Smith is generally regarded as an individualist without qualification. This paper argues that his predominantly individualist policy prescription is rooted in a more complex philosophy. He sees nature, including human nature, as a vast machine supervised by God and designed to maximise human happiness. Human weaknesses, as well as strengths, display the wisdom of God and play their part in this scheme. While Smith pays lip service to justice, it is really social order that pre-occupies him, and within that, the (...) defence of property. Individuals are valued as bearers of property. As persons, individuals are deceived by nature into acting in a socially beneficial way. In different ways Smith systematically denies the autonomy of the individual with respect to the whole of which he is part. For Smith, individual liberty is, not the end, but the means, of sustaining social order and property. (shrink)

Critique involves reflection, specifically self-reflection, and as such it is inherently linked with philosophy. Critique calls for change, awareness, liberation from false conceptions, and reshaping of spheres of action and belief. Consequently it is closely linked with the moral and the political. Critique aspires to enhance truth, beauty, and justice and is thus an integral part of science, art, and social action. The present volume tackles issues of critique through a selection of papers originally presented at the workshop on “Models (...) of Critique in the Sciences, Society, and the Arts,” held in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv during May 1996. As the full program indicates, this selection provides only a partial picture of the topics discussed at the workshop. A major consideration has been the publication policy of Science in Context, with its emphasis on science, which is reflected here. We wish to express our gratitude to all the participants for their presentations and contributions to a stimulating exchange of ideas. (shrink)

Postmodernism and religion. The discussion continues to become increasingly rich and complex. In the background of much of it is Heidegger's critique of onto-theology, in which Hegel is one of his two prime paradigms. He introduced this term in 1949 in relation to Aristotle's completion of his ontology with a theology of the Unmoved Mover. When he returned to it in 1957, it was in the context of a seminar on Hegel'sScience of Logic. There he described onto-theology as allowing God (...) to enter philosophical discourse only on philosophy's terms and in the service of its project and complained, in the spirit of Pascal and Kierkegaard, that this God was religiously otiose. What he says there specifically about Hegel will best be understood after we see in what sense Hegel is a pantheist.It is possible to date quite precisely the time when Hegel abandoned theism for good. Ironically, it was in 1795 in correspondence with his two friends from seminary days at Tübingen. Schelling and Hölderlin had become Fichte enthusiasts, as we see from letters they sent to Hegel early that year. On the basis of prepublication access to Fichte's 1794Wissenschaftslehre, Schelling wrote on January 5,Philosophy is not yet at an end. Kant has provided the results. The premises are still missing. And who can understand the results without the premises? … Kant has swepteverythingaway, but how is the crowd to notice? One must smash it to pieces before their very eyes, so they grasp it in their hands. The great Kantians now everywhere to be seen have got stuck on the letter … [;] the old superstition of so-called natural religion as well as of positive religion has in the minds of most already once more been combined with the Kantian letter. It is fun to see how quickly they get to the moral proof. Before you can turn around thedeus ex machinasprings forth, the personal individual Being who sits in Heaven above!Fichtewill raise philosophy to a height at which even most of the hitherto Kantians will become giddy …. Now I am working on an ethicá laSpinoza. (shrink)

My aim in this essay is to distinguish and comment on a specific movement of thought which I shall call “democracy as a telos.” This expression refers to a conception of democracy, cultivated by normative political philosophers, in which all democratic potentialities have at last been realized. The result is thought to be a perfected political community. Democracy as a telos must thus be distinguished from the actual liberal democracies we enjoy at the end of the twentieth century. Indeed, democracy (...) as a telos takes off from a specific rejection of such familiar institutions as elections, political parties, oppositions, a free press, and the rest, which are regarded, according to taste, as individualistic, bourgeois, atomistic, formal, and abstract. Democracy as a telos refers to the theories of reformers who, dissatisfied with our present condition, argue that only a radically transformed democracy can generate a real political community. (shrink)

In this essay I recover the juridical applications of `interest' in Roman law, and examine how their initial relationship to financial practices shifted, for a theoretical appreciation of interest-related subjectivity. Drawing on Hegel's discussion of Roman law, I explore the retrospective narrative of subjectivity constructed by the adjudication of interests before the term `interest' came to apply to money. Examining Albert Hirschman's argument that rationality of interest derives from its origins as a euphemism for usury, I describe how the verbal (...) change reflects the incursion of money into legal terrain that previously excluded it, representing a moment of categorical erosion within the law. I argue that monetary inflation is a critical context for interpreting the effects of this categorical erosion on interest-related subjectivity. Inflation replaces the retrospective narrative of identity with one that is future-oriented and is no longer determined at any single site of adjudication, and therefore remains contested. (shrink)

A paradox, according to the OED, is ‘a statement seemingly self-contradictory or absurd, though possibly well-founded or essentially true’. In this article I shall try to show that the classical orthodox Marxist view of morality is a paradox. I shall seek to resolve the paradox by trying to show that it is only seemingly self-contradictory or absurd. But I shall not claim the standard Marxist view of morality to be well-founded or essentially true. On the contrary, I shall suggest that, (...) though coherent, it is ill-founded and illusory. (shrink)

A paradox, according to the OED, is ‘a statement seemingly self-contradictory or absurd, though possibly well-founded or essentially true’. In this article I shall try to show that the classical orthodox Marxist view of morality is a paradox. I shall seek to resolve the paradox by trying to show that it is only seemingly self-contradictory or absurd. But I shall not claim the standard Marxist view of morality to be well-founded or essentially true. On the contrary, I shall suggest that, (...) though coherent, it is ill-founded and illusory. (shrink)

While many philosophers have found Hegel's critique of Kantian ethics to be interesting in certain respects, overall most tend to find it rather shallow and to think that Hegel either misunderstands Kant's thought or has a rather crude understanding of it. For example, in examining the last two sections of Chapter V of the Phenomenology - 'Reason as Lawgiver' and 'Reason as Testing Laws' (where we get an extended critique of the categorical imperative)- Lauer finds Hegel's treatment to be truncated (...) and inadequate.1 The only trouble, though, is that like most other readers of the Phenomenology, Lauer does not recognize that Hegel had been examining and criticizing Kantian ethics throughout a much greater part of-indeed, more than half of-Chapter V. Once we do understand this, I think we must concede that Hegel's treatment is hardly truncated and that it cannot be described as shallow or inadequate. I will try to show that Hegel demonstrates a rather sophisticated understanding of, and gives a serious and thorough critique of, Kantian practical reason. (shrink)

T he Question of punishment and its justification has been a major preoccupation in recent philosophy of law. The reasons for this growing concern are not difficult to discover. Both philosophers and jurists have become increasingly sceptical of traditional theories of legal punishment. Each of these inherited theories was designed to establish criteria for the recognition and appraisal of punishment as a legal institution. However, alternative theories emphasised different and often conflicting criteria. Some theories emphasised moral desert and retribution, while (...) others appealed to the social utilities of punishment. Failure to reconcile these diverse philosophical viewpoints, through sustained debate over two centuries, has been a major source of intellectual dissatisfaction. (shrink)

Books on the major thinkers in the history of philosophy are faced with difficult tasks. Not only do they run the risk of being too scholarly for the nonspecialist or insufficiently detailed for the specialist, but also they must observe the fine line between avoiding anachronism and establishing the current relevance and merits of the past philosopher. These problems are compounded for the English-speaking philosopher by a figure like Hegel who is either identified with a very unhegelian British idealism, or (...) largely ignored. The anglophone interpreter of Hegel must find fresh ways of expressing his ideas and methods for a philosophical audience whose recent resurgence of interest in Hegel emerges from a zero degree, or worse, of understanding or empathy. Charles Taylor's book is brilliantly successful at rehabilitating Hegel and providing a vigorous, stimulating reading of his major works. (shrink)

This thesis constructs a model of the material causes of the capacity of individuals to act at work, by using the ontology of scientific realism to facilitate a synthesis between Marx and Foucault. This synthetic model is submitted as a solution to the long-standing problem of Industrial Relations theory, now manifest in the deconstruction of the organon of 'control'. The problems of 'control' are rooted in the radical concept of power and traditional, base/superstructure, interpretations of Marx. Developing an alternative to (...) the last provides the means of transcending the limitations of the first and the second. A realist, chronological-bibliographic reading of Marx provides an alternative to traditional interpretations, by creating a novel concept of his object, his initial explicandum and his putative explicans. This reading identifies a fresh problem with his model of capital: it cannot explain how labour is organized into a productive power and subsumed to capital. Foucault provides the means of resolving these deficiencies of Marx's explicans. A realist interpretation turns Marx and Foucault around to face each other, renders them compatible and establishes points of contact between their work. Together they constitute a model of the operative logic of production relations capable of explaining the organization of labour, its subsumption to capital and the materialism of civil society and the idealism of the state. On this basis, the contemporary form of the problem of Industrial Relations theory is explained. (shrink)