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4Review of Alan Garfinkel: Forms of Explanation: Rethinking the Questions in Social Theory (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 33 (4): 438-441. 1982.
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52Issues in Marxist Philosophy. Vol. I. Dialectics and Method. Vol. 2. Materialism. Vol. 3. Epistemology, Science, Ideology (review)Philosophical Review 91 (4): 632-637. 1982.
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18Marxism and the Jewish questionIn Martin Eve & David Musson (eds.), The Socialist Register, Merlin Press. pp. 19--19. 1982.A number of interrelated questions about Jewry, collectively referred to as 'the Jewish question', have been discussed by many Marxists, beginning with Marx himself in his essay, 'On the Jewish Question'. Perhaps the phrase has been forever discredited by those who not long ago offered the world its final solution. Names aside, the substantive issues are still of great importance for historical materialism. For example, we still have no plausible comprehensive account of the causes of anti-Semit…Read more
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55ACHINSTEIN, PETER [1983]: The Nature of Explanation. Oxford University Press. ix+385 pp. (ISBN 0-19-503215-2) (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (3): 377-384. 1986.
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12ExplanationIn Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Genealogy to Iqbal, Routledge. 1998.Book synopsis: The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is the most ambitious international philosophy project in many years. Edited by Edward Craig and assisted by thirty specialist subject editors, the REP consists of ten volumes of the world's most eminent philosophers writing for the needs of students and teachers of philosophy internationally. The REP is a project on an unparalleled scale.
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37Singular explanation and the social sciencesMidwest Studies in Philosophy 15 (1): 130-149. 1990.
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116The active and the passive: David -Hillel RubenAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 71 (1): 229-246. 1997.How to draw the distinction between activity and passivity? Whatever that might be, the causal theory of action cannot give the right answer, as it offers an essentially passive account of human action.
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47II*—Social Properties and their BasisProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 85 (1): 23-46. 1985.David-Hillel Ruben; II*—Social Properties and their Basis, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1985, Pages 23–46, https://doi.or.
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533The Causal and Deliberative Strength of Reasons for ActionIn J. Aguilar & A. Buckareff (eds.), Causing Human Actions: New Perspectives on the Causal Theory of Action, Bradford. 2010.Is the thought that having a reason for action can also be the cause of the action for which it is the reason coherent? This is an attempt to say exactly what is involved in such a thought, with special reference to the case of con-reasons, reasons that count against the action the agent eventually choses.
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11Epistemological EmpiricismThe Monist 59 (3): 392-403. 1976.The empiricist theory of epistemological warrant is not without its attractions. If our beliefs are to be more than “hypothetical”, if they are to be beliefs about our world, then surely at some point our beliefs must be warranted by and anchored to the world by our experience. If our beliefs were not so anchored by our experience, then—to switch metaphors now with C.I. Lewis—“… the whole system of such would provide no better assurance of anything in it than that which attaches to the contents …Read more
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34Explanation (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1993.The aim of this series is to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selected from a variety of sources, mostly periodicals, which may not be conveniently available to the university student or the general reader. The editor of each volume contributes an introductory essay on the items chosen and on the questions with which they deal. A selective bibliography is appended as a guide to further reading. This volume presents a selection of the most importan…Read more
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18Our Knowledge of the External World: a Marxist Perspectiveder 16. Weltkongress Für Philosophie 2 1138-1145. 1983.This paper, an extract from my Marxism and Materialism: Studies in Marxist Theory of Knowledge, discusses the epistemological status of philosophical realism. I take realism to be a necessary part of what Marx meant by 'materialism'. I argue that there are no valid, non-question-begging, decuctive arguments for the truth of realism; nor does empirical science inductively 'confirm' realism, in any technical sense of 'confirmation'. I argue that the relationship between realism and science is one …Read more
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821Traditions and True SuccessorsSocial Epistemology 27 (1). 2013.What constitutes numerically one and the same tradition diachronically, at different times? This question is the focus of often violent dispute in societies. Is it capable of a rational resolution? Many accounts attempt that resolution with a diagnosis of ambiguity of the disputed concept-Islam, Marxism, or democracy for example. The diagnosis offered is in terms of vagueness, namely the vague criteria for sameness or similarity of central beliefs and practices.
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552Con-reasons as causesIn Constantine Sandis (ed.), New Essays on the Explanation of Action, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 62--74. 2009.Book synopsis: This collection of previously unpublished essays presents the newest developments in the thought of international scholars working on the explanation of action. The contributions focus on a wide range of interlocking issues relating to agency, deliberation, motivation, mental causation, teleology, interprative explanation and the ontology of actions and their reasons. Challenging numerous current orthodoxies, and offering positive suggestions from a variety of different perspectiv…Read more
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22Marxism and Materialism: A Study in Marxist Theory of KnowledgeScience and Society 44 (3): 360-363. 1977.
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570Beyond Supervenience and ConstructionJournal of Social Ontology 1 (1): 121-141. 2014.If reduction of the social to the physical fail, what options remain for understanding their relationship? Two such options are supervenience and constructivism. Both are vitiated by a similar fault. So the choices are limited: reduction after all, or emergence.
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246Warnock on rulesPhilosophical Quarterly 22 (89): 349-354. 1972.A discussion of Geoffrey Warnock's views on the analysis of rules.
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5Karl MarxRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 44 65-79. 1999.Although it was, until recently, unfashionable in certain circles to say this, Marx was not a philosopher in any interesting sense. He was a social theorist. As social theory, I am thinking primarily of two areas : the methodology of social inquiry, and its metaphysical presuppositions, and normative philosophy.
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Birkbeck, University of LondonDepartment of PhilosophyEmeritus Professor, Honorary Research Fellow
London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Social Science |