The End of Progress

The End of Progress PDF

Author: Amy Allen

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2016-01-12

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0231540639

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

While post- and decolonial theorists have thoroughly debunked the idea of historical progress as a Eurocentric, imperialist, and neocolonialist fallacy, many of the most prominent contemporary thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School—Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Rainer Forst—have defended ideas of progress, development, and modernity and have even made such ideas central to their normative claims. Can the Frankfurt School's goal of radical social change survive this critique? And what would a decolonized critical theory look like? Amy Allen fractures critical theory from within by dispensing with its progressive reading of history while retaining its notion of progress as a political imperative, so eloquently defended by Adorno. Critical theory, according to Allen, is the best resource we have for achieving emancipatory social goals. In reimagining a decolonized critical theory after the end of progress, she rescues it from oblivion and gives it a future.

Critical Theory of Communication

Critical Theory of Communication PDF

Author: Christian Fuchs

Publisher:

Published: 2016-10-10

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9781911534044

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book contributes to the foundations of a critical theory of communication as shaped by the forces of digital capitalism. One of the world's leading theorists of digital media Professor Christian Fuchs explores how the thought of some of the Frankfurt School's key thinkers can be deployed for critically understanding media in the age of the Internet. Five essays that form the heart of this book review aspects of the works of Georg LukAcs, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Axel Honneth and Ju rgen Habermas and apply them as elements of a critical theory of communication's foundations. The approach taken starts from Georg LukAcs Ontology of Social Being, draws on the work of the Frankfurt School thinkers, and sets them into dialogue with the Cultural Materialism of Raymond Williams. Critical Theory of Communication offers a vital set of new insights on how communication operates in the age of information, digital media and social media, arguing that we need to transcend the communication theory of Habermas by establishing a dialectical and cultural-materialist critical theory of communication. "

Critique, Norm, and Utopia

Critique, Norm, and Utopia PDF

Author: Seyla Benhabib

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 9780231061650

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Displaying an impressive command of complex materials, Seyla Benhabib reconstructs the history of theories from a systematic point of view and examines the origins and transformations of the concept of critique from the works of Hegel to Habermas. Through investigating the model of the philosophy of the subject, she pursues the question of how Hegel's critiques might be useful for reforumulating the foundations of critical social theory.

Critical Theory

Critical Theory PDF

Author: Max Horkheimer

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 1972-01-01

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0826400833

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

These essays, written in the 1930s and 1940s, represent a first selection in English from the major work of the founder of the famous Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. Horkheimer's writings are essential to an understanding of the intellectual background of the New Left and the to much current social-philosophical thought, including the work of Herbert Marcuse. Apart from their historical significance and even from their scholarly eminence, these essays contain an immediate relevance only now becoming fully recognized.

Habermas on Law and Democracy

Habermas on Law and Democracy PDF

Author: Michel Rosenfeld

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-12-22

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 0520917618

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In the first essay, Habermas himself succinctly presents the centerpiece of his theory: his proceduralist paradigm of law. The following essays comprise elaborations, criticisms, and further explorations by others of the most salient issues addressed in his theory. The distinguished group of contributors—internationally prominent scholars in the fields of law, philosophy, and social theory—includes many who have been closely identified with Habermas as well as some of his best-known critics. The final essay is a thorough and lengthy reply by Habermas, which not only engages the most important arguments raised in the preceding essays but also further elaborates and refines some of his own key contributions in Between Facts and Norms. This volume will be essential reading for philosophers, legal scholars, and political and social theorists concerned with understanding the work of one of the leading philosophers of our age. These provocative, in-depth debates between Jürgen Habermas and a wide range of his critics relate to the philosopher's contribution to legal and democratic theory in his recently published Between Facts and Norms. Drawing upon his discourse theory, Habermas has elaborated a novel and powerful account of law that purports to bridge the gap between democracy and rights, by conceiving law to be at once self-imposed and binding.

Introduction to Critical Theory

Introduction to Critical Theory PDF

Author: David Held

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-04-28

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 0520341279

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The writings of the critical theorists caught the imagination of students and intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s. They became a key element in the formation and self-understanding of the New Left, and have been the subject of continuing controversy. Partly because of their rise to prominence during the political turmoil of the sixties, and partly because they draw on traditions rarely studied in the Anglo-American world, the works of these authors are often misunderstood. In this book David Held provides a much-needed introduction to, and evaluation of, critical theory. He is concerned mainly with the thought of the Frankfurt school—Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, in particular—and with Habermas, one of Europe's leading contemporary thinkers. Several of the major themes considered are critical theory's relation to Marx's critique of the political economy, Freudian psychoanalysis, aesthetics, and the philosophy of history. There is also a discussion of critical theory's substantive contribution to the analysis of capitalism, culture, the family, and the individual, as well as its contribution to epistemology and methodology. Held's book will be necessary reading for all concerned with understanding and evaluating one of the most influential intellectual movements of our time.

Disrespect

Disrespect PDF

Author: Axel Honneth

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2014-10-15

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0745694497

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Over the last decade, Axel Honneth has established himself as one of the leading social and political philosophers in the world today. Rooted in the tradition of critical theory, his writings have been central to the revitalization of critical theory and have become increasingly influential. His theory of recognition has gained worldwide attention and is seen by some as the principal counterpart to Habermass theory of discourse ethics. In this important new volume, Honneth pursues his path-breaking work on recognition by exploring the moral experiences of disrespect that underpin the conduct of social and political critique. What we might conceive of as a striving for social recognition initially appears in a negative form as the experience of humiliation or disrespect. Honneth argues that disrespect constitutes the systematic key to a comprehensive theory of recognition that seeks to clarify the sense in which institutionalized patterns of social recognition generate justified demands on the way subjects treat each other. This new book by one of the leading social and political philosophers of our time will be of particular interest to students and scholars in social and political theory and philosophy.

Critical Theory After Habermas

Critical Theory After Habermas PDF

Author: Dieter Freundlieb

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2004-01-01

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9004137416

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The essays in this book engage with the broad range of Jürgen Habermas' work including politics and the public sphere, nature, aesthetics, the linguistic turn and the paradigm of intersubjectivity. Each essay responds to particular difficulties with Habermas' approach to these topics. Each contributor also draws on different theoretical and philosophical traditions in order to explore recent developments in critical theory.