Derek Allen, Richard Boyd, and Alan Gilbert have suggested that Marx’s normative political views should be reconstructed as a sophisticated version of moral consequentialism. This paper investigates whether Marx’s ostensible anti-moralism differs in any interesting way from Mill’s sophisticated utilitarianism plus some Marxist social science. I present an account of the social meaning and implications of moral language and argument, based on Marx’s description of morality as a social practice based on distinctive motives, emotions and sanctions, to explain why Marx (...) would reject moral consequentialism. This account will explain how Marx can consistently reject morality yet retain a normative basis for his social criticism. (shrink)

The dominant view among academic political philosophers in the English speaking world is that radical political differences, such as those between socialists and non-socialists, are in the last analysis differences of value-judgment, or ‘ideals,’ or ‘principles.’ Few perhaps would now endorse the view of Weldon that the Marxist's espousal of common ownership and the liberal's of private enterprise are ultimate, unarguable principles — as if the entire economic work of Karl Marx or W.S. Jevons could be reduced to sets of (...) changes rung on the themes ‘private enterprise, boo!’ or ‘private enterprise, hurrah!.’ But it is generally assumed that at some point in the argument, value-judgments will be reached, and that it is these that explain the disagreement. (shrink)

The ArgumentDuring the last two decades the debate on the use and abuse of narrative in historiography has taken a new form: ideological instead of methodological. According to poststructuralist critics, the representation of past events and processes in the form of a coherent story turns history into mythology, which is (or serves) conservative ideology. This is so because the fabrication of organic continuity and unity between the past and the present (as well as the future) of society depicts its most (...) fundamental laws and institutions as divine-natural rather than human creations and thereby renders them impervious to any rational or historical refutation. The main aim of this essay is to reclaim some credibility for narrative history against its critics, both ancient and modern, and on both methodological and ideological grounds, by reappraising the role of myth in the constitution of all norms and forms of life. Setting out from the observation that the narratives and other symbolic interpretations of historical reality in which the people believe are as real as the conditions and events in which they actually live, the author calls upon historians not to eliminate, but to illuminate, myths in history, by showing their extension or configuration of historical reality. (shrink)

(2000). The treatment of the ‘woman question’ in radical utopian political thought. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 3, The Philosophy of Utopia, pp. 116-139.

The dominant view among academic political philosophers in the English speaking world is that radical political differences, such as those between socialists and non-socialists, are in the last analysis differences of value-judgment, or ‘ideals,’ or ‘principles.’ Few perhaps would now endorse the view of Weldon that the Marxist's espousal of common ownership and the liberal's of private enterprise are ultimate, unarguable principles — as if the entire economic work of Karl Marx or W.S. Jevons could be reduced to sets of (...) changes rung on the themes ‘private enterprise, boo!’ or ‘private enterprise, hurrah!.’ But it is generally assumed that at some point in the argument, value-judgments will be reached, and that it is these that explain the disagreement. (shrink)

In nineteenth-century Europe …. [w]ith rare exceptions liberals approved of colonialism and provided it with a legitimizing ideology …. Liberalism became missionary, ethnocentric, and narrow, dismissing non-liberal ways of life and thought as primitive and in need of the liberal civilizing mission.This is the judgement passed by Professor Bhikhu Parekh in his 1994 essay “Decolonizing Liberalism.” His deference to John Stuart Mill is shown in his making Mill not one of the exceptions, but rather the central object of attack. It (...) would seem indeed that if the charges can be made good against Mill they will hold against nineteenth-century liberalism in general, and perhaps in some degree against twenty-first-century liberalism.Simple piety moves me to offer some defence of Mill's own good judgement, particularly in relation to India. But, in dealing with a phenomenon like liberalism, we need always to maintain a distinction which tends to blur. Doctrines and assertions are one thing. Historical movements and trends in a society are another. (shrink)

This article argues that the problem of modernity concerns the circumstances of existence and human destiny in modern times. To understand the nature of this problem and find the corresponding solution, we need to reinterpret the thought of Karl Marx regarding the contradictions of human existence and its historical dimensions. Following Marx's line of thinking, this article reviews his critical sequence, creative transformation, and development of duality of thought on man and the world in Western history, focusing on the following (...) four issues: how Marx, on the basis of man's sensuous objective activities, observes the duality of man and the world as well as the relationship between man's internal and external activities; how Marx discloses the true connotation and real significance of man's historical existence, history, and historicity; how Marx reveals the inherent contradictions of modern capitalist society and the destiny of modern man based on historic thought concerning man's existence; and by praising Marx's views on material production and the eternal significance of ancient Greek culture, the article reveals another dimension of Marx's thought, a dimension that tends to be ignored. This article holds that in this era of globalization, it is extremely important and urgent to have an in-depth understanding of Marx's historical thoughts regarding human existence and of the feasibility of his theory. Moreover, it is imperative to further develop this understanding to create a clearer picture of our own path of development and our outlook on humanity. (shrink)

Whilst acknowledging that there are several major differences in the approach which Kant and Marx take to political philosophy this article argues that there are also several common themes. These common themes of commitment to critique, freedom, equality, human betterment and cosmopolitanism are first highlighted. Subsequently the most marked contrasts in their approaches are examined and evaluated. Although Kant demonstrates greater political wisdom and a greater respect for law, Marx shows greater insight into social and political forces. Taken together Kant (...) and Marx present an as yet unrealized, powerful programme for political and social improvement. (shrink)

The rise of a bohemian subculture in the early 19th century drew on the Romantic beliefs in genius on the one hand and erotic passion on the other. Romantic love was a tragic, often forbidden passion and thus could include the most transgressive form: homosexuality. In the German bohemias of Munich and Berlin at the turn of the century, however, the influence of psychoanalysis as a radical new theory of human desire influenced the `erotic revolution' of the period; this moved (...) bohemian love from an understanding of desire as a fatal passion to a celebration of it as a liberating and ecstatic force, albeit with sometimes disastrous consequences. The migration of psychoanalysis to the American bohemia of Greenwich Village inaugurated a further change as popularized versions of Freudian theory advocated the importance of sexual fulfilment in life, yet also became normative and prescriptive. The ironic conclusion drawn is that `bohemian love' has become the norm in a consumer society, yet shorn of its subversive and transgressive elements. (shrink)

‘Complexity theory’ seems to provide some metaphors, concepts and theories essential for examining the intractable disorderliness of the contemporary world. Relations across that world are complex, rich and non-linear, involving multiple negative and, more significantly, positive feedback loops. This article shows how globalization should be conceptualized as a series of adapting and co-evolving global systems, each characterized by unpredictability, irreversibility and co-evolution. Such systems lack finalized ‘equilibrium’ or ‘order’; and the many pools of order heighten overall disorder. They do not (...) exhibit and sustain unchanging structural stability. Complexity elaborates how there is order and disorder within these various global systems. The global order is a complex world, unpredictable and irreversible, disorderly but not anarchic. (shrink)

‘I don’t believe that we can change moral intuitions except as educators – that is, not as theoreticians and not as writers’. (Jürgen Habermas 1992, 202) ‘The thinker as lifestyle, as vision, as ex...

According to Sir Karl Popper, there is a harmful approach to the social sciences called 'historicism'. This takes their principal aim to be historical prediction of an unconditional sort and the chief means to this the discovery of laws of historical development. The chief exemplar is held to be Marx. This paper distinguishes two possible sorts of laws of historical development. Popper's arguments against each are rejected. Which sort it is most plausible to ascribe to Marx is considered. Four models (...) of historical determinism are distinguished and the question of Marx's view or views on the question is discussed in terms of them. (shrink)

Historical practice is described in terms of the intimacies involved in reading archival material and the fashioning of it into historical argument. Research into the domestic service relationship in 18th-century England, using household account books, underpins the historian's construction of imaginary relationships with the dead and gone. Other readers intervene in the writing process, and shape the history that is produced out of archival research.

What old Fascisms and new nationalisms circulate in the political spaces of Europe? Through an analysis of their split on immigration policy in 2003, this article examines the myths and ideologies of the two major far right parties in Italy, the Lega Nord and the Alleanza Nazionale. It argues that the anti-imperial mythology of the Lega, based on the defence of Lombardy against the Holy Roman Empire, has led it into a modernist politics of territoriality, borders and homogeneity. On the (...) other hand, the Alleanza Nazionale has used its Fascist heritage, and in particular the mythologizing of the Roman empire, to open up a postmodern imperial politics, involving the expansion of borders, and the incorporation of new peoples and territories. Through the use of interviews with militants and deputies, it looks at how the Alleanza has re-articulated imperial Fascist mythologies within a new pro-European Union discourse, while the Lega has maintained its role of protest against deterritorialization despite the seeming inevitability of the territorial integration. (shrink)

Györgi Pálfi’s Taxidermia is a landmark work of postsocialist cinema. The film is a study in violent contrasts. It is viscerallycharged and icily allegorical; intimately physical in its exploration ofmasculine desire and bodily disgust, and sardonically distanced in its satiricalportrayal of the successive social and political regimes that dominatedHungary over the course of the twentieth century. On the one hand,Taxidermia is a highly controlled, severely formalist film. In its nearlyinhuman detachment, and its rigorously schematic organization, it is assevere as anything (...) by Kubrick. Yet at the same time, it is filled withuncomfortable and unpredictable details; and it insistently focuses onexcesses of the flesh in a way that rivals early Cronenberg. In what follows, Iconsider Taxidermia in the light of these contradictory extremes. (shrink)

This essay is a logico?philosophical critique of the Marxian system of sociology with special reference to the theory of social change. To every change in the natural order (taken in conjunction with the technological order) corresponds an appropriate change in the human order, that is, in the system of social relations. This, it is shown, is the fundamental Marxian thesis regarding social equilibrium. And accordingly the key idea regarding social change is that a gradually maturing inherent disproportion between the two (...) orders is the basic condition of social change, eventually leading to the establishment of a new social equilibrium at a higher level. A close examination of the concept of mode of production and changes therein is attempted in the course of elucidating the above thesis. It is argued that the technological interpretation of the concept of mode of production conflicts with the Marxian anthropology and that we should have a structural interpretation according to which it will refer to the economy as a whole and will include among other elements production relations. This interpretation leads the discussion into one of the central problems of Marxism, namely, the relation between the mode of production and the social system. It is argued that the social system is basic to Marx and after a close analysis of the concept of system it is shown that the Marxian theory of base and superstructure rests mainly on confusion of conceptual orientations. This, it is shown, is connected with a fundamental idea of Marxism, viz., that of a system without a transcendent centre. This essay endeavours to prove that such an idea is logically untenable. Hence the Marxian Laws of Transformation of Quantity into Quality and Negation of Negation are examined and shown logically untenable. The last section discusses the question about the determinant of technological change and eventually of social change. Three possible Marxian solutions are examined: (a) in terms of needs ? it is argued that this is inconsistent with Marx's theory of man and labour; (b) in terms of science and new ideas ? it is shown that this ultimately goes contrary to Marxian materialism and positivism; and finally, (c) the systemic solution in terms of the dialectic of nature and man is subjected to logical scrutiny and it is shown that this cannot be consistent and valid without involving a trans?historical standpoint; for, it is argued, the idea of the self?directing Humanity on which it rests is a self?contradictory notion. (shrink)

Recognition is used here in its military sense of “reconnaissance”: reconnaissance is about territory and how, survey done and maps out on the table, one will proceed methodically, strategically to seize and control. Counterterrorism and surveillance protocols have been feeding on this basic idea without giving it any more thought than the addition of technologies.1 A couple of provisos: I do not use the word “recognition” in its Aristotelian sense of “anagnôrisis”, a dramatic catastrophe, a turning on its head of (...) a plot, when a.. (shrink)

Marx's call for a materialism capable of engaging reality as ‘sensuous human activity’ opens a question about the role of representation in relation to data. Images have increasingly been seen as significant forms of data in the history of education. Derrida's theory of the spectre—a variation on the positions established in his earlier works on the trace, the supplement and differance—offers a way of rethinking visual images, their relations with existing discourses of knowledge and with positioned subjects who makes sense. (...) Two early twentieth-century photographs are explored here in relation to ideas derived from Derrida as an exercise in the philosophy of representation. (shrink)

Many have argued that individuals should receive income in proportion to their contribution to society. Others have believed that it would be fairer if people received income in proportion to the effort they expend in so contributing, since people have much greater control over their level of effort than their productivity. I argue that those who believe this are normally also committed, despite appearances, to increasing the social product — which undermines any sharp distinction between effort- and productivity-based distributive proposals. (...) However, effort-based proposals do emphasise more the importance of people having control over factors affecting their income. The second set of problems I consider is how to implement policies which hold true to this emphasis. I show that there are major problems with the accuracy of using any objective criteria to measure the level of effort a person is expending. Moreover, once any such criteria are employed the problem of ‘moral hazard’arises because people modify their behaviour in such a way as to maximise their income while minimising their effort. This violates the original motivation for using effort. Because of this and other empirical considerations, I argue that productivity may well be a better criterion on which to distribute income even if one is motivated by the same concerns which have prompted effort-based proposals. (shrink)

In this article I attempt to reconcile two seemingly conflicting theorisations of love, the one elaborated by Roy Bhaskar as part of his philosophy of meta-Reality and Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s historical materialist-radical feminist theory of love power. While Bhaskar emphasises the essentially non-dual character of love, envisioning it as a ‘no-lose situation’, Jónasdóttir stresses the antagonistic features structuring love relations by conceptualising love as a productive power that men tend to exploit women of. Rather than seeing these accounts as mutually (...) exclusive I show that they can be reconciled by aid of the general ontology elaborated by Bhaskar in his philosophy of meta-Reality. (shrink)

There has been a resurgence of interest in the work of Raya Dunayevskaya and Herbert Marcuse, particularly regarding their shared concern with humanism and dialectics. Recent edited collections on Dunayevskaya’s correspondence have, however, drawn a sharp contrast between the conceptions of the dialectical method: Dunayesvkaya, who emphasized the need for ‘philosophic new beginnings’ to offer a new relationship between theory and practice, and Herbert Marcuse who, despite his piercing identification of the one-dimensionality of late capitalism, continued with a problematic basis (...) in (orthodox) Marxist categories. In this review essay, we outline the latest of these two volumes and its distinct contributions before engaging in a critique of Marcuse’s restrictions on humanism and dialectics, via a comparison with Dunayevskaya’s dialectical approach that was premised on questioning ‘the problems of the age’ and emphasized the open and negative polarity of dialectical possibilities. (shrink)

Imre Lakatos gained fame in the English-speaking world as a follower and critic of philosopher of science Karl Popper. However, Lakatos’ background involved other philosophical and scientific sources from his native Hungary. Lakatos surreptitiously used Hegelian Marxism in his works on philosophy of science and mathematics, disguising it with the rhetoric of the Popper school. He also less surreptitiously incorporated, particularly in his treatment of mathematics, work of the strong tradition of heuristics in twentieth century Hungary. Both his Marxism and (...) his emphasis on heuristics contained a view of science and mathematics that contrasted with the mainstream of Anglo-American philosophy of science. Both involved a dynamic view of science, whether historical or psychological, and an emphasis on practice as opposed to static, formal representations of scientific theories. (shrink)

Alan Wood's claim that ‘Marx did not consider capitalism unjust’ is based on three reasons: 1) According to Marx, the conceptions of justice is the highest expression of the rationality of social facts from the juridical point of view; 2) Marx argues that whether an economic trade or social institution is a just one depends on its compatibility with modes of production; 3) according to Marx, possession of surplus value by the capitalists does not include unequal or unjust trades. Wood (...) presents these three reasons in detail and provides specific referential support for them. This paper argues that Wood fails to provide sufficient referential support to his proposition and his interpretation of the relevant texts is mistaken, and hence that Wood’s claim is invalid. (shrink)

This review essay takes three very different types of books, one on new social movements, the second on global governance and the third on dystopia, to reflect on methodological questions in knowledge production for social change which is the professed aim of critical and radical scholarship. The essay reflects on the methodological problems of making connections between philosophical, sociological and empirical analyses in ways that can guide action. The treatment of facts and events, omission to consider gaps and absences in (...) accounts of experiences, the obfuscation of the desirable and the possible in legal liberalism, problems of connecting everyday life to ontological questions of being and reality, perspectives and unity of micro and macrocosms, are some of the themes considered. The essay engages the methodological strategies that are needed to make the moves from space/time in philosophy to spatio-temporality in sociological analysis to here and now in empirical studies. It argues that all levels are interpenetrated in manifest experiences and that it is important to grasp the institutional constraints on knowledge production if knowledge is to provide guidance for transformative action. (shrink)

The ontological and analytical status of Marxian social theory has been a matter of fierce controversy since Marx’s death, both within and without Marxist circles. A particular source of contention has been over whether Marxism should be construed as an objective science of the capitalist mode of production or as an ethico-philosophical critique of bourgeois society. This is paralleled by the dispute over whether Marxism ought to be considered a humanism or a structuralism. This article addresses both sides of this (...) debate. The argument is that, rather than Marx’s own social thought being split into incompatible poles, giving rise to ‘two Marxisms’, it forms a coherent unity. Marx’s social theory is neither humanist philosophy, nor structural science, but is in fact realist science, which synthesizes these apparent antinomies, and thereby transcends both. (shrink)

India has promoted its power through intervention in neighboring countries under the cloak of morality. The United States, Great Britain, and Russia have nonetheless tacitly endorsed India's role as the policing force in the region. Does this recognition justify India's actions toward its weaker and smaller neighbors?

Among analytic philosophers in the past few years there has been a growing commitment to taking Marx seriously. Since the publication in 1971 of John Rawls’ bookA Theory of Justicethere has been a growing commitment to taking problems of Justice and rights seriously. These two developments intersect in mutual criticism: Marx's radical critique challenges the resources of recent theories of rights and Justice, while the sophistication of recent theories raises the possibility that they escape Marx's most basic criticism.

Among analytic philosophers in the past few years there has been a growing commitment to taking Marx seriously. Since the publication in 1971 of John Rawls’ book A Theory of Justice there has been a growing commitment to taking problems of Justice and rights seriously. These two developments intersect in mutual criticism: Marx's radical critique challenges the resources of recent theories of rights and Justice, while the sophistication of recent theories raises the possibility that they escape Marx's most basic criticism.