69 Reviews

I; REVIEWS The power of negative thinking Roy Bhaskar, Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom, London, Verso, 1993. xvi + 406 pp., £39.95 hb., £14.95 pb., 0 86091 3686 hb., 0 86091 583 2 pb. Roy Bhaskar’s previous writings have belonged to definite regions of philosophy – for the most part the philosophy of science and […]

Reply to Suchting on Bhaskar

Virtually Real Realism and the Human Sciences Conference, Oxford, 24-26 July 1992 Roy Bhaskar’s opening paper indicated concerns which were to characterise the conference as a whole. He argued that Critical Realism needs to take on Hegelian concepts to bolster its existing epistemic mapping of the world. The notion of totality, for example, could provide […]

55 Reviews

REVIEWS THE SHAMEFUL FACE OF PHILOSOPHY Michele Le Doeuff, The Philosophical Imaginary, trans. Colin Gordon, London, Athlone Press, 1989. x + 199pp., £32 hb, 0485 11352 X. Western philosophy has, by tradition, defined itself in opposition to myth, fable, the poetic, and all that inhabits the domain of the image. Whatever else either reason or […]

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 […]

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’ […]

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 […]

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 […]

25 Reviews

opposition to all the other terms’, Saussure, p88}, there is ‘an incessant sliding of the signified under the signifier’ {Lacan, p154}. However, Saussure distinguishes the syntagmatic axis of language from the paradigmatic or associative. Syntagmatic is the linear dimension of language most apparent in the sentence, the ‘horizontal’ chain in which meaning is sequentially differentiated […]

Unhewn demonstrations

Unhewn demonstrations Andrew Collier Compell the Reasoner to Demonstrate with unhewn Demonstrations. Let the Indefinite be explored, and let every Man be Judged By his own Works. Let all Indefinites be thrown into Demonstrations, To be pounded to dust & melted in the Furnaces of Affliction. He who would do good to another must do […]

The spectral ontology of value

There is a void at the heart of capitalism. It arises because of the nature of commodity exchange, which abstracts from, or absents, the entire substance of use value. What is constituted therewith is a form of unity of commodities that does not rest on any pre-given common content – which does not exist, it […]