Tony Burns

This article examines the views of Hegel and Alasdair MacIntyre regarding philosophical disagreements, whether or not they can be resolved and if so how. For both thinkers such a disagreement is thought of as taking place between the advocates of two theoretical positions which are opposed to one another. Each party subscribes to a way of thinking about the issue under discussion which appears to be logically incompatible with the views of the other. We seem therefore to have to make an either-or choice between them. In the case of all philosophical disagreements, therefore, the same questions arise. Is the contradiction in question real, or merely apparent? Can it be resolved? If so, what exactly is involved in such a resolution? Is some form of theoretical compromise, between these two extremes possible? Is there a third-way, a both-and approach, which in some way combines the strengths of each and the weaknesses of neither, or which seeks in some way to balance their respective strengths and weaknesses of each against those of the other? The article suggests that MacIntyre differentiates between two types of philosophical disagreement. In the case of the first, the ideas associated with the two opposed positions are incommensurable. We must, therefore make an either-or choice between them. In the case of disagreements of the second type, the ideas in question are not incommensurable. In these cases, therefore, it is possible for them to be combined or synthesised. The article argues that MacIntyre’s approach to this second type of philosophical disagreement has an obvious affinity with what is often thought to be that of Hegel. In the words of Richard J. Bernstein, it is ‘quasi-Hegelian’. It is therefore fruitful to compare and contrast the views of these two thinkers on this issue.

Two issues have been central within political philosophy in the last decade or so. The first is the debate over 'the politics of distribution versus the politics of recognition,' which is usually associated with the work of Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser. The second is discussion of the phenomenon known as globalization, focusing on the notions of cosmopolitanism and global justice. This book explores the relationship between these two issues. It considers not only the global dimension of the politics of recognition, but also how recognition theory can provide new insights into our understanding of problems of global justice, especially those of a non-distributive nature. A number of the contributors consider the relevance of Hegel's theory of recognition for our understanding of these issues.

This paper discusses the significance of the concept of a social formation for historical materialism. It argues that the concept is wrongly thought to be associated uniquely with the writings of Louis Althusser and with structuralist Marxism. It can be found in the writings of Marx himself, as well as those of Lenin, and is central to an adequate understanding of classical Marxism. To illustrate its importance the paper shows how the concept may be used to shed new light on the debate around the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

Although first published in 1969, the methodological views advanced in Quentin Skinner's “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” remain relevant today. In his article Skinner suggests that it would be inappropriate to even attempt to write the history of any idea or concept. In support of this view, Skinner advances two arguments, one derived from the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein and the other from that of J. L. Austin.In this paper I focus on the first of these arguments. I claim that the conclusion which Skinner draws from this particular argument does not necessarily follow and that an alternative assessment of the methodological significance of Wittgenstein's philosophy for historians of ideas is possible. On this alternative view, far from ruling out conceptual history, an appeal to the view of meaning set out in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations leads to a quite different conclusion, namely that the writing of such a history is arguably a necessary precondition for the elucidation of the meaning of a number of the core concepts in the canon of the history of political thought.Skinner's views have changed somewhat since 1969. Indeed, from the mid 1970s onwards he came to relax the strict opposition to the idea of conceptual history to which he was then committed. The paper concludes by noting that this evolution in Skinner's thinking has made him much more sympathetic than anybody reading “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” would have imagined to the research project of the Begriffgeschichte School of conceptual history.