Suchergebnisse

AbstractAlthusser dedicated the fourth lesson of his 'course of philosophy for scientists' at the Ecole Normale Supériere in the autumn of the 1967 to the inaugural lecture held by Jacques Monod at the Collège de France on 3 November in the same year. Althusser defined the concepts of 'living system' and of 'emergence' that Monod uses in his interpretation of evolution as 'materialist'; whereas he judged his conception of human history as the evolution of ideas in the 'noosphere' as 'idealistic'. Against the latter, Althusser counterposed a reading of Marx's work centred on the notion of 'structure' – which is very close to that of 'system' used within biology – and on the refusal of teleology and finalism. This last position, which Althusser takes up particularly in the writings of the 1980s on the 'materialism of the encounter', represent a particularly significant break with orthodox Marxism.

Several aspects of Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri's Empire (2000) are critiqued. After asserting that the length of Hardt & Negri's text disqualifies it from being categorized as a political manifesto, the book is further critiqued for utilizing a postmodern style yet offering a modern conceptualization of history; indeed, Hardt & Negri are perceived as adopting a "post-postmodernist" approach toward power & the nation-state. Attention is then directed toward Hardt & Negri's account of the evolution of Western thought & contention that globalization & imperialist processes have produced a decentered global Empire. In addition, Hardt & Negri's identification of parallels between the development of Western humanity & capitalism is discussed. The capacity of Hardt & Negri's notion of Empire to address precarious environmental issues & to create a "social worker" who will contribute to the formation of democratic institutions is also questioned. 2 References. J. W. Parker