•  3
    Re-assessing Hegel's treatment of love, sexual relationships, the family and law, this book employs a Hegelian account of familial love to review recent debates in feminism, family law and gay and lesbian studies. It addresses current concerns about sexual difference and the ontology of homosexuality, and provides a guide to reading Hegel in an original and productive way.
  •  7
    Castoriadis, racist and anti-racist ontologies
    Thesis Eleven 161 (1): 76-88. 2020.
    Castoriadis explains racism as a mode of hatred of the other and as a feature of the self-institution of heteronomous societies built on ethnocentrism. At the level of the psychical human being he identifies two forms of racist fixation on others: hatred of the other as the flip-side of self-love and as the other side of self-hatred, which he analyses, respectively, as a mode of pseudo-reasoning and as unconscious desire. We argue that attention to the ontology that underpins the modern European…Read more
  •  6
    In ‘Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat’, Lukács analyses the commodity-structure as ‘the universal category’ that frames society as a whole. Taking seriously the aspiration to follow Marx in going ‘to the root of the matter’, Lukács examines the ways and extent to which the commodity structure extends into and remoulds society, focusing on living individuals, their needs and relations to things as use values. We propose a reading drawing on the idea of concern-in-indifference, …Read more
  •  3
    The Ego as World: Speculative Justification and the Role of the Thinker in Hegel’s Philosophy
    Cosmos and History : The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 3 (2-3): 84-116. 2007.
    Prior to engaging in the process of fully realizing the notion of speculative philosophy in Hegelrsquo;s system, the thinker must arrive at the appropriate reflective standpoint via two preliminary justificatory cycles. This paper examines the phenomenological and logical cycles of justification undertaken respectively in the emPhenomenology of Spirit/em and the Doctrines of Being and Essence of the emScience of Logic/em in order to offer an account of the meaning and demands of speculative just…Read more
  •  3
    Philosophy and Revolution: Badiou's Infidelity to the Event
    Cosmos and History : The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 2 (1-2): 210-225. 2006.
    Our aim in this paper is to give reasons for thinking that Badioursquo;s philosophy is not prepared to follow through all the consequences of the historical retreat of the political event. We want to suggest that it is important to come to terms with the implications of this retreat as no less a revolutionary aspect of the revolution. Whereas fidelity to the event demands that we not be selective in following the consequences of an event, fidelity to the eventrsquo;s retreat points to a more dir…Read more
  •  2
    Gathering and Dispersing: The Absolute Spirit in Hegel’s Philosophy
    Cosmos and History : The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 3 (2-3): 254-275. 2007.
    This paper explores the meaning and being of the absolute spirit in Hegelrsquo;s thought by reflecting through the idea that spirit is the activity and being of gathering through dispersal. In Hegelrsquo;s thought gathering and dispersing are the primary movements through which spirit engages in the processes of its absolute self-cognition, the processes, that is, that underpin the eternal becoming of communal being. Gathering and dispersing thus define the pulsating movement of the absolute spi…Read more
  •  18
    'What ought we to think?' Castoriadis' Response to the Question for Thinking
    Cosmos and History : The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 8 (2): 21-33. 2012.
    Castoriadis views the project of autonomy as central to both political action and philosophical thinking. Although he acknowledges that the political project has retreated,he insists on its thinkability as a viable project. We argue that this insistence gives rise to an unresolved tension. Specifically, Castoriadis’ substantive response to the question ‘what ought we to think?’, which he gives in terms of the pursuit of the philosophical project of autonomy, ultimately fails to recognise the una…Read more
  •  22
    On the Systemic Meaning of Meaningless Utterances: The Place of Language in Hegel's Speculative Philosophy
    Cosmos and History : The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 1 (1): 17-26. 2005.
    The aim of our paper is to offer a reading of the systemic significance of Hegel’s inclusion of the concept of the sign in the ‘Psychology’ of his Philosophy of Mind. We hope to explain why it is that the Hegelian system positions a specific form of sign, the meaningless utterance, at the point of Mind’s transition from ‘mechanical memory’ to ‘Thinking’. Rather than analyse the subtle advancements in the unfolding of the self-determining activity of ‘Theoretical Mind’, our strategy will be to fo…Read more
  •  16
    The Spirit of The Age and the Fate of Philosophical Thinking
    with Toula Nicolacopoulos and Paul Ashton
    Cosmos and History : The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 3 (2-3): 1-4. 2007.
    Drawing on Hegelrsquo;s claim that lsquo;it belongs to the weakness of our time not to be able to bear the greatness, the immensity of the claims made by the human spirit, to feel crushed before them, and to flee from them faint-heartedrsquo;, this essay explores the possibility of a renewed encounter with Hegelrsquo;s thought. Arguing that it is not the acceptance or rejection of the lessons of Hegelrsquo;s thought that is important, but rather that ever since Hegel, philosophers are challenged…Read more
  •  12
    Prior to engaging in the process of fully realizing the notion of speculative philosophy in Hegelrsquo;s system, the thinker must arrive at the appropriate reflective standpoint via two preliminary justificatory cycles. This paper examines the phenomenological and logical cycles of justification undertaken respectively in the emPhenomenology of Spirit/em and the Doctrines of Being and Essence of the emScience of Logic/em in order to offer an account of the meaning and demands of speculative just…Read more
  •  17
    Plato's Republic and the End of Philosophy
    Philosophical Inquiry 29 (1-2): 34-45. 2007.
  •  15
    Philosophy of Human Pyschology
    with Ian Timothy Oakley, Robert Bruce Young, Ross George Phillips, and Janna Lea Thompson
    Video Recordings
  •  15
    Philosophy and Revolution: Badiou's Infidelity to the Event
    Cosmos and History 2 (1-2): 210-225. 2006.
    Our aim in this paper is to give reasons for thinking that Badioursquo;s philosophy is not prepared to follow through all the consequences of the historical retreat of the political event. We want to suggest that it is important to come to terms with the implications of this retreat as no less a revolutionary aspect of the revolution. Whereas fidelity to the event demands that we not be selective in following the consequences of an event, fidelity to the eventrsquo;s retreat points to a more dir…Read more
  •  13
    GatherinG and dispersinG: the absolute spirit in heGel's philosophy
    Cosmos and History 3 (2-3): 254-275. 2007.
    This paper explores the meaning and being of the absolute spirit in Hegelrsquo;s thought by reflecting through the idea that spirit is the activity and being of gathering through dispersal. In Hegelrsquo;s thought gathering and dispersing are the primary movements through which spirit engages in the processes of its absolute self-cognition, the processes, that is, that underpin the eternal becoming of communal being. Gathering and dispersing thus define the pulsating movement of the absolute spi…Read more
  •  15
    The Gathering of Ignorance in Plato’s Republic
    Philosophical Inquiry 39 (3-4): 40-55. 2015.
  •  12
    The Spirit of the Age: Hegel and the Fate of Thinking (edited book)
    with Paul Ashton and Toula Nicolacopoulos
    re-press. 2008.
    Paul Ashton, Toula Nicolacopoulos & George Vassilacopoulos philosophy [...] is entirely identical with its time. (LHP I 54) If philosophy is identical with its time, is there a sense in which revolutionary philosophers bear the spirit of their own age  ...
  •  18
    The time of radical autonomous thinking and social-historical becoming in Castoriadis
    with Toula Nicolacopoulos
    Thesis Eleven 120 (1): 59-74. 2014.
    This paper examines Castoriadis’ concept of time as ontological creation in relation to the activation of the project of autonomy. We argue that since Castoriadis presents as a practitioner of the creation of time as radical autonomous thinking, this is the standpoint from which to assess his claims. Through an examination of Castoriadis’ claim that the practice of autonomy depends upon it being activated by a willing singularity who accepts the Chaos of society and of the world, we argue that C…Read more
  •  17
    The time(s) of our lives
    with Miriam Bankovsky and Toula Nicolacopoulos
    Thesis Eleven 120 (1): 3-9. 2014.
    This paper examines Castoriadis’ concept of time as ontological creation in relation to the activation of the project of autonomy. We argue that since Castoriadis presents as a practitioner of the creation of time as radical autonomous thinking, this is the standpoint from which to assess his claims. Through an examination of Castoriadis’ claim that the practice of autonomy depends upon it being activated by a willing singularity who accepts the Chaos of society and of the world, we argue that C…Read more