Comprehension of moral reasoning is important both for successful moral education and for Kohlbergian claims that moral reasoning development is cognitive in nature. Because a psychometrically appropriate moral comprehension instrument does not appear to exist, the Moral Comprehension Questionnaire (MCQ) was constructed in Study 1 and displayed some positive reliability and validity findings. Study 2 used this questionnaire to examine whether the increased Defining Issue Test (DIT) p scores shown by liberals is indicative of increased cognitive development. While liberals displayed (...) slightly greater moral comprehension than conservatives, moral comprehension and political orientation mostly appear to contribute independently to high p scores. Additionally, consistent with Kohlbergian theory, comprehension of Stage 5 moral reasoning is more challenging than comprehension of Stage 3 or 4 reasoning. Consequently, while p scores are somewhat cognitive developmental in nature, they also are independently predicted by political orientation. (shrink)

Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie; Einleitung, von K. Marx.--Zur Judenfrage, von K. Marx.--Kritik der Hegelschen Dialektik und Philosophie überhaupt, von K. Marx.--Die heilige Familie, von K. Marx und F. Engels.--Anhang: Gegen den "arbeitsamen" Kritiker Bruno Bauer.--Literaturverzeichnis (p. 373-379).

With his insightful and wide-ranging theory of recognition, Axel Honneth has decisively reshaped the Frankfurt School tradition of critical social theory. Combining insights from philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, political economy, and cultural critique, Honneth’s work proposes nothing less than an account of the moral infrastructure of human sociality and its relation to the perils and promise of contemporary social life. This book provides an accessible overview of Honneth’s main contributions across a variety of fields, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of (...) his thought. Christopher Zurn clearly explains Honneth’s multi-faceted theory of recognition and its relation to diverse topics: individual identity, morality, activist movements, progress, social pathologies, capitalism, justice, freedom, and critique. In so doing, he places Honneth’s theory in a broad intellectual context, encompassing classic social theorists such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Dewey, Adorno and Habermas, as well as contemporary trends in social theory and political philosophy. Treating the full range of Honneth’s corpus, including his major new work on social freedom and democratic ethical life, this book is the most up-to-date guide available. _Axel Honneth_ will be invaluable to students and scholars working across the humanities and social sciences, as well as anyone seeking a clear guide to the work of one of the most influential theorists writing today. (shrink)

O pensamento de Karl Marx sobre a subjetividade humana é pouco conhecido e divulgado na língua portuguesa, e, no Brasil, particularmente, carece ainda de um estudo amplo, explícito e sistemático. Meu artigo pretende esboçar uma reflexão mais completa de sua filosofia sobre a subjetividade humana, insistindo não somente na crítica, mas também, e especialmente, na compreensão da referida questão, a partir de uma leitura imanente e estrutural de suas obras, no original. Vale ainda ressaltar que minha investigação se apoia (...) na conexão entre subjetividade e objetividade , entre sujeito e objeto, inquirindo se há um determinismo da objetividade sobre a subjetividade, ou seja, se essas duas determinações são contraditórias no interior do pensamento marxiano, comprometendo, pois, as suas reflexões acerca da crítica à filosofia especulativa de Hegel e ao empirismo da economia clássica, ou se, na verdade, tal conexão é o segredo recôndito de sua filosofia sobre a subjetividade humana. (shrink)

John F. Henry is an eminent economist who has made important contributions to heterodox economics drawing on Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and John Maynard Keynes. His historical approach offers radical insights into the evolution of ideas (ideologies and theories) giving rise to and/or induced by the changes in capitalist society. Essays collected in this festschrift not only evaluate John Henry's contributions in connection to Marx's and Veblen's theories, but also apply them to the socio-economic issues in (...) the 21st century. In Part I leading heterodox economists in the traditions of Marxism, Post Keynesianism, and Institutionalism critically examine Marx's and Veblen's theoretical frameworks (and their connections to each other) that have become the foundations of heterodox economics. Chapters in Part II showcase alternative theoretical explanations inspired by Marx, Veblen, and Henry. Topics in this Part include financial crisis, financialization, capital accumulation, economics teaching, and the historical relationship between money and class society. Part III is devoted to John Henry's heterodox economics encapsulated in his "farewell" lecture, interview, and bibliography. Essays in this book, individually and collectively, make an important point that the history of economic thought (or historical analysis of economic theory and policy) is an integral part of developing heterodox economics as an alternative theoretical framework. Anyone who is troubled by the recurring failure of capitalism as well as mainstream economics will find this book well worth reading. (shrink)

On the History of Modern Philosophy is a key transitional text in the history of European philosophy. In it, F. W. J. Schelling surveys philosophy from Descartes to German Idealism and shows why the Idealist project is ultimately doomed to failure. The lectures trace the path of philosophy from Descartes through Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, to Hegel and Schelling's own work. The extensive critiques of Hegel prefigure many of the arguments to be found in Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, (...) Heidegger, and Derrida. This is the first English translation of On the History of Modern Philosophy. In his introduction Andrew Bowie sets the work in the context of Schelling's career and clarifies its philosophical issues. The translation will be of special interest to philosophers, intellectual historians, literary theorists, and theologians. (shrink)

There are two approaches to the study of Marx and Marxism. On the one hand, there is Marxism as a system. Here feudalism, capitalism, and communism succeed each other with neat precision. Then there is the study of the nuances of Marx’s work. Marx, a sensitive and insightful man, said things about political life that were both subtle and quite at odds with the main thrust of his thought. As Nietzsche pointed out, there is a sort of (...) stupidity and weakness about systems of thought. The weakness of systematic political thought is that it must exclude things which are quite real but which are not admissible to the system. Thus, Marx created a system of political thought and also said some quite intelligent things about politics. All too frequently, the two clashed. (shrink)

Although Marx dubbed landowners one of the ‘three great classes’ of modern society, the most prominent Marxian and socialist thinkers of capitalism and land over the past century – from Lefebvre to Massey to Harvey – have implicitly or explicitly argued that landowners are not capitalism’s ‘third class’, and that the social relations of land are marginal or contingent to the mode of production as a whole. Through assessing the work of Marxist geographers, political economists, value-form theorists, and others (...) who have dismissed the class-status of landowners and blurred the line between ground rent and interest, this article argues that the theory of the landowning class is fundamental to the understanding of the totality of capitalist social relations, as well as to developing more incisive analyses of struggles around housing, land, and movement today. (shrink)

H.m. is the science of the most general laws and root forces in the development of human society. H.m. came into being in the mid-19th century. Its creators were the leaders and ideologists of the working class: Marx and Engels. In founding a new philosophical world view, dialectical materialsm, Marx and Engels applied it to cognition of society, its history and life.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:171. JACOBITISM AND DAVID HUME: THE IDEOLOGICAL BACKLASH FOILED It has often been said, and with some truth, that one of the weaknesses of the Jacobite movement was its lack of a systematic ideology or of a truly firstrate mind to expound its doctrines. There are of course those who would claim that in an earlier period Charles Leslie or Francis Atterbury easily fulfilled the necessary conditions as expositors, (...) and that this tradition was continued in the years immediately before the '45 by Carte and Chevalier Ramsay. Yet there were weaknesses in Jacobite doctrine, some of which will be noted below. It is less often realised that, qua logical cogency, the arguments of the Whigs and other opponents of Jacobitism were, to say the least, in no better case. In a word, anti-Jacobite ideology completely failed in the task of devastating the Stuarts and their followers. This failure is apparent when we consider the writings of David Hume, who addressed himself on many occasions, either explicitly or implicitly, to the question of Jacobitism. One of Hume's aims was to give the Revolution settlement and the Hanoverian succession the respectable intellectual basis it did not possess from official Whig ideology. In this aim Hume unquestionably failed, his arguments being either internally inconsistent or lacking in the intellectual rigour necessary to topple his targets. Following the method attributed to Karl Popper by Brian Magee, it will be instructive at this point to consider the anti-Jacobite case, not at its weakest, but at its strongest. In a word, it is proposed to consider in detail the political writings on the issue of Jacobitism of a man widely acknowledged to be the greatest British thinker of the eighteenth century and one of the finest philosophers of the ages. If the 172. most powerful mind in British philosophy was unable to contrive a theory or theories that could unseat Jacobitism as an ideology, this tends to indicate that the intellectual supports of the' doctrine were nothing like so feeble as Whig apologists claimed, and that historians have been rather too quick to claim that eighteenth-century Jacobitism depended on a defunct or discredited belief-system. First, however, two comments are necessary. Neither Jacobitism itself nor Hume's own writings possess the coherence the scholar might ideally wish for. Hume's critique has to be extracted from books and essays written over a thirty-year period, and none of these is a work of political theory per se. Moreover, these works address differing audiences and assume quite different things about the knowledge and philosophical acumen of their readers. This is quite apart from the fact that on some important issues Hume changed his mind over the years. At this level assessing Hume's meaning is often as difficult as the notorious problem of pinning down the 'real' Marx. As for Jacobitism, its ideology is difficult to articulate, since it was composed of many heterogeneous strands. The ideology of English Jacobites was a 'partial' view of the world. It embraced the pre-1688 Tory notions of hereditary and indefeasible right, passive obedience and non-resistance. It took in the 'Country' critique of corruption and its nostalgia for a lost 'golden age'. The ideology of Scottish Jacobitism came nearer to being a Weltanschauung. Apart from its role as an ideology of nationalism, stressing the importance of a unique Scottish culture, it depended on a providential and mystical view of the world. Basically, there were three types of ideological Jacobitism. The first type, whose major 173. tenets had been exhaustively debated during the period 1688-1720, concerned the notions of divine, indefeasible right, passive obedience and nonresistance. This doctrine, particularly associated with pro-Stuart polemicists like Charles Leslie and Francis Atterbury, was still very much alive in Jacobite circles by 1745, though the debate between Whig and Tory on its implications had to some extent given way to the debate between exponents of Court and Country positions. The second type was Jacobitism as an ideology of Scottish nationalism. This was particularly associated with the mystics of NorthEastern Scotland like Chevalier Ramsay, and was a powerful influence in the '45 rebellion. The third type was Jacobitism as... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:171. JACOBITISM AND DAVID HUME: THE IDEOLOGICAL BACKLASH FOILED It has often been said, and with some truth, that one of the weaknesses of the Jacobite movement was its lack of a systematic ideology or of a truly firstrate mind to expound its doctrines. There are of course those who would claim that in an earlier period Charles Leslie or Francis Atterbury easily fulfilled the necessary conditions as expositors, (...) and that this tradition was continued in the years immediately before the '45 by Carte and Chevalier Ramsay. Yet there were weaknesses in Jacobite doctrine, some of which will be noted below. It is less often realised that, qua logical cogency, the arguments of the Whigs and other opponents of Jacobitism were, to say the least, in no better case. In a word, anti-Jacobite ideology completely failed in the task of devastating the Stuarts and their followers. This failure is apparent when we consider the writings of David Hume, who addressed himself on many occasions, either explicitly or implicitly, to the question of Jacobitism. One of Hume's aims was to give the Revolution settlement and the Hanoverian succession the respectable intellectual basis it did not possess from official Whig ideology. In this aim Hume unquestionably failed, his arguments being either internally inconsistent or lacking in the intellectual rigour necessary to topple his targets. Following the method attributed to Karl Popper by Brian Magee, it will be instructive at this point to consider the anti-Jacobite case, not at its weakest, but at its strongest. In a word, it is proposed to consider in detail the political writings on the issue of Jacobitism of a man widely acknowledged to be the greatest British thinker of the eighteenth century and one of the finest philosophers of the ages. If the 172. most powerful mind in British philosophy was unable to contrive a theory or theories that could unseat Jacobitism as an ideology, this tends to indicate that the intellectual supports of the' doctrine were nothing like so feeble as Whig apologists claimed, and that historians have been rather too quick to claim that eighteenth-century Jacobitism depended on a defunct or discredited belief-system. First, however, two comments are necessary. Neither Jacobitism itself nor Hume's own writings possess the coherence the scholar might ideally wish for. Hume's critique has to be extracted from books and essays written over a thirty-year period, and none of these is a work of political theory per se. Moreover, these works address differing audiences and assume quite different things about the knowledge and philosophical acumen of their readers. This is quite apart from the fact that on some important issues Hume changed his mind over the years. At this level assessing Hume's meaning is often as difficult as the notorious problem of pinning down the 'real' Marx. As for Jacobitism, its ideology is difficult to articulate, since it was composed of many heterogeneous strands. The ideology of English Jacobites was a 'partial' view of the world. It embraced the pre-1688 Tory notions of hereditary and indefeasible right, passive obedience and non-resistance. It took in the 'Country' critique of corruption and its nostalgia for a lost 'golden age'. The ideology of Scottish Jacobitism came nearer to being a Weltanschauung. Apart from its role as an ideology of nationalism, stressing the importance of a unique Scottish culture, it depended on a providential and mystical view of the world. Basically, there were three types of ideological Jacobitism. The first type, whose major 173. tenets had been exhaustively debated during the period 1688-1720, concerned the notions of divine, indefeasible right, passive obedience and nonresistance. This doctrine, particularly associated with pro-Stuart polemicists like Charles Leslie and Francis Atterbury, was still very much alive in Jacobite circles by 1745, though the debate between Whig and Tory on its implications had to some extent given way to the debate between exponents of Court and Country positions. The second type was Jacobitism as an ideology of Scottish nationalism. This was particularly associated with the mystics of NorthEastern Scotland like Chevalier Ramsay, and was a powerful influence in the '45 rebellion. The third type was Jacobitism as... (shrink)

This is a transcription of a debate on the concept of a person conducted in Moscow in 1983. David Bakhurst argues that Evald Ilyenkov's social constructivist conception of personhood, founded on Marx's thesis that the human essence is 'the ensemble of social relations', is either false or trivially true. F. T. Mikhailov, V. S. Bibler, V. A. Lektorsky and V. V. Davydov critically assess Bakhurst's arguments, elucidate and contextualize Ilyenkov's views, and defend, in contrasting ways, the claim that human (...) individuals are socially constituted beings. Issues discussed include: the concepts of activity and community and their relevance to the notions of mind and personhood; self-consciousness and its relation to personal identity; naturalism in Soviet thought. Translated from the Russian. (shrink)

In 1738, Jacques Vaucanson unveiled his masterpiece before the court of Louis XV: a gilded copper duck that ate, drank, quacked, flapped its wings, splashed about, and, most astonishing of all, digested its food and excreted the remains. The imitation of life by technology fascinated Vaucanson's contemporaries. Today our technology is more powerful, but our fascination is tempered with apprehension. Artificial intelligence and genetic engineering, to name just two areas, raise profoundly disturbing ethical issues that undermine our most fundamental beliefs (...) about what it means to be human. In The Vital Machine, David Channell examines the history of our relationship with technology and argues that, while the resolution of these issues may not be imminent, a philosophical framework for dealing with them is already in place. The source of our fears, he suggests, lies in an outmoded distinction between organic life and machines, a distinction rooted in the two world-views that have defined and guided Western civilization: the mechanical and the organic. The mechanical view holds that the universe is basically a machine--we can understand it by breaking it down into its smallest components. Even organisms are machines. The organic view claims that there is something more, some vital, directive force. The whole is more than just the sum of its parts. Even machines are organisms. Channell presents these polar views in a fascinating chronicle of human thought and achievement, ranging over the discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein, the philosophies of Plato, Descartes, Kant, and Marx, the fields of alchemy, physics, astrology, and biology. We see not only how the two views progressed independently, but also how they influenced each other, not only how they persisted, but also how they changed. Most fascinating of all, we follow the emergence of a third, all-embracing world view as developments in genetics, relativity, quantum mechanics, and computer intelligence force both science and philosophy to come to a more complex understanding of the universe. As a central metaphor for this third view Channell proposes "the vital machine." And in this stimulating work by the same name, he reveals how this new metaphor may provide us with the philosophical understanding we need to address the ethical issues our science has created. (shrink)

Schumpeter's writings on the transition from capitalism to socialism, on innovative entrepreneurship, on business cycles, and on the modern corporation have attracted much attention among social scientists. Although Schumpeter's theoretical and sociological writings resemble the works of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber in that they further our understanding of the rise and nature of modern society, his contribution to social theory has yet to be assessed systematically. Arguing that Schumpeter's perspective, if understood in social theoretical terms, provides a promising starting (...) point for the sociological analysis of the changing relationship between economy and society, I concentrate on two elements of his work that are of value to theoretical sociology today: the distinction between creative action and rational action that is fundamental to his theory of the entrepreneur, and his thesis that the success of the capitalist system leads to its demise. (shrink)

The death of any great philosopher invariably spawns a plethora of essays in defense, refutation, or explication. Indeed, the sign of the philosopher’s greatness can be measured by the number of essays his work generates. Hannah Arendt once commented on the generation of writers Karl Marx supported. This is as it should be. For greatness needs criticism as much as it requires testimony. And the testimony which follows is that of a defense; one which seeks to clarify a longstanding (...) paradox in Arendt’s work. (shrink)

Marx spent his life propagating ideas, Yet in theory he treated ideas as mere reflections of economic situations. The article takes a closer look at the young marx's views and concludes that marx recognized the importance of ideas where they 1) express the real needs of the people, 2) lead to effective action, And 3) correspond to conditions which permit their realization.

The death of any great philosopher invariably spawns a plethora of essays in defense, refutation, or explication. Indeed, the sign of the philosopher’s greatness can be measured by the number of essays his work generates. Hannah Arendt once commented on the generation of writers Karl Marx supported. This is as it should be. For greatness needs criticism as much as it requires testimony. And the testimony which follows is that of a defense; one which seeks to clarify a longstanding (...) paradox in Arendt’s work. (shrink)

Historical materialism I take to be the view expressed in the well-known Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and exemplified in Capital and in many other writings by Marx and by Marxists. I shall begin with a few introductory remarks, next sketch in the theory, and finally contend that, despite real attractions, it too far limits the scope of legitimate historical enquiry to be ultimately acceptable.

Historical materialism I take to be the view expressed in the well-known Preface to the Critique of Political Economy and exemplified in Capital and in many other writings by Marx and by Marxists. I shall begin with a few introductory remarks, next sketch in the theory, and finally contend that, despite real attractions, it too far limits the scope of legitimate historical enquiry to be ultimately acceptable.

The construction of a sociology of knowledge is, by its nature, a political and ideological project. The relationship between thought and society determines, in fundamental ways, how seriously we take ideas as an autonomous and, therefore, significant sphere of human activity. A sociology of knowledge, the explanation of why we think the thoughts we do, links thinking to other things via causes. If a thought is caused it is not free, and it is therefore less important than the things that (...) caused it, or than the process of causation itself. Thus, two fundamentally political issues, moral relativism and freedom of political action, are involved in any sociology of knowledge. Sociology of knowledge is, on the surface at least, an attack on the fundamental presupposition of philosophy; the autonomy and validity of human reason in determining the answers to moral questions. (shrink)

An exposition of Karl Marx’s argument in the Grundrisse for the logical development of money, this essay is divided into three parts. Since Marx is concerned to distinguish himself and his method from that of the seventeenth century political economists, I begin my paper with a brief reflection on “the scientifically correct method” or the “theoretical method” (Grundrisse 101 and 102). The second part of this paper considers how Marx justifies beginning his reflection with the concept of (...) production in general. To understand the importance that Marx attributes to production, one must also appreciate the way in which distribution, exchange, and consumption belong to the sphere of production. In the remaining pages of this section of my paper, then, I attempt to reconstruct Marx’s argument for the way in which these concepts (distribution, exchange, and consumption) are to be understood in relation to the sphere of production. (shrink)

The seven contributors present the reader with a set of perspectives on the subsequent histories of the central ideas of these great thinkers. The essays focus on the ways in which these ideas were caught up in social movements and had been taken up by others who used them to support programs for radical historical changes, thereby subjecting them to distortions and perversions. The whole book reflects the feeling that history itself has purged away the dross which lay within the (...) original ideas, and that what now remains is either pure gold or later perversions illicitly smuggled in under the cover of various "isms."--K. P. F. (shrink)

Since Mueller’s 1958 article calling Hegelian dialectics a “legend,” it has been fashionable to deny that Hegel used thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics. But in truth, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit has 28 dialectics hidden on four outline levels, and The Philosophy of History has 10 more on three outline levels. In Phenomenology’s macrodialectic, Hegel’s nonsupernatural Spirit–all reality, everything in the universe, including man and artificial objects–advances from unconscious + union (thesis) to conscious + separation (antithesis) to a synthesis of conscious (from the antithesis) (...) + union (from the thesis). Previous interpretations of Phenomenology have missed this dialectic: they have assumed that Spirit’s journey begins with consciousness, whereas the journey actually begins in the primordial state of nature, before man arrives and provides Spirit with its Mind (the collective mind of man). Mind then misperceives itself as a multitude of separate alien “objects”–things other than itself. The macrodialectic and all other dialectics are based on Christianity’s Johannine separation-and-return mythology; all Hegelian dialectics separate from a concept in the thesis, going to that something’s opposite (antithesis), and then return to the thesis concept. Thus, in Hegel’s master-and-slave dialectic (God = master, man = slave), man advances from potential + freedom to actual + bondage (religiosity) to actual + freedom (atheism). Only Marx and Tillich understood Hegelian dialectics. Marx’s basic dialectic (one of four) saw history separating from and returning to Communism, going from communal ownership + poverty (primitive communism, or gens) to private ownership + wealth (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) to communal ownership + wealth (final communism). Tillich’s basic dialectic (one of many) separates from and returns to God, advancing from Yes to God + Yes to supernaturalism (theism) to No to God + No to supernaturalism (atheism) to Yes to God + No to supernaturalism (humanism: humanity is the nonsupernatural “God above the God of theism”). (shrink)