No figure among the western Marxist theoreticians has loomed larger in the postwar period than Louis Althusser. A rebel against the Catholic tradition in which he was raised, Althusser studied philosophy and later joined both the faculty of the Ecole normal superieure and the French Communist Party in 1948. Viewed as a "structuralist Marxist," Althusser was as much admired for his independence of intellect as he was for his rigorous defense of Marx. The latter was best illustrated in For (...) Marx (1965), and Reading Capital (1968). These works, along with Lenin and Philosophy (1971) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship. This classic work, which to date has sold more than 30,000 copies, covers the range of Louis Althusser's interests and contributions in philosophy, economics, psychology, aesthetics, and political science. Marx, in Althusser's view, was subject in his earlier writings to the ruling ideology of his day. Thus for Althusser, the interpretation of Marx involves a repudiation of all efforts to draw from Marx's early writings a view of Marx as a "humanist" and "historicist." Lenin and Philosophy also contains Althusser's essay on Lenin's study of Hegel; a major essay on the state, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," "Freud and Lacan: A letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre," and "Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract." The book opens with a 1968 interview in which Althusser discusses his personal, political, and intellectual history. (shrink)

The communist norm requires that scientists widely share the results of their work. Where did this norm come from, and how does it persist? Michael Strevens provides a partial answer to these questions by showing that scientists should be willing to sign a social contract that mandates sharing. However, he also argues that it is not in an individual credit-maximizing scientist's interest to follow this norm. I argue against Strevens that individual scientists can rationally conform to the communist norm, even (...) in the absence of a social contract or other ways of socially enforcing the norm, by proving results to this effect in a game-theoretic model. This shows that the incentives provided to scientists through the priority rule are sufficient to explain both the origins and the persistence of the communist norm, adding to previous results emphasizing the benefits of the incentive structure created by the priority rule. (shrink)

Should Marxists support universal basic income (UBI), i.e., a regular cash income paid to all without a means test or work requirement? This paper considers one important argument that they should, namely that UBI would be instrumentally effective in helping to bring about communism. It argues that previous answers to this question have paid insufficient attention to a logically prior question: what is Marx’s account of communism? In reply, it distinguishes two different accounts: a left-libertarian version that associates (...) communism with the freedom to live and work how one wants, and a perfectionist version that associates communism with the overcoming of alienated labour and self-realisation in work. It argues that UBI would make steps towards the left-libertarian account but not the perfectionist account. Ultimately, then, the question “should Marxists support basic income?” is shown to partly depend on which account of communism Marxists want to bring about. (shrink)

Marxism began with the repudiation of philosophy, yet Marxists have often resorted to distinctively philosophical modes of reasoning. In recent years, Western Marxism has been more concerned with philosophy than with research or political activity, and in this book Callinicos explores the ambivalent relationship between Marxism and philosophy. Beginning with Marx and the legacy of Hegelianism, he surveys the schools of Marxist philosophy from Engels and the Second International through the revolutionary Hegelianism, of the 1920s, the (...) Frankfurt School, and the anti-Hegelian Marxism of Adorno and Althusser. (shrink)

This article reconsiders Sartre's seminal 1945 talk, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” and the stakes of the humanism debate in France by looking at the immediate political context that has been overlooked in previous discussions of the text. It analyses the political discussion of the term “humanism” during the French national elections of 1945 and the rumbling debate over Sartre's philosophy that culminated in his presentation to the Club Maintenant, just one week after France went to the polls. A consideration (...) of this context helps explain both the rise, and later the decline, of existentialism in France, when, in the changing political climate, humanism lost its centrality, setting the stage for new antihumanist criticisms of Sartre's work. (shrink)

The paper aims at tracing a collective portrait and the trajectories of a group of about forty women active in the communist movement after Poland had regained independence, and after the Second World War. I explore the relations between gender, communist activity, and the changing circumstances of the communist movement. I argue that interwar activities shaped women communists as radical, uncompromising, and questioning traditional femininity political agents, accepted as comrades at every organisational level. This image and identity, though, contributed to (...) the creation of the gender division of political work after the war, when women were assigned specific roles as guardians of revolutionary past. The post-war situation of state socialism with the communist party as the ruling party assigned women mainly to invisible, secondary positions. (shrink)

Research programs regularly compete to achieve the same goal, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA or the construction of a TEA laser. The more the competing programs share information, the faster the goal is likely to be reached, to society's benefit. But the "priority rule"—the scientific norm mandating that the first program to reach the goal in question receive all the credit for the achievement—provides a powerful disincentive for programs to share information. How, then, is the clash (...) between social and self interest resolved in scientific practice? This paper investigates what Robert Merton called science's "communist" norm, which mandates universal sharing of knowledge, and uses mathematical models of discovery to argue that a communist regime may be on the whole advantageous and fair to all parties, and so might be implemented by a social contract that all scientists would be willing to sign. (shrink)

This essay articulates a double helix at work in Badiou’s thought on politics as a condition of philosophy and philosophy as such by focusing on what Badiou calls “the Idea of communism” and we will call “the communism of the Idea.” The former refers to communism as an Idea par excellence, while the latter concerns the Idea as a philosophical communism. The first section of the essay unpacks the Idea of communism as a (...) composite interaction of politics, history, and subjectivity insofar as each of these elements cannot be taken in themselves. Contrary to post-ideology, Badiou condemns the claim that we should live without an ideological framework insofar as this asks us to live without an Idea. The second section will focus on the communism of the Idea as the result of Badiou’s broader philosophical project and its major Platonic gestures. Badiou’s broader concerns pertain to the commitment to live with an Idea as finite, infinite, and transfinite to the endpoint that philosophy itself is characterized to be destined for communism. The crux that anyone can become a serious philosopher if, to paraphrase Diotima in Plato’s Symposium, they gracefully lend themselves to the process of truths as their fundamental commitment. (shrink)

This collection reflects the extraordinary career of the man it honors in its variety of subjects and range of scholarship. Mortimer Adler proposes six amendments to the Constitution. Paul Eidelberg surveys the rise of secularism from Socrates to Machiavelli. Hellmut Fritzsche, a physicist, catalogs some famous scientific mistakes. David Grene (Anastaplo's dissertation advisor) looks at Shakespeare's Measure for Measure as "mythological history." Harry V. Jaffa continues a running debate with Anastaplo on how to read the Constitution, James Lehrberger examines Aquinas's (...) views on natural law, Harry Newman argues "The Case Against Politics." Studs Terkel interviews Anastaplo on his encounter with the Illinois bar, and John Van Doren and others contribute a selection of poems. George Anastaplo turned to an academic career when he was denied admission to the bar in 1950 because, on principle, he affirmed the right of revolution and refused to say whether he was a Communist. In this age of academic specialization, Anastaplo's career has been distinguished by a remarkable versatility of thought. Author of five books, including The Artist as Thinker: From Shakespeare to Joyce (Swallow Press, 1983), Human Being and Citizen: Essays on Virtue, Freedom and the Common Good (Swallow Press, 1986), The Constitution of 1787: A Commentary (1989), and The American Moralist: On Law, Ethics, and Government (Ohio University Press, 1992), Anastaplo has also, for the past three decades, produced a steady stream of essays, articles, and papers on subjects from baseball to the Koran, from Socrates to Freud. Volume 2 of Law and Philosophy includes a complete bibliography of his works. (shrink)

In a well-known text called ‘The Communist Hypothesis’, first published in 2007, the renowned philosopher Alain Badiou breathed fresh life into the idea of communism as an intellectual representation that provides a critical perspective on existing politics and offers a systemic alternative to capitalism. Now, in the course of this wide-ranging conversation with Peter Engelmann, Alain Badiou explains why he continues to value the idea of communism against the background of current social crises and despite negative historical experiences. (...) From the anticipation of a communism without a state to the problem of the concept of democracy and an analysis of capitalism as a system, the two thinkers discuss the key political issues of our time. Whilst explaining his political philosophy, Badiou also reflects on current socio-political developments such as the turmoil in the Middle East and the situation in China. This compelling dialogue is both a highly topical contribution to the question of how we might organize our societies differently and an accessible introduction to Badiou's philosophical thinking. (shrink)

This paper considers how science, philosophy, and “the virtual” inform the political potential of the communism that emerges within capitalism. It looks to the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, in particular What is Philosophy?, to set the terms of an anti-capitalist science and philosophy. Their understanding of the contrasting roles of the virtual in science and philosophy is then used to draw points of distinction between the theories of Manuel DeLanda, Jason Read, and (...) Maurizio Lazzarato. DeLanda's work demonstrates the uses of science, specifically the non-linear tracking of emergent phenomena. Read's work demonstrates the uses of philosophy, specifically the historical tracing of the capitalist mode of production. And Lazzarato's work demonstrates a combination of philosophy and science, specifically the theoretical identification of becomings not captured by capitalism. Throughout, the paper employs Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the “the virtual” to map the potentiality of commu.. (shrink)

In this article, I revisit the work of the French political philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty. A colleague of Sartre's until their quarrel, he sought to combine existentialism, Marxism and phenomenology. I begin by considering why Merleau-Ponty thought it was important, in confronting the problems of the present, to reconsider past ideas as well as political regimes. I also develop his distinctive methodology of dialectical engagement, his view of politics as a strategic field of forces, and his insistence that philosophy and (...) political action are severed at our peril. In order to illustrate and flesh out all these claims, I return to Merleau-Ponty's treatment of the communist question, placing it within a broader context of his antipathy towards modern rationalism: something he found exemplified by liberal as well as communist regimes. In the course of the discussion, I consider Merleau-Ponty's critiques of Kant, Hegel and Marx as well as his ideas about political agency. However, I also allude at key points in my argument to the relevance of his thinking for our contemporary international situation. (shrink)

The idea of a constitutional freedom of association was embraced by the U.S. Supreme Court in the mid-twentieth century as implicit in the First Amendment. Although initially endorsed by the Court as a fundamental freedom that was necessarily entwined with the freedom of speech when confronted with cases in the 1930s and 1940s of local government officials cracking down on speakers and assemblies discussing strikes and labor unions, the justices were far more divided and skeptical of freedom of association claims (...) in cases from the mid-1940s through the early 1960s when state and national government officials were pursuing a variety of anticommunist measures. This article examines the early jurisprudential development of the constitutional freedom of association and its grounding in the First Amendment, and suggests some of the limits that the notion always carried with it. Politics and jurisprudence combined to limit its applicability in the anticommunism cases. (shrink)

In A Philosophy for Communism: Rethinking Althusser Panagiotis Sotiris attempts a reading of the work of the French philosopher centered upon his deeply political conception of philosophy. Althusser's endeavour is presented as a quest for a new practice of philosophy that would enable a new practice of politics for communism, in opposition to idealism and teleology. The central point is that in his trajectory from the crucial interventions of the 1960s to the texts on aleatory (...) materialism, Althusser remained a communist in philosophy. This is based upon a reading of the tensions and dynamics running through Althusser's work and his dialogue with other thinkers. Particular attention is paid to crucial texts by Althusser that remained unpublished until relatively recently. (shrink)

This book explores the richness of contemporary philosophical reflection in Eastern and Central Europe. Philosophers from Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, and the United States discuss the status of democracy, nationalism, language, economics, education, women, and philosophy itself in the aftermath of communism. Fresh ideas are combined with renewed traditions as poignant problems are confronted.

Alain Badiou was born in 1937 in Rabat and Jean-Claude Milner in 1941 in Paris. They were both involved in the "Red Years" at the end of the Sixties and both were Maoists, but while Badiou was focusing all his attention on China, Milner was already taking his distance from it. Over the years, that original dispute over the destiny of gauchisme was fueled by deep, new differences between them concerning the role of philosophy and politics. In this wide-ranging (...) and compelling dialogue, these two great thinkers explore the role of politics in today's world and consider the need for a formal theory of communist political organization. Whether they are addressing the era of revolutions, and in particular the Paris Commune and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, or discussing the infinite, the universal, the name "Jew", violence, capitalism, the left, or Europe, Jean-Claude Milner's dyed-in-the-wool skepticism constantly runs up against Alain Badiou's doctrinal passion. This extraordinary debate ultimately leads to new areas of interrogation and shows that there is no better remedy for the crushing power of media-influenced thinking than the revival of the great disputes of the mind. (shrink)

In a well-known text called ‘The Communist Hypothesis’, first published in 2007, the renowned philosopher Alain Badiou breathed fresh life into the idea of communism as an intellectual representation that provides a critical perspective on existing politics and offers a systemic alternative to capitalism. Now, in the course of this wide-ranging conversation with Peter Engelmann, Alain Badiou explains why he continues to value the idea of communism against the background of current social crises and despite negative historical experiences. (...) From the anticipation of a communism without a state to the problem of the concept of democracy and an analysis of capitalism as a system, the two thinkers discuss the key political issues of our time. Whilst explaining his political philosophy, Badiou also reflects on current socio-political developments such as the turmoil in the Middle East and the situation in China. This compelling dialogue is both a highly topical contribution to the question of how we might organize our societies differently and an accessible introduction to Badiou's philosophical thinking. (shrink)

This book explores the richness of contemporary philosophical reflection in Eastern and Central Europe. Philosophers from Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, and the United States discuss the status of democracy, nationalism, language, economics, education, women, and philosophy itself in the aftermath of communism. Fresh ideas are combined with renewed traditions as poignant problems are confronted.

Preface to the Hebrew Translation of Louis Althusser's For Marx.

The present study provides analysis of the institutionalization of historical revisionism in Ukraine and examines the impact of this revisionism on the formation of modern Ukrainian criminal policy. The characteristics of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its armed wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, will be determined, and their role during World War II will be analyzed, with special emphasis placed on their involvement in crimes against humanity. The study focuses on the fact that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and (...) the Ukrainian Insurgent Army have all the features of profascist organizations, and in this regard, the institutionalization of their heroization not only creates the prerequisites for modern glorification of Nazism, but also constitutes a legal basis for the decriminalization of glorification of Nazism, as well as for the criminalization of behavior disputing this glorification. (shrink)

The general perception regarding the political discourse produced in Romania after 1989 is that the actors prioritized a number of themes, which, in spite of their circumstantial dimensions, tended to become strongly established topics. From this perspective, transitional politics became a discursive locus for a number of issues, the actors repeatedly returning to the same ‘well‑worn roads’. Using as corpus samples of discourse from the first electoral campaign post‑1989, the study analyses if and how the controversial theme of the recent (...) historical legacies became a crucial topic during that interval, investigating the main approaches used by the actors and discussing whether or not these settled the frame of interpretation for the following interval. The paper draws on critical and historical discourse analysis, interpreting discourse as both text and context, language and action, discursive event and social situation. It represents an analysis of a topic that, over the years, has become a thematic keystone in political discourse. (shrink)

The collapse of the Soviet Empire led many to think that communism and perhaps socialism were no longer relevant to the modern world. _Hegel and Marx After the Fall of Communism _presents a balanced discussion for and against the validity of the arguments of two of the most important political philosophers of all time, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx. David MacGregor reinterprets Hegel and Marx’s philosophies, setting out key events in their lives against a backdrop of (...) historical global events. In a new afterword, MacGregor brings his study up to date, examining Russia’s revival as a world power under Vladimir Putin as well as China’s ambitious development efforts. (shrink)