Alan Norrie

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.

Dialectical Critical Realism and the Grounds of Justice

Dialectic and Difference

Tony Lawson

Andrew Collier

Roy Bhaskar

Margaret Archer

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.

Essential Readings

Critical Realism

Simon Bronitt

Bernadette McSherry

The criminal attacks that occurred in the United States on 11 September 2001 have profoundly altered and reshaped the priorities of criminal justice systems around the world. Domestic criminal law has become a vehicle for criminalising 'new' terrorist offences and other transnational forms of criminality. 'Preventative' detention regimes have come to the fore, balancing the scales in favour of security rather than individual liberty. These moves complement already existing shifts in criminal justice policies and ideologies brought about by adjusting to globalisation, economic neo-liberalism and the shift away from the post-war liberal welfare settlement. This collection of essays by leading scholars in the fields of criminal law and procedure, criminology, legal history, law and psychology and the sociology of law, focuses on the future directions for the criminal law in the light of current concerns with state security and regulating 'deviant' behaviour.

The Redirection of Criminalisation and the Futures of Criminal Law

Regulating Deviance

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.

Alan Norrie

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