Alan Norrie – författare

Dialectic and Difference is the first systematic exploration of Roy Bhaskar’s dialectical philosophy and its implications for ethics and justice.

That philosophy has three aims: a dialecticisation of original critical realism, a ‘critical realisation’ of dialectic, and a metacritique of western philosophy. In the first, real absence or negativity links structured being to dialectical becoming in a dynamic world. The second draws on Marx to locate the critical impulse in Hegel’s dialectic in a material, open and changing totality. The third identifies a central problem in western philosophy from the Greeks on, the failure to think real negativity as the essence of change (‘ontological monovalence’).

Bhaskar’s ethics connect basic human ontology with universal principles of freedom and solidarity. He marries (‘constellates’) these with a grasp of how principles are historically shaped. His account of freedom moves from the infant’s ‘primal scream’ to the eudaimonic society, but thinks the limits to freedom under modern conditions. The morally real in ethics and justice is displaced and reconfigured as relations between ‘the ideal’ and ‘the actual’.

Western philosophy systematically denies the real negativity that drives Bhaskar’s dialectic. Metacritique traces this to Parmenides and Plato’s account of non-being as difference. It enables a critique of the poststructural radicalisation of difference via Nietzsche and the doctrine of ‘Heraclitan flux’. Mobilised as ‘the other’ of Plato’s Forms, this remains a move on Platonic terrain. It too denies real negativity in structured being as the ground of historical change and moral praxis.

This text is essential reading for all serious students of social theory, philosophy, and legal theory.

Dialectic and Difference is the first systematic exploration of Roy Bhaskar’s dialectical philosophy and its implications for ethics and justice.

That philosophy has three aims: a dialecticisation of original critical realism, a ‘critical realisation’ of dialectic, and a metacritique of western philosophy. In the first, real absence or negativity links structured being to dialectical becoming in a dynamic world. The second draws on Marx to locate the critical impulse in Hegel’s dialectic in a material, open and changing totality. The third identifies a central problem in western philosophy from the Greeks on, the failure to think real negativity as the essence of change (‘ontological monovalence’).

Bhaskar’s ethics connect basic human ontology with universal principles of freedom and solidarity. He marries (‘constellates’) these with a grasp of how principles are historically shaped. His account of freedom moves from the infant’s ‘primal scream’ to the eudaimonic society, but thinks the limits to freedom under modern conditions. The morally real in ethics and justice is displaced and reconfigured as relations between ‘the ideal’ and ‘the actual’.

Western philosophy systematically denies the real negativity that drives Bhaskar’s dialectic. Metacritique traces this to Parmenides and Plato’s account of non-being as difference. It enables a critique of the poststructural radicalisation of difference via Nietzsche and the doctrine of ‘Heraclitan flux’. Mobilised as ‘the other’ of Plato’s Forms, this remains a move on Platonic terrain. It too denies real negativity in structured being as the ground of historical change and moral praxis.

This text is essential reading for all serious students of social theory, philosophy, and legal theory.

Starting from concrete legal issues, Alan Norrie develops a critical vision of law in its relation to morality and socio-historical context. Traced historically, the conflicts he describes can be read today in law''s treatment of legality and justice, judgment and responsibility.

Joint winner of the Hart / Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize 2006.

Starting from concrete legal issues, Alan Norrie develops a critical vision of law in its relation to morality and socio-historical context. Traced historically, the conflicts he describes can be read today in law''s treatment of legality and justice, judgment and responsibility.

Joint winner of the Hart / Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize 2006.

Critical realism is a movement in philosophy and the human sciences most closely associated with the work of Roy Bhaskar. Since the publication of Bhaskars A Realist Theory of Science, critical realism has had a profound influence on a wide range of subjects. This reader makes accessible, in one volume, key readings to stimulate debate about and within critical realism. It explores the following themes:* transcendental realist* the theory of explanatory critique* dialectics* Bhaskar''s critical naturalist philosophy of science.

Critical realism is a movement in philosophy and the human sciences most closely associated with the work of Roy Bhaskar. Since the publication of Bhaskars A Realist Theory of Science, critical realism has had a profound influence on a wide range of subjects. This reader makes accessible, in one volume, key readings to stimulate debate about and within critical realism. It explores the following themes:* transcendental realist* the theory of explanatory critique* dialectics* Bhaskar''s critical naturalist philosophy of science.

In this follow-up to Law and the Beautiful Soul, Alan Norrie addresses the split between legal and ethical judgment. Shaped by history, law’s formalism both eschews and requires ethics. The first essays consider legal form in its practical aspect, and the ethical problems encountered (‘law’s architectonic’). The later essays look at the complex underlying relation between law and ethics (‘law’s constellation’). In Hegel’s philosophy, legal and ethical judgment are brought together in a rational totality. Here, the synthesis remains unachieved, the dialectic systematically ‘broken’. These essays cover such issues as criminal law’s ‘general part’, homicide reform, self-defence, euthanasia, and war guilt. They interrogate legal problems, consider law’s method, and its place in the social whole. The analysis of law’s historicity, its formalism and its relation to ethics contributes importantly to central questions in law, legal theory and criminal justice.

In this follow-up to Law and the Beautiful Soul, Alan Norrie addresses the split between legal and ethical judgment. Shaped by history, law’s formalism both eschews and requires ethics. The first essays consider legal form in its practical aspect, and the ethical problems encountered (‘law’s architectonic’). The later essays look at the complex underlying relation between law and ethics (‘law’s constellation’). In Hegel’s philosophy, legal and ethical judgment are brought together in a rational totality. Here, the synthesis remains unachieved, the dialectic systematically ‘broken’. These essays cover such issues as criminal law’s ‘general part’, homicide reform, self-defence, euthanasia, and war guilt. They interrogate legal problems, consider law’s method, and its place in the social whole. The analysis of law’s historicity, its formalism and its relation to ethics contributes importantly to central questions in law, legal theory and criminal justice.