'Epistemology' tag archive

Effective Altruism (EA) is a programme for rationalising charitable giving, positioning individuals to do the ‘most good’ per expenditure of money or time. It was first formulated – by two Oxford philosophers just over a decade ago – as an application of the moral theory consequentialism, and from the outset one of its distinctions within […]

The ‘Introduction’ to the Phenomenology of Spirit has enjoyed a long and rich critical reception in the history of Hegel scholarship. 1 Distinguished from the famous ‘Preface’ in that it introduces the particular ambitions of the Phenomenology as opposed to Hegel’s philosophical enterprise as a whole, the opening section of the 1807 work has been […]

This conversation was recorded on Sunday 24 June 2018 as part of the closing plenary of the symposium ‘Planetary Utopias: Hope, Desire and Imaginaries in a Postcolonial World’ (curated by Nikita Dhawan) in the ‘Colonial Repercussions’ event series at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin. It was transcribed by Anna Millan and has been revised for […]

Reviews Culture and adminBéatrice Hibou, La bureaucratisation du monde à l’ère néolibérale, La Découverte, Paris, 2012. 223 pp., €17.00 pb., 978 2 70717 439 0. ^ Ben Kafka, The Demon of Writing: Powers and Failures of Paperwork, Zone Books, New York, 2012. 182 pp., £19.95 hb., 978 1 93540 826 0. The ascendancy of neoliberalism […]

What does Bachelard mean by rationalisme appliqué? Mary tiles While Bachelard’s Rationalisme appliqué can readily be translated as Applied Rationalism, neither the French nor the English are very revealing of the position being advocated. In particular one would be led very far astray if one were to think of rationalism as a philosophical position which […]

Corrationalism and the problematic Gaston bachelard If the fear of being accused of psychologism were not so keenly felt by epistemologists they would no doubt pay more attention to the problem of the acquisition of ideas.* They would then notice that to each new idea there remains attached a perspective of acquisition, an approach structure […]

TRUTH & RELATIVITY: AN EXCHANGE Sean Sayers’ Relativism Tony Skiffen For some years Sean Sayers has been urging, against empiricism and anal ytical philosophy, the virtues of dialecticallogic. Such logic, he believes, is essential to a proper understanding. I take issue with this view at the level of ‘logic and language’. It seems to me […]

• Feminism and the Enlightenment Pauline Johnson The recent turn taken by feminist theory towards a critique of the spirit of humanism would have surprised de Beauvoir and the early delineators of the concerns of ‘second wave’ feminism. According to The Second Sex, feminism is an expression of humanism in a quite straightforward sense.! Indeed, […]

Reflections upon Roy Bhaskar’s ‘Critical Realism’ Wal Suchting ‘ … quamquam ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?’ TRANSCENDENTAL REALISM (‘ … but what is to stop anyone with a smile on his face from telling the truth?’) 2 ‘Empiricism’ and Its Critique (Horace, Satires, I, i, 25) 1 Introduction 1.1 Over the last fifteen years or […]

Revealing the Truth of Art Andrew Bowie Philosophical discussion of art in English tends not to aim its sights particularly high, and some Anglo-Saxon philosophy has effectively denied art any serious philosophical significance at all. In this light a contemporary German book* which wishes to argue for the truth of art over that of the […]

Knowledge as a Social Phenomenon Sean Sayers The idea that knowledge is a social phenomenon is no longer either novel or unfamiliar. With the growth of the social sciences, we are accustomed to seeing ideas and beliefs in social and historical terms, and trying to understand how they arise and why they take the forms […]

Mass Media Studies and the Question of Ideology Martin Barker On the face of it, radical understanding of the mass media has to count as one of the great success stories of the post-’60s political and academic culture. Without attempting anything like a historical survey, it is unquestionably the case that whole new fields and […]

of them has much in the way of arguments. Q. r’;hat do you make of Donald Davidson and the contemporary philosophy of action, which has been taken very seriously on the continent? A. I never found it very interesting. It seems to me to be a hang over from the problem of free will. I’m […]

Introduction to (ieorges Canguilhem Mike Short/and Take away Canguilhem and you will no longer understand much about Althusser, Althusserianism and a whole series of discussions which have taken place among French Marxists; you will no longer grasp what is specific to sociologists such as Bourdieu, Castel, Passerson and what marks them so strongly within sociology; […]

Heidegger: an Assessment Roger Waterhouse This is the last of three articles on Heidegger. The first traced Heidegger’s early development. The second analysed the argument of ‘Being and Time’. This third considers his later career and assesses his philosophy as a whole. After Being and Time was published in 1927 IIeidegger found himself acclaimed throughout […]

Cutler on Laws of Tendency Ted Bentan Some Notes on Cutler et.al. on Laws of Tendency (Cutler et.al., Marx’s Capital and Capitalism Today, Vol.I, chapters 4, 5 and 6.) Cutler et.al. declare themselves opposed to the epistemological privileging of any level of discourse, but prefer, instead, to engage in discursive analyses of specific problems. Nevertheless, […]

ALTHUSSBR’S BPISTBMOLOGY: Ihe limils of Ihe Iheo..y of Iheo..elical p ..aclice PaulPatton concepts and theses which would permit the demarcation of science from other kinds of theoretical discourse. Dialectical materialism, then, was thought to be the philosophical theory Within which the scientific character of historical materialism could be demonstrated. Althusser’s marxist philosophy, however, was no […]

R2~ If I believed in the imminent collapse of capitalism from forces internal to the economy (falling rate of profit etc), then my evaluation of movements would be affected by this. But Hindess and Hirst, while pointing this out, insist that my calculation of consequences; is itself a function of my political position (evafuation). So […]

” What ue lhe llbas of Science? Aaron.Sloman I ~ , If we are to understand the nature of science, ·”course much wider than science. We all, including we must see it as an activity and achievement of infants and children, aim to extend our knowledge the human mind alongside others, such as the a~d […]

grasp Marx’s thought ‘did not succeed in the r intentions,’ above all because they ‘approached Marx ones dely,’ and deliberately ‘isolated the economist, the ph losopher, or the historian,’ etc. Of course there is an element of truth in these remarks, since all scientific work is necessari ly partial and needs to be complemented by […]