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249Why Work? Marx and Human NatureScience and Society 69 (4). 2005.Why work? Most people say that they work only as a means to earn a living. This is also implied by the hedonist account of human nature which underlies utilitarianism and classical economics. It is argued in this paper that Marx’s concept of alienation involves a more satisfactory theory of human nature which is rooted in Hegel’s philosophy. According to this, we are productive beings and work is potentially a fulfilling activity. The fact that it is not experienced as such is shown to be at the…Read more
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21Douglas Moggach’s The Philosophy And Politics Of Bruno Bauer , David Leopold’s The Young Karl Marx: German Philosophy, Modern Politics, And Human Flourishing (review)Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 57 173-180. 2008.
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Review of Tony Burns and Ian Fraser (eds), Hegel and Marx: the concept of need (review)Political Studies 48 (1): 146-146. 2000.
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6According to Plato, the true philosopher will take on political power only with great reluctance. Onora O’Neill is a prominent political philosopher: specifically, a latter day Kantian and a follower of Rawls. She is also Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge and, as Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, a crossbench Peer in the House of Lords. I have no idea whether she was at all reluctant to take on these positions. Happily, on the evidence of the present book, they do not appear to have compromise…Read more
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245Creative Activity and Alienation in Hegel and MarxHistorical Materialism 11 (1): 107-128. 2003.For Marx, work is the fundamental and central activity in human life and, potentially at least, a ful lling and liberating activity. Although this view is implicit throughout Marx’s work, there is little explicit explanation or defence of it. The fullest treatment is in the account of ‘estranged labour’ [entfremdete Arbeit] in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts;1 but, even there, Marx does not set out his philosophical assumptions at length. For an understanding of these, one must turn t…Read more
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16Review of Lectures on natural right and political science: The first philosophy of right, Heidelberg 1817-1818, with additions from the lectures of 1818-1819 - Hegel,GWF (review)Radical Philosophy 84 (84): 51-52. 1997.
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Jon Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx, Karl Marx: A Reader (review)Radical Philosophy 46 40. 1987.
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Review of J.M. Masson, The assault on Truth and J. Malcolm, In the Freud Archives (review)Explorations in Knowledge 3 (2): 71-77. 1986.
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165Individual and Society in Marx and Hegel: Beyond the Communitarian Critique of LiberalismScience and Society 71 (1). 2007.Marx's concepts of individual and society have their roots in Hegel's philosophy. Like recent communitarian philosophers, both Marx and Hegel reject the idea that the individual is an atomic entity, an idea that runs through liberal social philosophy and classical economics. Human productive activity is essentially social. However, Marx shows that the liberal concepts of individuality and society are not simply philosophical errors; they are products and expressions of the social alienation of f…Read more
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24For the past decade, the government has been ruthlessly pursuing free market policies. It has introduced market forces into many walks of life previously protected from them; and it has vigorously promoted the values of the `enterprise culture'. The economic and social consequences of these policies have been dramatic and profound. On the one hand, there has been a radical economic `restructuring': a ruthless sweeping away of much that was old and inefficient, and a considerable streamlining and…Read more
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30According to materialism, everything that exists or happens is ultimately material or physical. In some form or other, this philosophy is a fundamental component of modern thought. For, with the development of modern science, it has become increasingly clear that natural phenomena can be described and understood in materialistic terms, without recourse to the notions of a divine creator or an immaterial human mind.
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32Radical Philosophy was born in the aftermath of the student movement of the 1960s. At that time, philosophy in British universities was very conservative and traditional. Ordinary language philosophy, the analytical approach, and the empiricist tradition were absolutely dominant. However, the student movement of the 1960s had opened young people's minds to a whole new range of radical ideas and issues. These were dismissed as not worthy of study, and excluded from discussion in philosophy depart…Read more
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13Socialism, radicalism and nostalgia: Social criticism in Britain, 1775–1830: William Stafford , ix + 304 pp., £27.50, cloth; £10.95, paper (review)History of European Ideas 10 (1): 119-121. 1989.
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68Marxism and the Crisis of CapitalismPhilosophical Trends 2009 (5): 19-21. 2009.Since 2007, capitalism has been going through its greatest crisis since the 1930s or before. In 2008, the banking system was saved from meltdown (at least for the time being) only by extensive government intervention in the USA, Britain, and a number of other countries. Stock markets all over the world plummeted. Then the crisis spread to the ‘real’ economy. A long and deep recession followed. Only now are we perhaps beginning to see what may – or may not – be fragile signs of recovery. Capitali…Read more
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7Marxism and Human Nature (Turkish edn)Yordam Kitap. 1998.Is there such a thing as human nature? Sean Sayers gives an ambitious and wide ranging defence of the Marxist and Hegelian approach to uphold the controversial theory that human nature is actually a historical phenomenon.
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36I recently visited the Soviet Union. I was there for only one week, as a tourist: time to get only a very limited and superficial impression of life there. Nevertheless, it was a sobering and thought-provoking experience. For even such a brief visit forces one to confront the problems raised by the evidently unideal character of the Soviet Union and other `actually existing' socialist societies. These are amongst the greatest problems facing socialists in the world today.
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32Reality and reason: dialectic and the theory of knowledgeBlackwell. 1985.Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake) Introduction In this book I deal with some of the central ...