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, […]

Scientific Explanation and Human Emancipation

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 […]

Post-Marxist Modes of Production

POST-MARXIST M I ‘) .. or PRODUCTION According to whoever wrote the editorial ‘notes’ for Radical Philosophy 17, ‘The present upsurge of fundamental Marxist researches may indicate an exit route from the circle of philosophy’s –deaths and re births , via which the problem of the specificity of “the philosophical” might be both subverted and […]