Philosophy

Things must be studied in their movement

That everything should be studied in its development and changing forms is the demand of the second rule of scientific method. This is a simple consequence of the first law. For we cannot form an adequate picture of things as they are unless we take notice of their continual change and development. We have an intimate understanding of a house or a road when we know how it is built, of a tree or plant when we understand its growth, of the weather if we know how it was yesterday and how it will be tomorrow. When we confine or narrow down our attention to the condition in which things are at...

Socialism and Religion: 25 Articles

Lenin: The workers’ movement and religion [1909] Trotsky: How Socialists Fight Religion Rosa Luxemburg: Socialism and The Churches (1905) Bukharin: Church and School in the Soviet Republic The Truth About Marxism and Religion Political Islam, Christian Fundamentalism and the Left Today> 40 reasons why Tariq Ramadan is a reactionary Death Of a Pope: Bogged Down In Our Own Excrement [2005] Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion Fighting sin or fighting capital? A Debate on Socialism and Religion Max Shachtman and Fr. Charles Owen Rice [1949] Is "cultural difference" an excuse for sexism? The Prophet...

Notes and talking points on Engels' "Ludwig Feuerbach"

Engels wrote "Ludwig Feuerbach" in 1886. The circumstances were this. In Engels' and Marx's youth, "Hegelian views... most extensively penetrated the most diversified sciences and leavened even popular literature and the daily press..." in Germany. A philosophical writer having such influence was not a routine thing in history. It had never happened before, has never happened since. "Throughout the long history of human thought, philosophy rarely climbed such heights as in the few decades around the year 1800. Probably only the flowering of ancient philosophy in the Athens of Plato and...

REMEMBER ME!

REMEMBER ME! Remember me, and hold you strait within Your mind and soul, though others slink and swerve; Remember then, when fear did not unnerve High hope, before the apostate’s tide came in; Remember, now, the Beauty of the days That lit your morning eyes, gave sense to Time When you were new: remember! In your prime Tend youth-set Truth, though others douse its blaze. Come what comes, hold to what you then wove Of the splendid world; serve still with Hope and Will The angry, glowing Aisling* no one can kill: Life that is ruled by reason fraught with love, Where now Hate rules, and Truth...

There's More to Books than Titles: Reply to Clive Bradley

In WL59, Clive Bradley examined the arguments of Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould. Here, WL61, February 2000, Richard Dawkins replies. I like Clive Bradley's title, "There's more to life than genes" (WL59-60). It is a point I often make myself, not least in Chapters 3 and 11 of The Selfish Gene (which incidentally is published by Oxford University Press, not Penguin). But whereas Bradley has apparently read my book by title only, I followed his article through to the end. His title proves to be the best bit. Bradley's first paragraph perpetuates the old myth about Marx wanting to dedicate...

Socialism, Feminism, Meaning and Understanding

A few weeks ago I was at a meeting in Leeds, entitled “Socialist Feminism and the Fight for equality”, publicising Feminist Fightback,. The meeting quickly became a debate on whether socialists need to be involved in the feminist movement, and whether they need to describe themselves as feminists....

Political Islam, Christian Fundamentalism and the Left Today

In many countries, religion and disputes about, or expressed in terms of, religion have long been central to political life — in Christian Spain, Portugal, Ireland, or the USA; in Muslim Iran or Algeria; in Lebanon; in Israel-Palestine. Today, since Islamist terrorists attacked New York on 11 September 2001, religion, or concerns and interests expressed in religion, are at the centre of international politics to a degree without parallel for hundreds of years. We have not, as in Francis Fukuyama’s thesis after the fall of the USSR, reached “the end of history”. We seem to be reprising long...

Study course on Marxist philosophy

This coming Saturday (10 July) sees the start of a six-part summer course on Marxist philosophy. Classes take place in Hackney on Saturday afternoons. Full course details are below. a 6-part course based on Marx's 'Theses on Feuerbach' 1. July 10 & 17 Why is crude materialism not good enough? (Theses 1, 9 and 10) What is 'crude' (ie. non-dialectical) materialism? What class interests does it reflect? How is it related to idealism? What is Marx's solution? How does this relate to Lenin's 'Materialism and Empiro-Criticism'? 2. July 24 Can we really know the world? (Thesis 2) What is wrong with...

The SWP, the Mainstream Left and Islamism

The Prophet and the demoralised opportunists: Solidarity 3/9, 25 June 2002 Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But, man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man - state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its...

Review: Historical Materialism

A new journal, Historical Materialism , has been launched. It aims to provide a forum for the critical reconstruction of the classical Marxist tradition which underpins all the major work of Luxemburg, Lenin, Gramsci and Trotsky. Scott Meikle, a philosopher on the Historical Materialism Editorial Advisory board, describes in broad theoretical terms the principal elements of Marx’s work: “First, his dialectical method; second, his theory of history which is the application of dialectics to human society; and third, his analysis of the value-form in history, which culminates in his...

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