scholarly journals Kritische Anthropologie?

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Peter Krüger
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Complementary Relationship ◽  
Negative Dialectics ◽  
Critical Anthropology ◽  
Communicative Theory

AbstractThis article compares Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s foundation of the Frankfurt Critical Theory with Helmuth Plessner’s foundation of Philosophical Anthropology. While Horkheimer’s and Plessner’s paradigms are mutually incompatible, Adorno’s „negative dialectics“ and Plessner’s „negative anthropology“ (G. Gamm) can be seen as complementing one another. Jürgen Habermas at one point sketched a complementary relationship between his own publicly communicative theory of modern society and Plessner’s philosophy of nature and human expressivity, and though he then came to doubt this, he later reaffirmed it. Faced with the „life power“ in „high capitalism“ (Plessner), the ambitions for a public democracy in a pluralistic society have to be broadened from an argumentative focus (Habermas) to include the human condition and the expressive modes of our experience as essentially embodied persons. The article discusses some possible aspects of this complementarity under the title of a „critical anthropology“ (H. Schnädelbach).

scholarly journals New Critical Theory or Analytical Empiricism?

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-449
Author(s):  
Dmitry Kataev
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Critical Sociology ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The World

“If acceleration is a problem in modern society, then resonance is perhaps the solution” is the key thesis of Hartmut Rosa’s Sociology of Relationship to the World, or “the sociology of the ‘good life’”, which has become one of the brightest and most controversial critical theories at the beginning of this century. The content, the reception, the criticism of the concept of resonance, and the resulting discussions which became the reason for the renewal of the “methodological positivism dispute” in German sociology are the subjects of this article. The first part of the article is devoted to the consideration of the concept of resonance as a theoretical tool for the new critical sociology, an alternative to the resource-based approach prevailing in mainstream sociology which is unable to measure the quality of human life and the subject-world relationship. In conjunction with other works of the author, the paper analyzes the main idea of Rosa, that is, the creation of an updated critical theory of resonant relations. In doing so, Rosa thematizes the dialectics between the normative and descriptive content of resonance and alienation as integral elements of modern lifeforms and the human condition, the dichotomy of the “good life” and the “bad life”, and the differentiation of the horizontal, diagonal, and vertical “axes of resonance” and their role in building of “relationships to the world”. The second part highlights the main areas of the critical “sociology of relationship to the world” and the concept of resonance. Particular attention will be paid to the “methodological dispute”, since it is precisely this debate that is associated with another project of the “big theory” of the early 21st century, that of the “integrative sociology” of H. Esser, an updated theory of rational choice that was transformed into an analytical-empirical sociology as opposed to the new critical theory by Rosa. Finally, in the conclusion, an attempt is made to determine the place of both alternatives from the point of view of the Weberian-studies tradition, since both polemists explicitly or indirectly refer to the classic. The question of whether Rosa’s concept of resonance is a new sociological paradigm or whether it is a sociological theology remains open.

scholarly journals Education for civil society or democracy

2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 445-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoran Avramovic
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Theoretical Foundation ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Single Subject ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Education Teacher ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
School Practice ◽  
Single Vision

This paper is a scholarly debate on theses which equate the concepts of "civil society" and "democracy". The main objection put forward against the concept of education for civil society is its ideological nature. The paper analyses theoretical and empirical difficulties of the concept. In the first place, "civil society" concept is not identical to "democracy" concept. The author contests the claim that a good citizen ideal is a general ideal of modern society. A claim is put forward that there is no significant pedagogical or didactic difference between a civil education teacher and teachers of other subjects. The paper also points out some outstanding problems in school practice of civil education as a proof that the concept does not have a valid theoretical foundation. The call for civil education not to be limited to a single subject has been contested by the argument that a single vision of a desirable society can lead into doctrinal and ideological bigotry and not democratic pluralistic society. .

Critical theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Geuss ◽  
J. M. Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Instrumental Rationality ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Conception Of The Good

The term ‘critical theory’ designates the approach to the study of society developed between 1930 and 1970 by the so-called ‘Frankfurt School’. A group of theorists associated with the Institute for Social Research, the School was founded in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923. The three most important philosophers belonging to it were Max Horkheimer, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. The project was renewed by the second- and third-generation critical theorists, most notably, Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse feared that modern Western societies were turning into closed, totalitarian systems in which all individual autonomy was eliminated. In their earliest writings from the 1930s they presented this tendency towards totalitarianism as one result of the capitalist mode of production. In later accounts they give more prominence to the role of science and technology in modern society, and to the concomitant, purely ‘instrumental’, conception of reason. This conception of reason denies that there can be any such thing as inherently rational ends or goals for human action and asserts that reason is concerned exclusively with the choice of effective instruments or means for attaining arbitrary ends. ‘Critical theory’ was to be a form of resistance to contemporary society; its basic method was to be that of ‘internal’ or ‘immanent’ criticism. Every society, it was claimed, must be seen as making a tacit claim to substantive (and not merely instrumental) rationality; that is, making the claim that it allows its members to lead a good life. This claim gives critical theory a standard for criticism which is internal to the society being criticized. Critical theory demonstrates in what ways contemporary society fails to live up to its own claims. The conception of the good life to which each society makes tacit appeal in legitimizing itself will usually not be fully propositionally explicit, so any critical theory will have to begin by extracting a tacit conception of the good life from the beliefs, cultural artefacts and forms of experience present in the society in question. One of the particular difficulties confronting a critical theory of contemporary society is the disappearance of traditional substantive conceptions of the good life that could serve as a basis for internal criticism, and their replacement with the view that modern society needs no legitimation beyond simple reference to its actual efficient functioning, to its ‘instrumental’ rationality. The ideology of ‘instrumental rationality’ thus itself becomes a major target for critical theory.

Critical theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Geuss
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Instrumental Rationality ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Conception Of The Good

The term ‘critical theory’ designates the approach to the study of society developed between 1930 and 1970 by the so-called ‘Frankfurt School’. A group of theorists associated with the Institute for Social Research, the School was founded in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923. The three most important philosophers belonging to it were Max Horkheimer, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse feared that modern Western societies were turning into closed, totalitarian systems in which all individual autonomy was eliminated. In their earliest writings from the 1930s they presented this tendency towards totalitarianism as one result of the capitalist mode of production. In later accounts they give more prominence to the role of science and technology in modern society, and to the concomitant, purely ‘instrumental’, conception of reason. This conception of reason denies that there can be any such thing as inherently rational ends or goals for human action and asserts that reason is concerned exclusively with the choice of effective instruments or means for attaining arbitrary ends. ‘Critical theory’ was to be a form of resistance to contemporary society; its basic method was to be that of ‘internal’ or ‘immanent’ criticism. Every society, it was claimed, must be seen as making a tacit claim to substantive (and not merely instrumental) rationality; that is, making the claim that it allows its members to lead a good life. This claim gives critical theory a standard for criticism which is internal to the society being criticized. Critical theory demonstrates in what ways contemporary society fails to live up to its own claims. The conception of the good life to which each society makes tacit appeal in legitimizing itself will usually not be fully propositionally explicit, so any critical theory will have to begin by extracting a tacit conception of the good life from the beliefs, cultural artefacts and forms of experience present in the society in question. One of the particular difficulties confronting a critical theory of contemporary society is the disappearance of traditional substantive conceptions of the good life that could serve as a basis for internal criticism, and their replacement with the view that modern society needs no legitimation beyond simple reference to its actual efficient functioning, to its ‘instrumental’ rationality. The ideology of ‘instrumental rationality’ thus itself becomes a major target for critical theory.

The temporalization of critique and the open riddle of history

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 137 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Cordero
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Reflexive Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
Emancipatory Politics ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Right

The main goal of this paper is to offer a reading of Reinhart Koselleck’s work as an ally of critical theory. My contention is that, despite customary accusations of Koselleck being an anti-Enlightenment historian detrimental to social criticism and emancipatory politics, his investigations on the semantic fabric of modern society may actually expand our resources for the critique of domination. In order to make this argument plausible, I reconstruct some antinomies that are at the basis of Koselleck’s work (state/society, language/reality, experience/expectation) and discuss their critical potential. This analysis shows that, rather than a rejection of the spirit of critique, Koselleck contributes to the temporalization of the practice of critique as such: namely, a clarification of the contradictions and potentials of a reflexive practice imbued in the struggle between the need to comprehend the world as it is and the right to experiment with other forms of life.

scholarly journals German and Russian Political Blogs as Relevant Protest Practice in Context of Modern Society Mediatization

2020 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 01004
Author(s):  
Elena Terentyeva ◽  
Marina Milovanova ◽  
Elena Pavlova ◽  
Nina Wendt ◽  
Rumiya Kaderova
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Political Blogs ◽  
Political News ◽  
Common System ◽  
The Media ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
Communicative Theory ◽  
And Migration

The study reveals the multifunctionality which is typical of German and Russian political blogs. Regardless of the language of the blogs, information and evaluation, political and convening, consolidating, agitation and propaganda, presentation and propaganda, and directive functions are among the dominant functions. The paper briefly describes the linguistic means which represent these functions. It shows the discursive hybridity of political blogs which is manifested in combining the features of Internet discourse with elements of political, news, journalistic, and social values discourses (in German political blogs) and political, business, legal, conversational, and artistic discourses (in Russian political blogs). The authors establish the relevant communicative strategies of the addresser (the strategy to justify a “problem”, the strategy to support / not support demonstrated evaluation) and the tactics that implement them. The authors also define the topics for discussion which initiate the addressee’s protest reaction – these are social issues, international and regional developments, environment and migration crisis in German political blogs and finance and taxes, constitution and government, elections, corruption and officials in Russian political blogs. The paper describes the ways of forming and maintaining convening technologies in the protest practice considered. It considers the features of mediatization of politics and personality in the content analyzed, which are manifested in guiding the political agenda to the needs of the addressee. It also establishes that German and Russian political blogs as a protest practice are characterized by a set of common system and communicative characteristics, a similar strategy and tactic organization, and a different set of problem areas marked with the “threat” index. The results obtained contribute to further development of the provisions of the communicative theory of protest, facilitate the understanding of modern protest forms and attempt to explain how technology, politics and the media sphere are interlinked.

scholarly journals In Shadows and Darkness: being authentic in Céline and Hillman (“intimité des choses” and “pathologizing” )

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Cláudio Cledson Novaes ◽  
Aleš Vrbata
Keyword(s):  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Modern Project ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Deep Interest ◽  
Intellectual Legacy

Aim of this paper is to demonstrate a proximity or even complementarity between James Hillman’s and Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s vision of  human soul and human condition. Even though their cultural and intellectual context differed significantly and they both used very different forms of expression, they repeatedly invoked intimate dimension of human existence as permeated by somehow pathological, peripherial or dark aspects of being. Nevertheless, both of them shared deep interest in bottom-line dimension of being which they called “soul” and which they linked with death, darkness, weakness and which they associated with  socially disapproved ways of being. Even though Hillman could be labeled as reformist and Céline as nihilist, for both of them modern society and its programming cut modern man off his deeper sense of meaningfulness or as Céline puts it in from “intimité des choses”. Questioning intellectual legacy of Enlightenment, both Céline and Hillman find soul of modern man as pathologized and threatened but at the same time as the very source of meaningfulness. Like that Hillman and Céline can be viewed not just as cultural critics but as actively deconstructing, questioning modern project and modern subjectivity

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document