In The Experience of Injustice, the French philosopher Emmanuel Renault opens an important new chapter in critical theory. He brings together political theory, critical social science, and a keen sense of the power of popular movements to offer a forceful vision of social justice. Questioning normative political philosophy’s conception of justice, Renault gives an account of injustice as the denial of recognition, placing the experience of social suffering at the heart of contemporary critical theory. Inspired by Axel Honneth, Renault argues (...) that a radicalized version of Honneth’s ethics of recognition can provide a systematic alternative to the liberal-democratic projects of such thinkers as Rawls and Habermas. Renault reformulates Honneth’s theory as a framework founded on experiences of injustice. He develops a complex, psychoanalytically rich account of suffering, disaffiliation, and identity loss to explain these experiences as denials of recognition, linking everyday injustice to a robust defense of the politicization of identity in social struggles. Engaging contemporary French and German critical theory alongside interdisciplinary tools from sociology, psychoanalysis, socialist political theory, social-movement theory, and philosophy, Renault articulates the importance of a theory of recognition for the resurgence of social critique. (shrink)

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)

From John Maynard Keynes’s prediction of a fifteen-hour workweek to present-day speculation about automation, we have not stopped forecasting the end of work. Critical theory and political philosophy have turned their attention away from the workplace to focus on other realms of domination and emancipation. But far from coming to an end, work continues to occupy a central place in our lives. This is not only because of the amount of time people spend on the job. Many of our deepest (...) hopes and fears are bound up in our labor—what jobs we perform, how we relate to others, how we might flourish. The Return of Work in Critical Theory presents a bold new account of the human significance of work and the human costs of contemporary forms of work organization. A collaboration among experts in philosophy, social theory, and clinical psychology, it brings together empirical research with incisive analysis of the political stakes of contemporary work. The Return of Work in Critical Theory begins by looking in detail at the ways in which work today fails to meet our expectations. It then sketches a phenomenological description of work and examines the normative premises that underlie the experience of work. Finally, it puts forward a novel conception of work that can renew critical theory’s engagement with work and point toward possibilities for transformation. Inspired by Max Horkheimer’s vision of critical theory as empirically informed reflection on the sources of social suffering with emancipatory intent, The Return of Work in Critical Theory is a lucid diagnosis of the malaise and pathologies of contemporary work that proposes powerful remedies. (shrink)

Edited by Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch & Christopher Zurn. This volume collects original, cutting-edge essays on the philosophy of recognition by international scholars eminent in the field. By considering the topic of recognition as addressed by both classical and contemporary authors, the volume explores the connections between historical and contemporary recognition research and makes substantive contributions to the further development of contemporary theories of recognition.

This article argues that Axel Honneth’s ethics of recognition offers a robust model for a renewed critical theory of society, provided that it does not shy away from its political dimensions. First, the ethics of recognition needs to clarify its political moment at the conceptual level to remain conceptually sustainable. This requires a clarification of the notion of identity in relation to the three spheres of recognition, and a clarification of its exact place in a politics of recognition. We suggest (...) that a return to Hegel’s mature theory of subjectivity helps specify the relationship between the normative demand for autonomous identity and its realization in and through politics. (shrink)

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)

This article argues that Axel Honneth’s ethics of recognition offers a robust model for a renewed critical theory of society, provided that it does not shy away from its political dimensions. First, the ethics of recognition needs to clarify its political moment at the conceptual level to remain conceptually sustainable. This requires a clarification of the notion of identity in relation to the three spheres of recognition, and a clarification of its exact place in a politics of recognition. We suggest (...) that a return to Hegel’s mature theory of subjectivity helps specify the relationship between the normative demand for autonomous identity and its realization in and through politics. (shrink)

This is the first English-language translation of an important book that contributes to contemporary debates about social suffering in sociology, social psychology, political theory and philosophy. Renault provides a systematic account of the ways in which social suffering could be conceptualised.

The Critical Naturalism Manifesto is a common platform put forward as a basis for broad discussions around the problems faced by critical theory today. We are living in a time, e.g. a pandemic time, when present-day challenges exert immense pressure on social critique. This means that models of social critique should not be discussed from the point of view of their normative justification or political effects alone, but also with reference to their ability to tackle contemporary problematic issues (like the (...) dismantlement of the welfare state, the environmental catastrophe, and the sanitary crisis). With this manifesto, we invite varying practices of philosophical, artistic and scientific social critique to take seriously the enormous challenges our societies face with regard to inner and outer nature. We first identity eleven theses of critical naturalism which contemporary critical theory should take into consideration. We then identify the historical crises and catastrophes that critical naturalism seeks to respond to, dispelling the prejudices against naturalism in contemporary critical thought, and considering alternative answers to these questions such as social constructivism, accelerationism, xenofeminism, flat ontologism, and monist world ecology. By sketching the notions of nature and naturalism, we anchor critical naturalism in the history of materialism and critical theory, understood initially as that of the Frankfurt School, but expanded and enriched by other approaches to social critique. Finally, we sketch models and projects of critical naturalism, which are exemplary fragments of varying ways to practice naturalist social critique. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the Hegelianism of contemporary neo-pragmatism and the Hegelianism of classical pragmatism as it has been reassessed in contemporary Deweyan scholarship. Drawing on Dewey’s interpretation of Hegel, this paper argues that Hegel’s theory of the spirit is in many aspects more akin to Dewey’s pragmatism than Brandom’s. The first part compares Dewey’s pragmatism with Hegel’s conceptions of experience and the theory/practice relation. The second part compares Dewey’s naturalism with Hegel’s theory of the relation between nature and spirit.

ABSTRACT Dewey's critical conception of work deserves consideration because it combines two types of models of social critique that are usually considered separately in contemporary Dewey scholarship. In the syllabus Social Institutions and the Study of Morals, Dewey contends that the valuation of social settings should be grounded on criteria immanent to social experience, and he applies his model of immanent critique to work-related issues. In his philosophy of education, he highlights that institutional settings should be valued from the point (...) of view of their formative effects, and in Democracy and Education, the formative effects of work are put to the fore. The case of work illustrates the fact that specific institutional settings require that immanent critique be complemented by critique of the formative effects. The psychological and social centrality of work implies that the problems met in the social experience of work produce effects that concern not only the social experience of work but also life outside of work. Therefore, these effects cannot be accurately tackled by an immanent critique of work. (shrink)

Cet article s’interroge sur le sens des termes « français » et « allemand » quand on distingue des caractéristiques françaises et allemandes à propos de la théorie de la reconnaissance. Deux manières de distinguer ces caractéristiques sont analysées : la première considère que la promotion philosophique du concept de reconnaissance est une opération allemande à laquelle rien ne correspond de ce côté-ci du Rhin, la seconde affirme que le propre des approches philosophiques françaises de la reconnaissance est de souligner (...) la face négative de la reconnaissance, alors que les Allemands rattacheraient la reconnaissance à l’autonomie et à la réconciliation. (shrink)

Descartes a entrepris de détruire la pratique aristotélicienne de la philosophie : à son savoir seulement probable, les Regulae, puis les Essais opposent une science certaine d'objets clairs et distincts. Mais cette instauration concerne aussi, peut-être même d'abord, l'idéal pratique qu'Aristote ne cesse de viser dans les sciences théorétiques : le sage parvient à la félicité par l'exercice même d'une connaissance si parfaite qu'elle imite celle du dieu, qui pense sa pensée en acte et éternellement. Descartes met décidément en crise (...) la félicité par la contemplation, dont la pensée médiévale avait hérité d'Aristote. Pourtant, une autre figure de la félicité se dégage tout aussi indiscutablement de l'entreprise cartésienne : la méthode, la certitude scientifique qu'elle permet et les principes métaphysiques qui assurent l'une et l'autre restent, à chaque moment, solidaires d'une attitude et d'une ambition proprement morales - la volonté infinie aboutit à la générosité, où la considération du bon usage de notre libre-arbitre permet le - contentement de soi-même -. Ainsi la philosophie atteint-elle, pour Descartes aussi, à une félicité. Mais à une félicité volontaire et non plus contemplative. On tentera donc d'abord de mesurer, dans différents champs de la philosophie cartésienne, l'impact de la certitude jusque sur les questions d'éthique ; ensuite, de souligner la référence constante, quoique souvent implicite, de Descartes à la félicité telle qu'Aristote la visait ; enfin, de suivre leur dialogue au fil conducteur de leurs versions divergentes, mais complices, de l'admiratio et du thaumazein. (shrink)

La philosophie de la nature de l'Encyclopedie des sciences philosophiques fut, jusqu'a une date recente, presque ignoree par les etudes hegeliennes. Hegel s'y serait rendu coupable d'une pretention a concurrencer les sciences positives sur leur propre terrain et a rivaliser avec elles, en revelant a la fois son incomprehension de la scientificite la mieux etablie et la faible rationalite de son propre projet. Une lecture attentive permet de rectifier ces prejuges, en montrant non seulement que Hegel s'y trouve attentif et (...) respectueux du savoir positif de son temps, mais encore qu'il tente d'y definir les modalites d'une collaboration methodologiquement reglee entre philosophie et sciences. En quoi consiste le projet d'une science speculative? En quoi consiste chez Hegel la deduction speculative de la verite? En quoi consiste la comprehension hegelienne du statut et des formes du discours des sciences de la nature? Quelle attitude la speculation doit-elle adopter face aux controverses scientifiques? C'est a ces questions que s'efforce de repondre cet ouvrage. (shrink)

In contemporary political philosophy, the disqualification of the problematic of alienation has to a large extent rested on the conviction that the norms of democracy, justice, and the good life provide a sufficient framework within which to outline a social critique that is politically pertinent. The paradox is that, at the very moment when such a conviction was becoming widespread, its validity was being refuted by the historical reality. It would appear that the casting-off of the Fordist system has seen (...) the emergence of a different set of social pathologies which, if they are to be adequately thematised and criticised, require the activation of the notion of alienation. (shrink)

La théorie critique de la société, telle qu'elle s'est développée dans le cadre de ce qu'on appelle parfois l'école de Francfort, se caractérise notamment par le fait qu'elle donne toute son importance aux dominations et aux conflits dans son analyse du monde contemporain. L'une de ses figures aujourd'hui centrales, Axel Honneth, est aussi l'auteur de la théorie de la reconnaissance sans doute la plus systématique et riche en perspectives théoriques et critiques. C'est de cette théorie qu'Emmanuel Renault part dans cc (...) livre, tout en lui apportant des inflexions justifiées d'une part par l'histoire de la théorie critique, d'autre part par l'analyse du temps présent. L'analyse de l'imbrication de la reconnaissance, de la domination et du conflit demande une approche spécifique : l'apport du pragmatisme américain et les débats sociologiques contemporains, en particulier Dewey et Bourdieu, complètent ici le modèle hégélien et les intuitions de Marx. Quelques exemples choisis parmi des objets souvent délaissés par les sciences sociales la conduite oppositionnelle d'un groupe de punks squatters, le langage protestataire de jeunes de banlieues populaires mettent à l'épreuve la capacité d'analyse de l'approche proposée par l'auteur, celle d'une philosophie sociale conçue comme une hybridation de la philosophie et des sciences sociales. Une contribution d'importance au coeur des débats les plus actuels."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In this short essay, I will endeavour to show that Frantz Fanon’s well-known conception of struggles for national liberation is intimately linked to an erotics of liberation . This one takes its roots in a shift, or better a reversal, of theories of racism . As Etienne Balibar argues, “racism,” as a category, appears at mid 19 th century, especially under the aegis of the UNESCO, as a break with the conceptions of “race,” considered to be a pure “myth” or (...) “prejudice.” A better example of such an epistemological rupture is probably Sartre’s Antisemite and Jew and its motto: “the Jew is a man whom other men consider a Jew…it is the anti-Semite who makes the Jew.” In other words, race is nothing but the product of racism. The biological arguments that underlie the theories of race are “false” arguments inasmuch as they depend on ideological and/or psychological premises. (shrink)

The meanings and functions of the notion of social philosophy in John Dewey’s writings have not really been subjected to serious philological investigation. Until recently, Dewey scholarship has simply equated social philosophy either to political philosophy in general, or to philosophy of education,1 and in recent years we have tended to read this social philosophy from a retrospective point of view, with reference to contemporary debates about social philosophy as an alternative to contemporary political philosophy.2 One reason for this lack (...) of philological attention has been that the only way to study Dewey’s project of social philosophy was to refer to the English translation of the Chinese translation... (shrink)

The evidence today is practically uncontested: about thirty years ago we left Fordism behind and entered a new phase of capitalism. That the structures of the post-Fordist social order call for new modes of social critique is also a prevalent idea. The category of alienation continues, however, to be discredited. Nevertheless it is not clear that the categories of democracy (as apparatuses of non-domination), justice and the good life are capable of bringing about the political effects that may be expected (...) today from the concept of alienation. For these reasons, not only the historical diagnostic that appears to have authorized jettisoning the problematic of alienation but also the model of critique used to replace it demand critical scrutiny. (shrink)

The 2005 Avignon Theatre Festival sparked a vast controversy about the insistent presence of bodies (whether wounded, broken, or humiliated) on stage. Without subscribing to the reactionary critical response to the Festival, it is legitimate to return to the debate in order to question the ubiquity of the “victim body” in contemporary theatre. Such representations, far from being heterodox, are in fact part of the massive ideology of “the ethical”, as diagnosed by Alain Badiou. The oppressed body thus tends to (...) be assimilated to the body of the victim. The result is the obliteration of the resistance of subjects to their oppression, or of their active response to it, theatre being reduced to the maxims of a democratic materialism: “there are only bodies and languages”. (shrink)

This paper asks whether or not normative political philosophy can face the challenge of the critique of the political. This question is addressed to theories of justice in general, but this paper considers Habermas' position in particular. It advances the thesis that the main theoretical and political problem of theories of justice is that they have not really taken the abolitionist dimension of the concept of justice into account. As a consequence, they run the risk of reproducing in themselves the (...) political abstraction that they should criticise. (shrink)

The interpretation of Marx’s references to work and to domination is a vexed question. Can we say that Marx criticizes capitalism in terms of its effects on work? Or does he criticize capitalism from the standpoint of those subject to domination, and with whom his position is one of solidarity? Or does he elaborate a description of the unprecedented transformations brought about in the relations of power, which the category of domination is unable to apprehend effectively? The article argues that (...) these differences in interpretation are actually based on a series of false oppositions. Marx’s aim is in effect to articulate the question of the domination of work and the question of domination at work, insofar as he accords a position of political centrality to the connection between domination and work. (shrink)

If it seems fully legitimate to introduce Marx in the contemporary discussion about recognition, it is more disputable to attribute to Marx an unified conception of recognition. There is no doubt that Marx hasn’t provided any systematic account of recognition, but he has tackled the issue of recognition from various points of view. Could these various points of view be unified in a general conception of recognition? This article claims that this is not the case since three accounts of recognition (...) should be distinguished that are hardly compatible one with the other: one Feuerbachian account of recognition of the species being in the other, one account of recognition related to the dynamics of disrespect as social experience, and one account of recognition through social roles. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a preferences representation model where ambiguity attitudes can be exogenous events or past experience-dependent. We adapt the Recursive Smooth Ambiguity model proposed by Klibanoff (Journal of Economic Theory 144:930-976, 2009) by introducing past experience described by a sequence of neutral events occurring up to the moment of the decision. These neutral events do not provide any information on the true process, but are likely to strengthen or weaken the decision-maker’s ambiguity aversion degree (...) by modifying emotions. Our model can explain some observed behaviors and market inefficiencies. We propose two illustrations. First, we provide a behavioral explanation for the decrease in influenza vaccination in France that followed the H1N1 crisis in 2009–2010. Second, we contribute to the broad literature on the annuity puzzle by introducing the impact of emotions on ambiguity attitudes. (shrink)

Cet article discute la manière dont les théories féministes de la reproduction ont conduit à entretenir et renouveler les discussions portant sur les meilleures manières de théoriser et de critiquer l’exploitation du travail au sein des sociétés capitalistes. Dans un premier temps, il remonte à Marx et à la manière dont Le Capital pose le problème de la reproduction de la force de travail sans l’associer à celui d’un travail reproductif. Dans un deuxième temps, il analyse la manière dont les (...) théories féministes de la reproduction sociale ont développé à partir des années 1970 une théorie de l’exploitation du travail domestique, conçu comme travail de reproduction, par le capitalisme. Dans un troisième temps, il propose une discussion critique de la manière dont les développements plus récents des théories féministes de la reproduction sociale ont élargi le concept de reproduction sociale et le déconnectant parfois des problématiques du travail et de son exploitation. (shrink)

On Marx et Marxisms. In response to the questions addressed by Jacques Bidet and Bruno Tinel, Gérard Duménil, Michael Löwy and Emmanuel Renault here outline the approach they adopted in their two recently published books on Marx, and on Marxisms . The questions raised here mainly hinge on the articulation between the political, the philosophical and the economic dimension of Marx’s writings, and the way these can be mobilised within contemporary debates.

« The form within which contractions can move ». The case for a reconstruction of the materialist theory of law The article begins with an appraisal of the legacy of Marxist legal theory in the last century as the starting-point from which to update the various attempts to grasp the connection between the capitalist mode of production and modern law. By way of a critical inquiry of its merits and failures, the article tries to re-construct the findings of Marxist legal (...) theory and thus propose an updated version of a materialist legal theory. The main argument is that law in capitalist societies takes the form of a technology of cohesion which possesses its own logic of self reproduction. Law’s ´relational autonomy` is both an effect of its autonomisation from social relations, behind the back of its producers, and the main condition for a deferral of power. Under the structural conditions of the legal form, juridical intellectuals organise hegemony via the infrastructure of a seemingly neutral legal argumentation. (shrink)

Les articles réunis dans ce dossier de la revue Astérion portent sur la première génération de la Théorie critique (dont Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse et Erich Fromm constituent sans doute les figures principales). Ils se concentrent plus précisément sur les contributions philosophiques qui marquèrent la période ouverte par l’accession de Horkheimer à la direction de l’Institut de recherches sociales (1931) et close par la publication en 1944 de Dialektik..

Two paradoxes seem to characterise the method of the critique of ideology. The first has to do with the fact that ideologies are “both true and false” (Adorno). The second has to do with the fact that the critique of ideology seems to carry both a normative and a descriptive dimension. The article argues that these two paradoxes disappear when the critique of ideology is addressed by way of a Hegelian mode of immanent critique. Such an approach highlights both the (...) specific normative claim of the critique of ideology and the specific problematic which it exemplifies. (shrink)

In various ways, Marx ascribes a central role to the body in his theoretical and political system. In both his philosophy of praxis and his critique of political economy, the body is presented as a site of forces and needs. This enables Marx to provide a naturalist ground for the dynamics of praxis. It also enables him to define a critical perspective in terms of the effects registered in the body of a structure of domination and exploitation. The aim of (...) the article is to present these themes and to discuss their subsequent treatment by authors such as Merleau-Ponty, Bourdieu and Foucault, while reflecting on the way recent transformations of capitalism have led to their reformulation and to the emergence of two new critical tropes: the body as commodity and as an ideology. (shrink)

Au cours de cet entretien, Emmanuel Renault nous offre un aperçu de la manière dont la thématique de la reconnaissance est traitée en France aujourd’hui, notamment à travers le renouveau des études sur Hegel et Marx. Il explique la façon dont la reconnaissance a pu s’ériger en paradigme (en dépit de ses usages multiples et variés en France comme ailleurs), au cours de la dernière décennie et le rôle joué par Axel Honneth dans ce procès. Finalement, il explicite sa manière (...) d’envisager la pratique de la philosophie politique et son projet d’une critique du capitalisme. Emmanuel Renault nous livre également un commentaire critique mais constructif sur la manière dont Paul Ricœur envisage la reconnaissance et suggère quelques pistes concernant les possibles développements futurs des usages de la reconnaissance. (shrink)