Philosophers, scientists and the unity of science

This paper examines historical images of the unity of science and makes a case for a contemporary conceptualisation of this project for our own times. It argues that, to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge, it is necessary to have an adequate and appropriate philosophy. This paper outlines the parameters of such a philosophy

Cronin-Sheehan Interviews 2001-2002

These interviews with Jeremy Cronin MP, which took place in 2001 at University of Cape Town and in 2002 in the South African Parliament were much discussed in the mass media and at political meetings and cited in academic texts. They were originally published on my DCU website, which has since been re-organised. I am depositing them here, because it is important that they be accessible for the historical record

Are the humanities threatened by the increasing commercialisation of universities?

As part of the Humanities Festival organised by the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences at Dublin City University in May 2006, a debate took place on the question of whether the humanities are threatened by the increasing commercialisation of universities. This paper is the opening statement by Professor Helena Sheehan. The opposing position was defended by Professor Ferdinand von Prondzyndski, the president of the university

European socialism: a blind alley or a long and winding road?

This pamphlet attempts to look at socialism at its current conjuncture in terms of a longer trajectory of history. In doing so, it also defends the possibility of philosophy of history

Class, race, gender and the production of knowledge: considerations on the decolonisation of knowledge

How do class, race and gender impact on the production of knowledge? Is it enough to include those who have been excluded from advanced knowledge? Or has knowledge itself been tainted by the exclusions of class, race, gender and colonial conquest? How to proceed with such realisations? How do we decolonise our minds and our universities? Should we repudiate existing knowledge and start again at zero? Or should we return to the indigenous knowledge of our ancestors? Or should we engage in a radical and critical transformation? How has Rhodes Must Fall dramatised these dilemmas? What does Marxism have to offer in working through these issues

To the Crucible: An Irish engagement with the Greek crisis and the Greek left

A monumental drama is playing out before our eyes. It is a true Greek tragedy. The plot: A society is being pushed to its limits. The denouement is not yet determined, but survival is at stake and prospects are precarious. Greece is at the sharp end of a radical and risky experiment in how far accumulation by dispossession can go, how much expropriation can be endured, how far the state can be subordinated to the market. It is a global narrative, but the story is a few episodes ahead here. Greece is the crucible. It is a caldron where concentrated forces are colliding in a process that will bring forth either a reconfiguration of capitalism or the dawn of its demise

The assault on scientific rationality: historical analysis and epistemological response

What are the historical origins of the current assault on science that this congress has convened to address? What role has philosophy of science played in accentuating or allieviating this assault? What underlying forces have driven the attack on scientific rationality? Why is there an epistemological crisis of our time? What would be an appropriate epistemological response

Images of the 60s in the 80s: memories of social unrest in US tv series

In the 1960s American society was shaken to its foundations. This paper examines the representations of this decade two decades later, exploring the conflicting images of the sixties surfacing in various genre of the tv drama of the eighties. It queries how far any of them embody a genuine coming to terms with the times

Universities, social movements and market forces

Universities have changed drastically over the past few decades. To understand and articulate what has happened, I make a stab at answering, however sketchily, the following questions: What forces have shaped universities over recent decades? What as been the impact of social movements such as socialism, feminism, africanism on the process of the production of knowledge? Why has it been deemed necessary, not only to demand inclusion of the excluded in the domain of higher knowledge, but to challenge the existing canon and to struggle for radically new approaches to curricula? What has been achieved by history from below, gender studies, african studies, postcolonial studies? What has happened to all the passionate debates between contending paradigms? Are market forces marginalising all else? Is it desirable and/or possible to resist? How is the project of academic transformation in South Africa unfolding within this global field of forces

America: symptoms of decline

This article was an attempt to get the pulse of the zeitgeist visiting the USA in 1991