The five interlocked essays, based on material from Adorno's "aesthetic writings," take up such issues as subjective aesthetic experience, the historicity of ...

For two decades the German edition of this book has been a standard reference point for students of the philosophy of the social sciences in Germany. Today it still stands as a unique and masterful guide to the major problems and possibilities in this field.On the Logic of the Social Sciences foreshadowed the direction in which methodological discussions have traveled since it appeared and anticipated the problems they presently face. Habermas's statement of the principal issues is concise and elegant, and (...) his own original resolution of them is of continuing relevance. He considers the main lines of thought pursued by epistemologists and methodologists of the social sciences, from neo-Kantianism to behaviorism, and from problems of measurement to those of interpretive logic, in a sustained and provocative argument that involves analysis and critique at every point and ends with his own sharply profiled position.Beginning with the turn of the century debates on the distinction between natural and cultural sciences, Habermas discusses the relationship between sociology and history. He takes up the problem of a general theory of social action, focusing first on the nature of "interpretive understanding" and then on the scope and limits of functionalist explanation. In the concluding sections, he draws on psychoanalysis and classical social theory to sketch the outlines of his view of sociology as a critical theory of the present. Along the way he provides a great deal of material that is useful in understanding his own work.Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. On the Logic of the Social Sciences is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

This short masterwork in twentieth-century philosophy provides both a major reinterpretation of Hegel and insight into the evolution of Adorno's critical theory. The first study focuses on the relationship of reason, the individual, and society in Hegel, defending him against the criticism that he was merely an apologist for bourgeois society. The second study examines the experiential content of Hegel's idealism, considering the notion of experience in relation to immediacy, empirical reality, science, and society. The third study, "Skoteinos," is an (...) unusual and fascinating essay in which Adorno lays out his thoughts on understanding Hegel. In his reflections, which spring from his experience teaching at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, questions of textual and philosophical interpretation are intertwined.Rescuing the truth value of Hegel's work is a recurring theme of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, and nowhere is this goal pursued with more insight than in these three studies. The core problem Adorno sets for himself is how to read Hegel in a way that comprehends both the work and its historical context, thereby allowing conclusions to be drawn that may seem on the surface to be exactly opposed to what Hegel wrote but that are, nevertheless, valid as the present truth of the work. It is the elaboration of this method of interpretation, a negative dialectic, that was Adorno's underlying goal.Adorno's efforts to salvage the contemporaneity of Hegel's thought form part of his response to the increasingly tight net of social control in the aftermath of World War II. In this, his work is related to the very different attempts to undermine reified thinking undertaken by the various French theorists. The continued development of what Adorno called "the administered world" has only increased the relevance of his efforts. (shrink)

Adorno und Horkheimer zufolge prägt die Kulturindustrie alle Facetten des gesellschaftlichen Lebens und reicht bis in die tiefsten Fasern der subjektiven Erfahrung des Individuums hinein. Entsprechend hielt Adorno im Vorwort der Minima Moralia fest: „Was einmal den Philosophen Leben hieß, ist zur Sphäre des Privaten und dann bloß noch des Konsums geworden, die als Anhang des materiellen Produktionsprozesses, ohne Autonomie und ohne eigene Substanz, mitgeschleift wird.“ Seit Adorno und Horkheimer diese prägende Wirkung der Kulturindustrie auf die subjektive Erfahrung erstmals beschrieben (...) haben, hat sie nicht an Durchsetzungskraft verloren. (shrink)

For the work of listening can be understood as a collaboration with the musical work itself, and in this sense for Adorno listening, as will be discussed below, is an activity of co-composing or reconstituting the music. Certainly Adorno’s dialectical philosophical approach is at great variance with the 'empirical musicology'2 through which contemporary music studies explores these topics, but its contemporary relevance is all the greater in that it puts Adorno’s contributions in the larger context of critical social theory and (...) its commitment to sustaining the human capacity for a vision of emancipation. It is not my intention here to enter into a detailed consideration of the relationship between Adorno’s perspective and the work of contemporary musicologists and music theorists. Rather, my aim is to elaborate Adorno’s conception of the work of listening in some detail, in the context of his thinking about what he calls ›the new music‹ and its place in the history of Western art music. (shrink)

A psychological exploration of how the love of nature can coexist in our psyches with apathy toward environmental destruction.

Jürgen Habermas is well known for his scholarly works on the theoretical foundations of the human sciences. The New Conservatism brings to light another side of Habermas's talents, showing him as an incisive commentator on a wide range of contemporary themes.The 1980s have been a crucial decade in the political life of the Federal Republic of Germany. The transformations that accompanied a shift from 13 years of Social Democratic rule to government by the conservative Christian Democrats are captured in this (...) series of insightful, often passionate political and cultural commentaries. The central theme uniting the essays is the German problem of "coming to terms with the past," a problem that has important implications outside Germany as well.Of particular note are the essays on what has come to be known as the Historians' Debate: Habermas's attack on the revisionist German historians who have been trying to trivialize and "normalize" the history of the Nazi period, and his defense of the need for a realistic and discriminating coining to terms with the past in Germany. Habermas also takes up the recent fracas concerning Martin Heidegger's involvement with Nazism and the rise of the neoconservative movement in Europe and America. In particular, the essay on "The New Obscurity" combines Habermas's analysis of the problems of the welfare state with his suggestions for avenues open to utopian impulses today.Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. The New Conservatism is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

Reviews : Peter Uwe Hohendahl, Reappraisals: Shifting Alignments in Postwar Critical Theory ; Theodor W. Adorno, Notes to Literature: Volume One, ed. Rolf Tiedermann, trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen.

Adorno's rehearsal of the modernist problematic of representation is be lated enough to include a matter of crucial interest for us today... and this is a reflection on and a thematization of the passing of the modern itself, the reasons for its obliteration, and some dawning apprehension of an intellectual landscape in which the negative, or "critical theory", will have definitely become a thing of the past.

A brilliant collection of short essays on literary subjects e.g. Beckett, Balzac, Proust, Thomas Mann, Dickens, Goethe, Heine, the lyric, realism, the essay, and the contemporary novel by the great social theorist (1903-1969), originally published in 1958 as Noten zur literature (Suhrkamp Verlag, F.

The author, a noted literary critic, presents a selection of his thought on Balzac, Valery, Dickens, Goethe, Heine, Hoelderlin, lyric poetry, realism, the essay and the contemporary novel.

Logical paradoxes – like the Liar, Russell's, and the Sorites – are notorious. But in Paradoxes and Inconsistent Mathematics, it is argued that they are only the noisiest of many. Contradictions arise in the everyday, from the smallest points to the widest boundaries. In this book, Zach Weber uses “dialetheic paraconsistency” – a formal framework where some contradictions can be true without absurdity – as the basis for developing this idea rigorously, from mathematical foundations up. In doing so, (...) class='Hi'>Weber directly addresses a longstanding open question: how much standard mathematics can paraconsistency capture? The guiding focus is on a more basic question, of why there are paradoxes. Details underscore a simple philosophical claim: that paradoxes are found in the ordinary, and that is what makes them so extraordinary. (shrink)

The Protestant ethic — a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God — was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety (...) over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms. (shrink)

Das Buchbeinhaltet Max Webers vollständige Schriften zu wissenschaftlichen und politischen Berufen: „Wissenschaft als Beruf”, die Artikel zu Hochschulen, und „Politik als Beruf”. Die Einleitung des Herausgebers verbindet beide Berufe konzeptionell und in der Person Max Webers. Die Verwendung von C. G. Jungs psychologischer Typentheorie, die durch den Myers-Briggs Typindikator (MBTI) weiterentwickelt wurde, wird ein Verständnis seines Persönlichkeitstypus ermöglicht. Das Buch ist die überarbeitete und aktualisierte Auflage der englischen Ausgabe „Max Weber’s Complete Writings on Academic and Political Vocations”. In der (...) zweiten Auflage des Bandes wurde die Einleitung um einige Analysen von Webers Schriften erweitert. Außerdem wurden zwei weitere Artikel aufgenommen und die Bibliographie um einige bedeutsame Werke ergänzt. Einleitung und englische Kommentare wurden einheitlich neu übersetzt. (shrink)

Self-locating attitudes and assertions provide a challenge to the received view of mental and linguistic intentionality. In this paper I try to show that the best way to meet this challenge is to adopt relativistic, centred possible worlds accounts for both belief and communication. First, I argue that self-locating beliefs support a centred account of belief. Second, I argue that self-locating utterances support a complementary centred account of communication. Together, these two claims motivate a unified centred conception of belief and (...) communication. (shrink)

There are several theses in political science that are usually explicitly called ‘laws’. Other theses are generally thought of as laws, but often without being explicitly labelled as such. Still other claims are well-supported and arguably interesting, while no one would be tempted to call them laws. This situation raises philosophical questions: which theses deserve to be called laws and which not? And how should we decide about this? In this paper we develop and motivate a strategy for thinking about (...) laws in political science which integrates two core concepts: spatio-temporal stability and social mechanisms. The proposed strategy is a set of guidelines that political scientists can use to reflect on and argue about specific cases within their discipline, not a clear-cut demarcation criterion. We defend and motivate this strategy and apply it to two cases (one with respect to state repression, one about parliamentary elections). After we have developed and motivated our strategy for political science, we show that our proposal is relevant for other disciplines in the social sciences. We explain how our views fit into critical realism and embed them in the debate on laws in general philosophy of science and in the philosophy of the social sciences. (shrink)

Within the past few years, a new generation has joined the ranks of business managers or is preparing to become business managers: Generation Z (Gen Z), described as individuals born between 1995 and 2010. This paper has two aims: (1) to assess the Gen Z cohort framed by their value orientation preferences (VOP) and the importance given to principled moral reasoning (PMR) using values and cognitive moral reasoning theories and (2) to compare this information about the Gen Z cohort to (...) prior generations. Using the Rokeach Value Survey and the Moral Reasoning Inventory, we uncovered support for our expectations that Gen Zs would have a balanced set of VOP—that is, similar preferences for a personal and a social value orientation and similar preferences for a competence and moral value orientation. Further, Gen Z preferences are unlike prior generations. The importance given to principled moral reasoning to resolve ethical dilemmas is lower than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers but surprisingly higher than Millennials as found in prior studies. Implications of these discoveries and suggestions for future research are presented. (shrink)

Bahle, 13, 25 n. 1. Ballinger, 108 n. 3. Borchard, 58 n. 1. Burckhardt, 16 n. 1. Bardach, 495. Bnrgeaa, 611. Buridan, 256*. ...

O objetivo do artigo é apresentar a compreensão schopenhaueriana do caráter de indivíduo a partir da tese metafísica do monismo da vontade. Num primeiro momento, explora as implicações da afirmação de Schopenhauer de que somente no ser humano o caráter de espécie e o caráter de indivíduo se separam; na sequência, aborda o problema da asseidade da vontade tendo em vista seus desdobramentos na formulação do caráter de indivíduo; e, por fim, aborda o tema da negação da vontade e sua (...) relação com o problema da individualidade do ser humano, tanto no locus pontual da argumentação apresentada por Schopenhauer, quanto nos desdobramentos implícitos na apropriação interpretativa do Cristianismo entendido como uma teoria pessimista. (shrink)

Vorwort von dr. H. Weber. -- Betrachtungen über das denken und träumen und über die Freudsche erklärung der träume. -- Die erstürmung des neuen Jerusalem: ein traum. -- über alpdrücken und Freudsche deutungen. -- Kurze bemerkungen über willensfreihet und erblichkeit. -- Spielleidenschaft. -- Körperbewegung, arbeit, ruhe und schalaf: Aussprüche in bezung auf ihren hygienischen und psychischen wert usw. -- Zur frage des therapeutischen fastens und der beschränkten nahrungsaufnahme. -- Eine betrachtung über den nutzen des schocks oder der aufnahme. -- (...) Eine betrafchtung über den autzen des schocks oder der "abwechslung" bei gewissen körperlichen und seelischen zuständen. -- Die ärztliche versorgung der allgemeinheit und ihre wahrscheinlichen folgen. -- Wirkungen und gegenwirkungen in der pathologie und therapie. -- Zur frage von selbsttätigen, lebenswichtigen, als ein sicherheitsventil anzusehenden wirkungen und gegenwirkungen bei erkrankungen. -- Über den circulus vitiosus bei krankheiten und über die anstrengungen der natur, ihn zu durchbrechen. -- Das teleologische bild des krebses und der neubildungen. -- Samuel Butlers anschauungen : Zellgedächtnis "mneme." -- Die "rechte" der völker im vergleich zu den "rechten" der einzelmenschen und die fragen zwischenstaatlicher schiedsgerichtshöfe. -- Grausamkeit, kriegsgreuel und greuelfabeln. -- Natur und Gott : Bemerkungen über "natur," lebensführung und pflicht vom entwicklungsgeschichtlichen standpunkt aus gesehen. (shrink)

Etienne Thourneysers Werk übte maßgeblichen Einfluss auf seine Zeitgenossen aus, darunter vor allem die Aufklärer Mendelssohn, Basedow, Lavater und Lessing. Gisela Luginbühl-Weber widmet sich dem Schweizer Autoren mit dem Ziel, sein bahnbrechendes und zu Unrecht in Vergessenheit geratenes Werk zu dokumentieren.

Quel est le secret de Pythagore? On pourrait avancer que, par défi nition, s'il y a secret, il est caché et n’est pas dévoilable, ou ne sera pas dévoilé. Le vrai secret est celui dont on ne soupçonne même pas l’existence. On peut toutefois approcher tangentiellement le coeur du pythagorisme à partir d’un idéal qui a traversé les âges.