This paper focuses on the central theme of this conference and discusses how higher education can help us in accomplishing our humanization. It looks at the critical educational theory of Herbert Marcuse, and examines his notion of the dis-alienating power of the aesthetic imagination. In his view, aesthetic education can become the foundation of a re-humanizing critical theory. I question the epistemological underpinnings of Marcuse's educational philosophy and suggest an alternative intellectual framework for interpreting and releasing (...) the emancipatory power of education. (shrink)

The war shattered project of Critical Theory to harmonize Historical Materialism and Phenomenology is being restarted at the very moment Phenomenology enters the world of the social and Historical Materialism enters the field of contemporary mainstream epistemic production. The early attacks on phenomenology up to Heidegger from the side of Critical Theory concern the subjectivism detached from society and history displayed by this method, leading to what Guenther Anders had denounced as “Pseudo-Concreteness” in 1948. Critical (...) Theory was influenced intensely by phenomenological thought, even if the phenomenological programme had long time been a battle against the dialectical method of historical materialism and empirical approaches founding on it. After the “Dialectics” of Schleiermacher, the dialectical and teleological method was avoided in the phenomenological tradition. The historical goal of this paper is to locate this allergy in a quarrel much older than the beginnings of modern phenomenology in the field of Fichte, Schleiermacher, Schelling and Hegel. (shrink)

This paper concerns broadly with the works of such ethical postmodern theorists as Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Giles Deleuze, focusing on how we can contribute to the development of their ideas by discussing Laozi and Zhuanzi’s Taoism, Buddhism, and modern Korean Neo-Confucianism of Toe-gae Lee. I claim that for criticism and art, literature, film and culture as well as philosophy itself, we are now facing this new need of another notion of subjectivity that not only accepts difference but takes the (...) position of whole positivity toward the Other. This different view of subjectivity that can be called "the sublime subjectivity" or the sublime totality of a human being or a society is essentially an aesthetic one, rather than one that depends upon logic, and it is vital to take advantage of Oriental ideas. From the perspective of the ethics of Levinas, I first place the sublime, jouissance, or pure enjoyment, at the heart of literary criticism. The pure sensibility of the sublime, or jouissance, unlike the raw feelings of pleasure, is an aesthetic sensibility beyond the ontological unity of feelings of pleasures and pains. Then with the Oriental thought, I make an attempt to contribute to the development of the ideas on the ethics of the relation of the reader and the literary text’s language. Laozi’s Taote Ching, Chuanzi, Diamond Sutra, and Toe-gae Lee’s notion of Taeguk are briefly explored in view of the aesthetic transphenomenal dimension and the sublime totality. (shrink)

I criticize Laudan's constraints on cognitive aims as presented in Science and Values. These constraints are axiological consistency and non-utopianism. I argue that Laudan's prescription for non utopian aims is too restrictive because it excludes ideals and characterizes as irrational or non-rational numerous human contingencies. We aim to ideals because there is no cogent way to specify in advance what degree of deviation from an ideal is acceptable. Thus, one cannot dispense with ideals. Laudan does not distinguish difficult from impossible (...) goals, making his injunction against utopianism imprecise. It is "semantically utopian" and, furthermore, a prescription for conservatism and mediocrity. Goals often contradict each other or are at least partially incompatible. Since Laudan does not say how to prioritize incompatible aims, axiological consistency is an utopian desideratum. Thus, his constraints on cognitive aims contradict one another. Finally,, Laudan's axiological constraints are too weak and in order to strengthen them, he must invoke without justification some implicit pre-philosophical cognitive aims. This opens the logical possibility of axiological relativism, which Laudan attempted from the beginning to avoid. (shrink)

This volume presents an extended version of the contributions presented at the workshop "Kant's Concept of Law" held at the 26th World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR) in 2013. It handles issues of applied legal philosophy in Kant's Doctrine of Right such as ownership, the alleged right of necessity, the right of resistance and the right of revolution. With each of these applied issues, the focus lies, on the one hand, on the (...) relationship between the principles a priori of law and of the duties of rights, as well as their normative requirements - for instance, the duty of independence from the coercion by others - and, on the other hand, empirical situations and their pressing demands. Thus, this volume illustrates how Kant concretely conceives of the doctrine of "first metaphysical of the doctrine of right" as supplying "the immutable principles for any giving of positive law". Each essay of this volume not only undertakes a careful and original interpretation of Kant's theses, but also offers a critical assessment. (shrink)

orbit and far beyond it. Indeed, the immense, painstaking, indefatigable and ever-improving effort of Husserl to find ever-deeper and more reliable foundations for the philosophical enterprise (as well as his constant critical re-thinking and perfecting of the approach and so called "method" in order to perform this task and thus cover in this source-excavation an ever more far-reaching groundwork) stands out and maintains itself as an inepuisable reservoir for philosophical reflec tion in which all the above-mentioned work has either (...) its core or its source. In fact, in his undertaking to re-think the entire philosophical enterprise as such and to recreate philosophy upon what he sought to be at least a satisfactorily legitimated basis, Husserl, through his already systematised and "authorized" work, and his courses, and later on in his spontaneous reflection (which did not find its way into a definitive corpus but was nevertheless sufficiently coherent with his previously established body of thought to be considered a continuation of it), uncovers perspectives upon the universe of man and projects their new philosophical thematisation that brings together all the attempts by philosophers (e. g., Merleau-Ponty, who drew upon this material and found there his own inspiration) who succeeded him with foundational intentions; it also gives a core of philosophical ideas and insights for the youngergenerationofphilosophers today. (shrink)

This collection is the final volume of a four book survey of the state of phenomenology fifty years after the death of Edmund Husserl. Its publication represents a landmark in the comprehensive treatment of contemporary phenomenology in all its vastness and richness. The diversity of the issues raised here is dazzling, but the main themes of Husserl's thought are all either explicitly treated, or else they underlie the ingenious approaches found here. Time, historicity, intentionality, eidos, meaning, possibility/reality, and teleology are (...) the main concerns of this collection devoted to studies in aesthetics, metaphysics and literary interpretation, written by such authors as, among others, R. Cobb-Stevens, C. Moreno Marquez, J. Swiecimski, Sitansu Ray and M. Kronegger. These original studies of phenomenological aesthetics and literary theory by scholars from all parts of the world were gathered by the World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learn ing during the year 1988/89 during its assessment of the phenomeno logical movement, fifty years after Husserl's death. IX A -T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana, Vol. XXXVII, ix. (shrink)

Dewey blurs the distinction between poetry and philosophy. This is clearest in his aesthetics where he affirms Matthew Arnold’s dictum that “poetry is criticism of life.” The maxim, though, fails to say “how poetry is a criticism.” The role of art in general is imagining and creating images of the actual beyond the possible that (from a moral perspective) ought to exist. One can derive an ought from an is if one understands the is of poetic possibility. Dewey asserts that (...) “poetry teaches us as friends and life teach, by being, and not by express intent.” He affirms that it is “by way of communication that art becomes the incomparable organ of instruction.” Blurring the distinction between poetry and philosophy requires reconsidering the character—especially the moral character—of education as cultural criticism. (shrink)

The theory of half- education was presented at first on the congress of German sociologists. The tendencies regarded in this theory are really taking place in the contemporary education and have determining its crises, which becomes more evidence in the social and cultural contexts of the later capitalism. The theory of half-education is rethinking and actualizing of the conceptualizations of education and culture in the German idealism, Marxism and Freudianism, explicating the dialectic of Enlightenment through diagnostics of (...) its degenerations and deformations in the options of the alien spirit, what has a very dangerous consequence of the liquidation of culture that is converting into the mas one. Half-education is parasitizing on the idea of education which has intrinsic contradictions: its conditions are the individual autonomy and social freedom, but it is depending on society. Id demands both: the individual autonomy and social adaptation. These contradictions can be overcame by the application of the negative dialectic, which joins complementary the critic of education and the critic of society opening new perspectives for them. (shrink)

The theory of half- education was presented at first on the congress of German sociologists (1959). The tendencies regarded in this theory are really taking place in the contemporary education and have determining its crises, which becomes more evidence in the social and cultural contexts of the later capitalism. The theory of half-education is rethinking and actualizing of the conceptualizations of education and culture in the German idealism, Marxism and Freudianism, explicating the dialectic of Enlightenment through diagnostics (...) of its degenerations and deformations in the options of the alien spirit, what has a very dangerous consequence of the liquidation of culture that is converting into the mas one. Half-education is parasitizing on the idea of education which has intrinsic contradictions: its conditions are the individual autonomy and social freedom, but it is depending on society. Id demands both: the individual autonomy and social adaptation. These contradictions can be overcame by the application of the negative dialectic, which joins complementary the critic of education and the critic of society opening new perspectives for them. (shrink)

The International Union of History and Philosophy of Science organizing the 10th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science is at its cross-road: the alternative is mass-performance or creative exchange of ideas. The program is criticized because the thematic center in History and Philosophy of Science has been shifted too far into the realm of micro-fields of Logic and the time reduction for presentation and discussion of papers to 20 minutes should be reconsidered. Several outstanding papers are shortly (...) discussed: Martin-Löw on "Formalized Tarski-Semantics of Type Theory", Hoyningen-Huene on "Feyerabend and Kuhn", Leroux on "Helmholtz and Hertz", and Muller on "Bell meets Dirac". Finally the visiting-program is gratefully appreciated. (shrink)

In his political report to the Eleventh CCP Congress, our wise leader Chairman Hua pointed out that the "gang of four, a clique of counterrevolutionary plotters operating under the cloak of Marxist theories, was tampering with Marxist philosophy and political economy and scientific socialism." Chairman Hua called on us to carry through the great struggle against the "gang of four" and to rectify the confused line, thinking and theories caused by the "gang of four." With respect to political economy, the (...) "gang of four" undermined socialist production under the pretext of opposing the "emphasis on productive forces" and undermined socialist production relations using the excuse of criticizing "bourgeois rights." In this article, I am going to offer some criticisms of the fallacies spread by the "gang of four" concerning bourgeois rights. (shrink)

This paper discusses the role of Law and Legal Thinking in Critical Theory with specific reference to the arguments that Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri offer in their book Commonwealth. The core idea is that Critical Theory is no less radical, but much more concrete, when it is performing not only an external, but also an internal critique of the Law. It shows that the role of the law in critical theory emerges as a (...) problem when the latter claims that ‘there is no outside’ and that ‘the legal base of the system structures our lives.’ It then discusses optimistic and pessimistic strategies to overcome the problem, and argue for a demanding strategy which consist in articulating the external and the internal critique of the law. To make this point, the paper goes back to the epistemic context in which critical attitudes are deployed (the ‘Conflict of the Faculties’), describes the four theoretical moves constitutive of the historical moment in which, at the end of the 18th Century, modern law as we know it was conceived of and founded; and sketches the key moments of the history of the internal critique of the law. It then illustrates the demanding strategy with examples taken from the field of Intellectual Property, and concludes that the Law is malleable and open enough to allow the thinking and practicing of radical alternatives from within the legal system and also that alternatives spoken in the language of the law are no less radical, but certainly, more concrete than others. (shrink)

Modern technology is more than a neutral tool: it is the framework of our civilization and shapes our way of life. Social critics claim that we must choose between this way of life and human values. Critical Theory of Technology challenges that pessimistic cliche. This pathbreaking book argues that the roots of the degradation of labor, education, and the environment lie not in technology per se but in the cultural values embodied in its design. Rejecting such popular solutions (...) as economic simplicity or spiritual renewal, Feenberg presents a compelling argument for broader democratic participation in technological choices. This book will be of special interest to scholars and students of philosophy, sociology, contemporary Marxism, and Critical Theory. (shrink)

I investigate the role of feminist theorizing in relation to traditionally-based aesthetics. Feminist artworks have arisen within the context of a patriarchal Artworld dominated for thousands of years by male artists, critics, theorists, and philosophers. I look at the history of that context as it impacts philosophical theorizing by pinpointing the narrow range of the paradigms used in defining “art.” I test the plausibility of Danto’s After the End of Art vision of a post-historical, pluralistic future in which “anything goes,” (...) a future that unfortunately rests upon the same outdated foundation as the concept “art.” This essay was originally published in The Proceedings of the Twentieth Century World Congress of Philosophy (1999) and reprinted in Noel Carroll, ed., Theories of Art Today (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000). (shrink)

Democracy in the twenty-first century faces a number of major challenges, populism, neoliberalism and globalisation being three of the most prominent. This book examines such challenges by investigating how the conditions of democratic statehood have been altered at several key historical intervals since 1945. It demonstrates that the formal mechanisms of democratic statehood, such as elections, have always been complemented by civic, cultural, educational, socio-economic and constitutional institutions that mediate between citizens and state authority. Rearticulating critical theory with (...) a contemporary focus, the book shows why a sociological approach is urgently needed to address conceptual deficits and explain how the formal mechanisms of democratic statehood need to be complemented and updated in new ways today. (shrink)

Now in its second edition, this collection is an intelligent, accessible overview of the entire Critical Theory Tradition, written by one of the leading experts on the subject. Filled with original insights and valuable historical narratives, this work is a contribution that furthers the idea and spirit of critical theory as it weaves together a narrative from a series of examinations of the thoughts of many of the most important left Western intellectuals of the twentieth century. (...) Covering the work of major philosophical thinkers such as Benjamin, Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and Habermas and revisiting the contributions of lesser-known figures such as Karl Korsch and Ernst Bloch, Bronner measures the writing of these theorists against each other, postmodernist philosophers and the critical tradition reaching back to Hegel, and then connects the history of critical theory with important historical events and develops in the twentieth century. Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists presents new insights useful to experienced scholars and offers clear summaries for students making this book an ideal introduction to the debates surrounding one of the most important intellectual traditions of the 20th Century. (shrink)

The idea to work on this topic was come to my mind when I came across Masaaki Hattori’s comment that Dinnaga has accepted Bhartrhari’s views regarding the meaning of a sentence although their theories of word meaning are completely different from each other. According to Bhartrhari, in all phenomenal entities there are two elements viz. jati and vyakti; jati refers to the real element and vyakti to the unreal. Vyakti suffer changes, whereas jati remains constant. Again according to him the (...) real unit of language is a sentence, and not words or letters, because only a sentence conveys one full idea of the speaker. It’s meaning is also an instantaneous flash of pratibha or intuition, which has no parts. Dinnaga, on the other hand did not accept the reality of word‐ meaning (samanya),but maintained that words deal directly with conceptual images or vikalpas, which are purely subjective constructions of the mind, and therefore there can be no direct connection between words and external objects. The function of a word in a sentence is similar to the function of an inferential mark (linga) in the process of inference and it indicates its object through the exclusion of other things (apoha). Thus, there seems to be some contradictions in Dinnaga’s views on sentence meaning. But I think Dinnaga did not accept Bhartrhari’s views in toto. He could not possibly have done so. There is, however, a resemblance between Dinnaga and Bhartrhari in that each accepted that the primary unit of linguistic meaning is the entire sentence; the meaning of an individual word is abstracted from the whole meaning of the sentence. It is only in that respect that the two philosophers can be said to have roughly the same theory of sentential meaning. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Characteristics and Development of Critical Theory The Educational Relevance of Critical Theory Distinctive Insights and Contributions Differing Receptions of Critical Theory Critical Theory and the Student Movement An “Other” Critical Pedagogy?

Our present situation of anthropogenic ecological disaster calls on Western philosophy in general, and Frankfurt School critical theory in particular, to reconsider some long-standing, entrenched assumptions concerning what it means to be a human agent and to relate to other agents. In my article, I take up the challenge in dialogue with the idea of critical theory articulated by Max Horkheimer in the 1930s. My overall concern is to contribute to on-going efforts to decentre Frankfurt School (...) critical theory in multiple dimensions. With the help of Horkheimer, I seek to show that this theoretical tradition has itself an important contribution to make to the endeavour. In Section 1, I argue that the methodology he advocates for critique of society offers a view of the relationship between the human mind and reality, as well as of humans with other humans, that avoids dogmatic rigidity and is hospitable towards mutual learning through engagement with other philosophical and cultural traditions. In Section 2, I consider the more specific challenge of anthropocentrism, suggesting the need for a more differentiated account of this. While critical theory is unavoidably anthropocentric in certain respects, it could avoid more pernicious forms of anthropocentrism that establish epistemic and ethical hierarchies between humans and other-than-human entities and that conceive of ethical validity as a purely human construction, with no independence of human needs and concerns. (shrink)

Great critical theorists from Marx and Engels to Adorno and Horkheimer not only came from the margins but also stayed faithful to the plight of the marginalized. They refused to compromise about the struggle for equality and tried to universalize its emancipatory essence. From Marx to Benjamin, critical philosophers who showed fidelity to the cause were denied a career in European universities and made impoverished, stateless, and homeless. Marginalization and critical theory are inseparable; yet, today, Marxism (...) is institutionalized, and the Frankfurt School's Critical Theory is gentrified. Critical Theory from the Margins, however, revives the Critical Theory that endorses criticism, aiming to negate dominant regimes of truth. It is unapologetic in its fidelity to the universalist struggles of the minoritized. In that spirit, Saladdin Ahmed shows that capitalism imposes a totalitarian social mode of existence and neoliberalism perpetuates fascism as a class of ideology across nationalist and religious movements. This book, then, is both a theorization and an argument in favor of the application of the episteme of the silenced as the essence of the critical education necessary for achieving universal emancipation. (shrink)

Unlike the first generation of critical theorists, contemporary critical theory has largely ignored technology. This is to the detriment of a critical theory of society – technology is now a central feature of our daily lives and integral to the contemporary form of capitalism. Rather than seek to rescue the first generation’s substantive theory of technology, which has been partly outmoded by historical developments, the approach adopted in this article is to engage with today’s (...) technology through the conceptual apparatus offered by the early Frankfurt School. This rationale is guided by the conviction that the core ideas of critical theory still offer a sound basis for assessing the nature of technology today. Through a reconstruction and engagement with some of the core concepts of first-generation critical theory, as well as the work of Bernard Stiegler and Andrew Feenberg, we can arrive at a more robust theory of technology, capable of critically interrogating the role of technology in contemporary society. (shrink)

This book delivers a definitive contribution to the understanding of Habermas's oeuvre as it applies to education. The authors examine Habermas's contribution to pedagogy, learning and classroom interaction; the relation between education, civil society and the state; forms of democracy, reason and critical thinking; and performativity, audit cultures and accountability.

Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with the promise of democracy; therefore, there was a need for critical conceptualization of the first principles that undergird American democracy and the genesis of democratic social change in America. This constructivist grounded theory study aimed to construct a grounded theory that provides an understanding of the process of American democratic social change as it emerged from the nation’s founding documents. A post hoc polytheoretical framework including Foucault’s, Bourdieu’s, (...) and Marx and Engels’s theories of power was used to understand power dynamics. The research question focused on understanding the process of democratic social change in America. The sample comprised the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution. The documents were retrieved from the National Archives and Library of Congress. The data analysis plan incorporated successive comparison, situational and dramaturgical analysis, deconstruction, and perspective taking as strategies. The result was the construction of a democratic social change process theory preceded by five grounded theories: (a) first principles of democracy, (b) first principles of democracy conceptual framework, (c) socio-ethical principles of democracy, (d) demoralizing process, and (e) either-or approach to democracy. Positive social change implications include applying a democratic social change process to future social change endeavors across domains and levels of analysis, a normative framework for a republican form of government, and a tool to analyze and minimize the latent consequences of social justice policies. (shrink)

Critical Theory and Animal Liberation is the first collection to look at the human relationship with animals from the critical or 'left' tradition in political and social thought. The contributions in this volume highlight connections between our everyday treatment of animals and other forms of oppression, violence, and domination. Breaking with past treatments that have framed the problem as one of 'animal rights,' the authors instead depict the exploitation and killing of other animals as a political question (...) of the first order. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Critics, Observers, and Participants: Two Forms of Critical Theory Social Inquiry as Practical Knowledge Pluralism and Critical Inquiry Reflexivity, Perspective Taking, and Practical Verification Conclusion: The Politics of Critical Social Inquiry Notes.

ABSTRACT While the first generation of the so-called Frankfurt School has promoted a strong interconnection between social critique and knowledge of the social world, contemporary critical theory seems to consider that epistemological issues don’t deserve anymore consideration. Is it really possible to elaborate a convincing theory of social critique without taking seriously the various links between social critique and knowledge? This article argues that the answer is no. In a first step, it recalls the ways in which (...) the philosophical debate about social critique is currently articulated and how it disconnects social critique and knowledge. One of the reasons for such a disconnection relates to a vision of politics as consisting mainly in a conflict between normative principles, notably between conceptions of social justice. This vision of politics is criticized in the second step of this paper. A second reason, examined in the third part of the paper, relates to the risk of epistemic violence. The shared but questionable assumption is that any sociological or philosophical attempt to produce knowledge would necessarily lead to epistemic violence rather than to epistemic empowerment. (shrink)

Enlightened experience (i.e. awakened to the truth) is the most valuable one in most religions including Christianity and Buddhism. As well-known cases of such experience are Apocalypse St. Paul and many Grand Zen masters in Zen Buddhism, it is natural for us to believe that the enlighten is for very talented or speciallytrained ones. However, applying the complexity theory on the structure of enlightenment, based on the power law function, selforganized criticality, phase transition, and emergence, it is clear that (...) the full awakening can be experienced by everyone in daily life. Furthermore, such experiences are not necessary to be limited in religious one. Rediscovering the path to full awakening by complexity theory leads to the demythologization of the enlightenment in Korean Zen Buddhism, which emphasizes a hard apprenticeship in temple for long periods for the purpose. (shrink)

Bringing together leading scholars in contemporary social and political philosophy, this volume takes up the central themes of Axel Honneth’s work as a starting point for debating the present and future of critical theory, as a form of socially grounded philosophy for analyzing and critiquing society today.

A collection of seminal essays, many appearing in English for the first time, which provides an excellent overview of the critical theory developed by the Frankfurt School.

This chapter explores the contributions that the Frankfurt School of critical theory has made to philosophical discussions about the meaning and injustice of poverty. Critical theorists interpret poverty to mean more than material deprivation, and they see its injustice as 2 extending beyond wrongful suffering and the threat to a human right to life to encompass psychological impoverishment and dehumanization. The chapter begins by examining critical theory’s historical roots in the Marxist critique of capitalism. The (...) next section discusses early efforts by critical theorists to extend this critique to state-administered economies (capitalist and socialist) that have succeeded in sharply reducing absolute poverty at the cost of increasing relative poverty and domination. Later efforts by critical theorists focus on the social pathologies (or impoverishment of agency) caused by bureaucratic social welfare interventions aimed at controlling poverty and underdevelopment in developed capitalist societies. In North America, critical theorists expand this analysis to include intersectional categories of gender and racial oppression and emphasize the persistence of relative poverty within the Global North. The third section examines recent efforts by critical theorists to conceptualize global capitalism in its relationship to colonialism and as a crisis-ridden, impoverished form of life that portends unsustainable and uneven development. This is followed by an examination of one critical theory approach that has proven to be especially useful for illuminating the various forms of psychological harm attendant on capitalist poverty: recognition theory. The chapter concludes with a critical look at critical theory’s sociology of poverty as a theory of progressive enlightenment and emancipation. (shrink)

Critical Theory constitutes one of the major intellectual traditions of the twentieth century, and is centrally important for philosophy, political theory, aesthetics and theory of art, the study of modern European literatures and music, the history of ideas, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies. In this volume an international team of distinguished contributors examines the major figures in Critical Theory, including Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin, and Habermas, as well as lesser known but important thinkers such (...) as Pollock and Neumann. The volume surveys the shared philosophical concerns that have given impetus to Critical Theory throughout its history, while at the same time showing the diversity among its proponents that contributes so much to its richness as a philosophical school. The result is an illuminating overview of the entire history of Critical Theory in the twentieth century, an examination of its central conceptual concerns, and an in-depth discussion of its future prospects. (shrink)

With a few exceptions, critical theorists have been late to provide a comprehensive diagnosis of neoliberalism comparable in scope to their extensive analyses of advanced welfare state capitalism. Instead, the main lines of critical theory have focused on questions of international justice which, while no doubt significant, restrict the scope of critical theory by deemphasizing linkages to larger political and economic conditions. Providing a critique of the Frankfurt School, Brian Caterino and Phillip Hansen move beyond (...) its foundations, and call for a rethinking of the bases of critical theory as a practical, freedom-creating project. Outlining a resurgence of neoliberalism, the authors encourage a fresh, nuanced analysis that elucidates its political and economic structures and demonstrates the threats to freedom and democracy that neoliberalism poses; the reformulation of a radical democratic alternative to neoliberalism, one that critically addresses its limitations while promoting an enhancement of communicative and social freedom. (shrink)

An application of Young's Habermasian critical theory of education to classroom communication problems of teachers in schools, with a special focus on the question/answer cycle and its educational role. The book uses classroom transcripts extensively in the analysis.

This paper begins by defending the twofold relevance, political and theoretical, of the notion of social suffering. Social suffering is a notion politics cannot do without today, as it seems indispensable to describe all the aspects of contemporary injustice. As such, it has been taken up in a number of significant research programmes in different social sciences (sociology, anthropology, social psychology). The notion however poses significant conceptual problems as it challenges disciplinary boundaries traditionally set up to demarcate individual and social (...) phenomena. I argue that philosophy has a role to play in the attempt to integrate the diverging perspectives stemming from the social sciences. I attempt to show that, as it engages with the social sciences to account for the conceptual and normative issues thrown open by the question of social suffering, philosophy in fact retrieves the very idea of critical theory, as a conjugated critique of social reality and of its knowledge. I conclude by showing how the question of social suffering then becomes a useful criterion to distinguish between the different existing approaches in critical theory. (shrink)

Recalling the phenomenological and Hegelian bases of the critique of misplaced concreteness, and supplementing these by the contribution of Gregory Bateson, it is possible to say that a contemporary critique of digital media cannot appeal to an irrevocable concreteness nor finally defeat abstraction. Since the digital media complex is characterized by temporal decay, transversality, and singularity, a new departure for a critical theory of digital media must centre on the cultural unconscious and the limit, or edge, of the (...) cultural complex. (shrink)

The struggle against liberalism in the totalitarian view of the state.--The concept of essence.--The affirmative character of culture.--Philosophy and critical theory.--On hedonism.--Industrialization and capitalism in the work of Max Weber.--Love mystified; a critique of Norman O. Brown and a reply to Herbert Marcuse by Norman O. Brown.--Aggressiveness in advanced industrial society.

I investigate the role of feminist theorizing in relation to traditionally-based aesthetics. Feminist artworks have arisen within the context of a patriarchal Artworld dominated for thousands of years by male artists, critics, theorists, and philosophers. I look at the history of that context as it impacts philosophical theorizing by pinpointing the narrow range of the paradigms used in defining “art.” I test the plausibility of Danto’s After the End of Art vision of a post-historical, pluralistic future in which “anything goes,” (...) a future that unfortunately rests upon the same outdated foundation as the concept “art.”. (shrink)

This book is unique in both its subject matter and its approach. It focuses on the collaboration of J. Derrida, J.-F. Lyotard, J. Hillis Miller, D. Carroll, F. Jameson and others at the Critical Theory Institute at the University of California, Irvine and on the application of critical theory for the analysis of contemporary American visual art. The critical and philosophical analysis concerns the art of Bruce Nauman, Kosuth, Burden, Christo, Wodiczko, Johns, Rauschenberg, and others. (...) The focus of the book is on irony and the sublime. The book also includes the original Prologue by G. van Den Abbeele (Dean of the School of Humanities at UC Irvine 2013-2018) on the history of Critical Theory in the United States, and at UCI, in particular. The CTI's uniqueness consisted in it being one of the best centers of the Critical Theory studies in the United States. (shrink)

Recipient of Choice Magazine's 1996 Outstanding Academic Book Award Author Raymond Morrow outlines and recounts the development of the major tenets of critical theory, exemplifying them through the works of two of their most influential, recent adherents: Jürgen Habermas and Anthony Giddens. Beginning with a comprehensive yet meticulous explication of critical theory and its history, the author next discusses it within the context of a research program; his work concludes with an examination of empirical methods. Emphasizing (...) the connections between critical theory, empirical research, and social science methodology, Morrow's volume offers refreshing insights on traditional and current material. (shrink)