Online research in philosophy

This paper explores the tension between pragmatism and utopia, especially in the concept of "realistic utopianism". It argues that historically, the pragmatic and gradualist rejection of utopia has been anti-utopian in effect, notably in the case of Popper. More recent attempts to argue in favour of "realistic utopianism" or its equivalent, by writers such as Wallerstein and Rorty are also profoundly anti-utopian, despite Rorty's commitment to "social hope". They co-opt the terminology of utopia to positions that are antagonistic to radical alterity. But this is not a necessary response to the utopia/pragmatism tension: Unger, who is explicitly opposed to utopia, in fact proffers a more sympathetic resolution based on the merits of vision, social improvization and collective learning. These may lie closer to the core of the utopian project as a vehicle for the education of desire than Unger himself recognizes.

A Utopia in a conceptually complete form consists in four aspects, which are the aesthetic, psychological, sociological and moral aspects. In this sense the concept of Utopia has remained in the West as something not practically feasible. In Eastern thought, though, this concept did not develop in an institutional form, yet an instance in the East can be traced which fulfils, at least partially, the above mentioned aspects of this Buddhism may be considered as satisfying the psychological of a utopia. From this perspective a synthetic view of Eastern concept. For example, and the moral aspects and Western ideas of utopia is proposed in this paper.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union has initiated important questions concerning the nature and future of Marxism. This essay will examine the future of Marxism in relation to global values, specifically in relation to what is termed “Western” Marxism (non-Soviet or non-Orthodox Marxism).

Bloch's The Spirit of Utopia, here presented for the first time in English translation, is one of the great historic books from the beginning of the twentieth-century. A peculiar amalgam of biblical, Marxist, and Expressionist turns, drawing on both Hegel and Schopenhauer for the groundwork of its metaphysics of music, but consistently interpreting the cultural legacy in the light of a certain Marxism, The Spirit of Utopia is a unique attempt to rethink the history of Western civilizations as a process of revolutionary disruptions and to reread the artworks, religions, and philosophies of this tradition as incentives to continue disrupting. The first part concerns a mode of 'self-encounter' which presents itself in the history of music from Mozart through Mahler as an encounter with the problem of a community to come. The second part is entitled 'Karl Marx, Death and the Apocalypse'.

cs' mature theory of Hegelian Marxism has been criticized for the determinacy with which it predicts utopia as a possibility for the future. This paper instead examines Lukács' early, pre-Marxist thinking, which asserts utopia only as the grounding concept for a procedure of cultural criticism, and not as the outcome of any foreseeable process of social change. I attempt to evaluate this non-Marxist utopianism of the young Lukács by focusing in particular on 'The Foundering of Form Against Life: Søren Kierkegaard and Regine Olsen', a 1910 essay in which Lukács criticizes Kierkegaard for failing to articulate any concept of utopia and for focusing instead on private 'faith' as a potential solution to the endemic problems of modernity, such as alienation and reification. Because young Lukács himself thus sets up Kierkegaard as a dystopian rival for his own utopian thought, I use a comparison between these two thinkers as a basis for speculation on the advantages and disadvantages of positing a normative concept of utopia as the basis for social criticism. Key Words: alienation • faith • reification • subjectivity • utopia.

Marxism and philosophy [1923].--The present state of the problem of 'Marxism and philosophy' [1930].--Introduction to the Critique of the Gotha Programme [1922].--The Marxism of the First International [1924].