Beyond Objectivism and Relativism

Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Ingvar Johansson One very important line of division in todayt s philosophy is between those who want to go beyond the dualism between objectivism and relativism and those who still think this dualism is a live option. On this issue t I side with Richard Rortyts view in Philosophy and the […]

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 […]

Philosophical Materialism or the Materialist Conception of History

PHILOSOPHICAL MATERIALISM OR THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION or HISTORY Alison Assiter Introduction ‘Marxism is a materialism’. This idea has become co.mmonplace. Usually, it amounts to placing Marx and Marxism inside a philosophical tradition; one whose roots lie in the atomistic philosophies of De.mocritus and Epicurus. Much r~cent ‘Marxist’ materialism imitates or reproduces many of the ideas […]

The Marxist Dialectic

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 […]

Jospeh Dietzgen

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 […]

Discussion: Leninism versus proletarian self-emancipation; Laing’s social philosophy; The Trivialily of Althusser

Discussion Leninism versus proletarian self-emancipation Norman Geras argues (RP6, pp20-22) convincingly that Marx’s theory of socialist revolution is grounded on the fundamental principle that ‘the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself’. Marx held to this view throughout his entire forty years of socialist political activity, and it […]

The Question of Hegemony

TIB QUBSTIOI or BB8BI1011 G. lowell Smith The question of hegemony can be posed as a political problem. How does it come about that a class or group struggling to free itself from oppression or exploitation remains subordinated politically to the group which oppresses or exploits it? And how does it break free from this […]

The Marxist Theory of Truth

THE mARHI5T THEORY OF TRUTH Peter Binns One of the main problems facing marxist theory is that of its own status. On the one hand the theory of the formation of ideology seems to suggest that all beliefs are relative to the believer’s society; while on the other hand there is the assumption that marxism […]

The Theory of Ideology in Capital

IHE IHEORY OF ·IDEOlOIiV In [APIIAL John mepham •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• “There must be some way out of here” Said the joker to the thief “There’s too much confusion I can’t get no relief” (Dylan) Where do incorrect ideas come from? In What is to be Done? Lenin argues that “the spontaneous development of the working-class movement […]

Towards a Politics of Truth: The Retrieval of Lenin, Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen, 2–4 February 2001

News Lenin in Essen Towards a Politics of Truth: The Retrieval of Lenin Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen, 2–4 February 2001 Essen, home of Krupps and other behemoths of German industry, is where Slavoj Ziek has spent the past year at an interdisciplinary research college sponsoring his million-mark research prize for a project on ʻThe Antinomies of […]

Answering the question: What is to be done?: Dossier: documenta 12 magazines project

Dossier: documenta 12 magazines project

Answering the question: What is to be done? (education) David cunningham The question ʻWhat is to be done?ʼ, Adorno remarked, frequently ʻsabotages the logical progress of knowledge that alone allows for changeʼ . However, despite being always-already-inscribed within the imperatives of instrumental rationality, it is, he acknowledged, nonetheless ʻunavoidableʼ. [1] This is especially so for […]

Gramsci and the political: From the state as ‘metaphysical event’ to hegemony as ‘philosophical fact’

One of the forms in which the waves of protests against the ‘new world order’ in the 1990s and, particularly, the varied political and social movements of the new millennium have been registered in political philosophy has been in a renewed interest in the nature of ‘the political’ and its relationship with ‘politics’. Even and […]

‘On the Idea of Communism’, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, London, 13–15 March 2009

Conference report Celebrity Come Communism‘On the Idea of Communism’, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, London, 13–15 March 2009 This conference’s political conditions had been staked out in advance, on behalf of all the speakers, by Alain Badiou’s essay ‘The Communist Hypothesis’. These were the collapse of the Old Left of the Communist Party and state, […]