Radical Philosophy and Social Criticism

Abstract

This paper explores the danger that the practices of fundamental questioning (radical philosophy) can become completely detached from problems of practical social transformation. When this danger occurs, radical philosophy devolves towards academic self-referentiality. Once the practice of radical philosophy has become self-referential in this problematic way, the critique of philosophy is confused with the critique of the world. The form of radical philosophy—fundamental questioning—is retained, but without the substance. The substance of radical philosophy is committed to creating forms of understanding and social relationship that permit the widest possible expression and enjoyment of life-value.

Keywords:

• philosophy
• radical philosophy
• social criticism
• alienation
• life-value

Notes on Contributor

Jeff Noonan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Windsor. He is the author of three books: Critical Humanism and the Politics of Difference (2003), Democratic Society and Human Needs (2006), and Materialist Ethics and Life-Value (2012), and more than 40 peer reviewed articles and book chapters.

Notes

¹For paradigm examples of this problematic form of self-referentiality in relation to academic Marxology, see the essays collected in Chitty and McIvor (2009).

²For clear examples of what happens when the investigation of freedom is divorced from the social conditions of free activity, see the essays collected in Campbell, O'Rourque, and Silverstein (2010).

³See Sen (1980), Dworkin (1981), Arneson (1989), and Cohen (1989, 2008).

⁴The term is borrowed from the title of Peter Dews's critique of post-structuralism, see Dews (1987).

⁵For a more detailed elaboration of the concept than is possible here, see McMurtry (2012a).