Sean Sayers

Hiding behind the anodyne title of this book is a work of large scope and considerable interest for the Hegelian reader. Its main purpose is to vindicate a dialectical interpretation of Marxism in the context of recent analytical Marxism. The book falls into two parts. The first contains a detailed account of the dialectical philosophy implicit in Marx's work, and of its background in the philosophies of Kant and Hegel. The second shows how this account of Marx's approach can be used to resolve some of the major issues in Marxist philosophy and to illuminate some of the central topics in Marxist social, political and economic thought

In common with other forms of nonreductive materialism, emergent materialism of this sort is accused of trying to have its cake and eat it. Ontological physicalism, it is said, necessarily implies reductionism which rules out the idea that there are irreducible emergent mental properties and laws. For according to such physicalism, everything is composed of physical constituents whose behaviour is governed by the laws of physics and mechanics. It follows that, in theory at least, every particular mental process is describable and explainable in purely physical terms, without recourse to mental descriptions. Description in terms of emergent properties and laws seems superfluous. Nothing save the complexity of the task prevents us from describing and explaining everything that exists or happens in purely physical terms.

other approaches. The first of these is `material thinking' (das materielles Denken): `a contingent consciousness that is absorbed only in material stuff', a form of thought which is rooted in existing conditions and cannot see beyond them. At the `opposite extreme' is the transcendent critical method of `argumentation' (das Räsonieren), which involves `freedom from all content and a sense of vanity towards it'. The dialectical method, Hegel maintains, must `give up this freedom'. It refuses `to intrude into the immanent rhythm of the Notion, either arbitrarily or with wisdom obtained from elsewhere'. Instead, it `sink[s] this freedom in the content, letting it move spontaneously of its own nature ... and then ... contemplate[s] this movement' (Hegel 1970 p. 56; Hegel 1977 pp. 35-6).

In the articles that Skillen criticizes, I am concerned with the problems posed by the 1 social character of knowledge. To defend realism, I argue, it is necessary to develop a historical account of knowledge, involving relative concepts of truth and falsehood. Although Skillen shares the desire to defend realism, he can see no value in this approach, which he variously describes as `obfuscating', `obscuring', and lacking `rigour' and `consistency'. Indeed, he cannot even see the problems I am dealing with. The whole exercise is `unnecessary', he says, `the social development of science' poses no problems for `traditional realism' or for the absolute concepts of truth and error

Scholarly interest in Marxist philosophy has fluctuated dramatically in the past fifty years. Before that, there was little scholarly work in Britain on Marxist philosophy or on Marxism more generally. In the nineteen fifties there were important contributions by economic theorists1 and social historians2 but academic discussion of Marx's philosophy or even of his political theory was minimal and mainly by critics.3 There were only a few philosophers who adhered to Marxism and these were mostly associated with the British Communist Party. This was an orthodox party aligned with the Soviet Union in its political and theoretical standpoint.4 It was never a large political party, unlike those in some other European countries such as Italy or France, and had only a limited impact on British intellectual life.

Few people now read F.H. Bradley and the British Idealists. This is not because they are not important philosophers. On the contrary. It is generally agreed that Bradley, in particular, 2 is a major philosopher, as well as a great, if demanding, writer. It is rather because Bradley and the other Idealists are thought to inhabit a philosophical world quite different from that of the mainstream of contemporary philosophy. They seem to be concerned with issues and problems which have little or nothing to do with the topics which concern most philosophers nowadays.