Gerald A. Cohen

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Gerald Allan Cohen (also known as GA Cohen or Jerry Cohen ; born April 14, 1941 in Montreal , Canada , † August 5, 2009 in Oxford , United Kingdom ) was Professor of Social Theory and Political Theory at the University of Oxford .

Life

Cohen grew up in a communist, areligious Jewish family in Montreal and began to get involved in the Communist Party of Canada as a teenager. He studied political science and philosophy at the local McGill University and at the University of Oxford, where he a. a. was influenced by Gilbert Ryle and Isaiah Berlin . His sympathies for real socialism faded in the course of the 1960s after he had toured Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1962 and 1964 , as well as because of the Soviet intervention against the Prague Spring in 1968. Cohen's socialist beliefs remained unaffected, which he held until his death represented.

From 1963 he was a lecturer at University College London , from 1985 until his retirement in 2008 he was Chichele Professor of Social Philosophy and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. In addition to teaching at Oxford, Cohen was a regular visiting professor at Columbia University in New York.

Cohen was married twice and had two children from his first marriage. He died after a stroke at the age of 68.

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Along with Jon Elster and John Roemer, Cohen was one of the leading figures and co-founders of Analytical Marxism , a movement that investigates the theories of Karl Marx using the means of Analytical Philosophy . His first book, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense , published in 1978 , is still considered a founding document of this approach. In this work Cohen reconstructs and defends Marx's historical materialism using the means of analytical philosophy of language and the theory of rational decision-making . In doing so, he vehemently opposed the dialectical interpretation of Marx's social theory which has prevailed to this day and which he rejects as scientifically not verifiable.

In the 1990s, Cohen increasingly turned away from Marxism in his philosophical work and concentrated on studies on the concept and justification of moral egalitarianism, which he understood and tried to defend as the actual normative core of socialist thought. In some furious arguments with Robert Nozick and John Rawls , Cohen advocated a radical view of moral equality as the epitome of social justice and called for an ethos of equality on a personal and social level. His last book, Rescuing Justice and Equality , was published during his lifetime and is a review of this debate that has lasted for a good two decades. A preliminary study for this project, If you're an egalitarian, how come you're so rich? , is available in German under the title Equality without indifference .

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marco Iorio: Analytical Marxism, in: Michael Quante / David P. Schweikard (ed.): Marx Handbook. Life - Works - Work, Stuttgart 2016, p. 349f.
  2. ↑ Marco Iorio: Analytical Marxism, in: Michael Quante / David P. Schweikard (ed.): Marx Handbuch, p. 350f.
personal data
SURNAME Cohen, Gerald A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cohen, Gerald Allan (full name); Cohen, GA; Cohen, Jerry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian-British social philosopher, political philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal , Canada
DATE OF DEATH August 5, 2009
Place of death Oxford , UK