Jargon, Bullshit, sinnlos

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 646-660
Author(s):  
Max Beck
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Logical Empiricism ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Content ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Personal Approach ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Theological Language

Abstract Theodor W. Adorno’s Jargon of Authenticity (1964) is one of the bestknown, but also most controversial works of Critical Theory. Many philosophers, writers and editorialists have attacked the text in recent decades and accused Adorno of cultivating his own “jargon”. In his book, Adorno develops a critique of metaphysical and theological language, which he observed in Germany from the 1920s up to the 1960s. In my paper, I argue that the mode of critique Adorno deploys is still relevant today, even if its object has largely disappeared. This becomes clear in comparison to the language criticism of the analytical tradition, namely logical empiricism or Harry G. Frankfurt’s critique of “bullshit,” which are comparably more widespread today in academic debates. While Adorno examines linguistic expressions in terms of their social content and places them in a historical constellation, the critique of “bullshit” following Frankfurt remains constrained to a personal approach. In the language criticism of logical empiricism, on the other hand, the possibility of understanding linguistic phenomena as expressions of social conditions is still present. From this comparison, much can be learned for an up-to-date language criticism.

scholarly journals Amos: ’n teologie van bedreiging?

1998 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Helberg
Keyword(s):  
Space Time ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
The Real ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Personal Approach ◽  
History Of

The book of Amos contains many undertones of threat, except in the epilogue which, according to many scholars, is redactional The question thus comes to the fore whether this characteristic implies that God is seen by Amos as a God of threat for whom one can only have fear. This article, however, points out Amos’ moral justification of God's deeds. Israel's actions, on the other hand, display a self-centredness and a lack of theocentric and personal approach. Within this framework the history of salvation, especially the exodus and the conquest of the land, as well as the election, covenant and the idea of the remnant, is fossilised and God is made a captive of space, time and relations. However, Amos' proclamation implies that in reality God cannot be made captive - neither of such a religion nor of a theology of threat. Amos envisions a situation in which everything will comply with the real aim set for it/him.

Slave Spectacles and Tragic Octoroons: A Cultural Genealogy of Antebellum Performance

1992 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Roach
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Topic ◽  
Modern Language Association ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Mixed Emotions ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Political Intervention

In recent critical theory, the word performance has undergone a significant expansion, some would say an inflation. As the Editor's Note to the May issue of PMLA (“Special Topic: Performance”) observes, “What once was an event has become a critical category, now applied to everything from a play to a war to a meal. The performative … is a cultural act, a critical perspective, a political intervention.” Theatre historians will perhaps greet such pronouncements with mixed emotions. On one hand, they may welcome the acknowledgment by the principal organ of the Modern Language Association that performance (as opposed to drama merely) can count for so much. On the other hand, they may wonder what exactly is intended by the conceptual leap that takes performance beyond the established theatrical genres to encompass armed conflict and comestibles.

Can Theological Language Have Hidden Meaning?

1983 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
John Morreall
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Theological Language

Any reflective account of theological language acknowledges very early that words drawn from our experience with creatures have special meanings when applied to God. Because God transcends the created world, we cannot take predicates which apply to creatures and apply them to God without modification. And the more transcendent God is understood to be, the more modified will our language taken from creatures have to be when it is used in theology. A primitive theism which thinks of God simply as a very powerful person will view the difference between God and creatures as merely a matter of degree and not of kind. In such a view God transcends things in the world only in that he has a greater degree of the properties we find in creatures, so that predicates taken from creatures, ‘wise’ and ‘strong’, for example, can be applied to God in almost a straightforward way. The only change in meaning is that God is moreknowing and stronger. In a more sophisticated theism such as Judaism or Christianity, on the other hand, God' transcendence is seen not simply as a difference in degrees of properties, but as a difference in kind. The being God is is radically other than the kinds of beings we find in the created world. Indeed, it is sometimes claimed that God is not even ‘a being’, a thing which exists; rather God is ‘being itself’, ‘pure existence’. Aquinas, for instance, held that God does not haveproperties. God is absolutely simple, and so if we can talk about properties at all in talking about God, we have to say that God is identical to God' properties. God, too, differs radically from creatures in that he is not in time and space, nor is he dependent on anything else. But our language used with creatures is full of explicit or implicit references to time and space and to dependence, so that we cannot take our ordinary terms derived from our experience with spatio-temporal, dependent creatures and apply them straightforwardly to God.

scholarly journals Diarrhoea and enteritis amongst infants in the London area, 1930–8

1946 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 480-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Payling Wright ◽  
Helen Payling Wright
Keyword(s):  
Representative Sample ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Medical Officer ◽  
Seasonal Distribution ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Widespread Dissemination

The present inquiry was undertaken to obtain some indication of the relative frequencies of deaths amongst infants from the various forms of diarrhoea and enteritis—‘neonatal’, ‘parenteral’ and ‘infectious’—in the Greater London area in the decade before the war. Since much of the material needed for such an analysis was not available in the published records, a sampling inquiry, making use of the more elaborate records maintained by the Medical Officer of Health, was undertaken for the Borough of Willesden. A comparison of the relevant epidemiological and social conditions in this borough with those in the Greater London area as a whole showed, that for such a purpose, it might properly be regarded as a representative sample.There was little evidence for the occurrence of the neonatal form in Willesden during the period studied, nor did the seasonal distribution of the deaths suggest that many took place in consequence of preceding parenteral infections. On the other hand, there did seem to be some evidence that a significant proportion of these deaths were in some degree associated with one another, in time or place or both, and it is suggested that this distribution might have resulted from the widespread dissemination in the community of one or more strains of some common micro-organism of relatively low virulence for all but the infant population.A less detailed study of data for other London boroughs, viz., Bermondsey, Croydon, East Ham, Tottenham and West Ham, supported the main conclusion reached from the Willesden records.

scholarly journals Die Ordnung des Wissens

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (151) ◽  
pp. 255-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Kappeler
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
The Other ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Archaeology Of Knowledge ◽  
The One ◽  
Critical Social

In its first part, the article deals with Michel Foucaults "discourse analysis", as developed in his "Archaeology of knowledge". The second part considers the concept of discourse in relation to Foucaults "analytic of power" and to a critical theory of society inspired by Karl Marx, especially Louis Althussers notion of ideology. Thus, on the one hand, some propositions for a methodology of discourse analysis are being made, and, on the other hand, its position within a project of critical social theory is discussed.

“Cherchons la femme!”: The Dynamics of Gender Relations and Emergent Complexity in Neolithic Çatalhöyük

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Marie Dederen ◽  
Jennifer Mokakabye
Keyword(s):  
Gender Relations ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
The Other ◽  
Emergent Complexity ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One

Ever since the first artefacts and structures of Çatalhöyük were excavated by James Mellaart in the 1960s, researchers have debated why sedentary farmers, whose diet included domesticated plants, sheep and goat, displayed a myriad of aurochs bull and other hunting trophies inside some of their houses. Equally puzzling have been two parallel developments in the later habitation levels. On the one hand the excavators noted how the wild animal trophies gradually decreased in number and eventually faded away towards the final Neolithic occupation. On the other hand they established that the material and symbolic presence of women in this prehistoric town was growing stronger. It is proposed that these two processes were connected and that they can be elucidated in terms of the female–male dialectic which may have generated them.

Democracy’s Autonomy Dilemma: Whistleblowing and the Politics of Disclosure

2021 ◽  
pp. 073527512110548
Author(s):  
Thomas Olesen
Keyword(s):  
Pronounced Effect ◽  
The Other ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One ◽  
Gray Areas

Democracy has been characterized from its outset by an autonomy dilemma. On the one hand, we think it vital that organizations work according to their own codes and logics. On the other hand, we insist that autonomy must never be complete, that citizens have a right to transgress boundaries to expose wrongdoing. With their insider position in the organizations where wrongdoing occurs, whistleblowers hold a unique place within this democratic politics of disclosure, which has so far not been sociologically theorized. This article takes four steps to address this lacuna: First, I situate whistleblowing within the democratic landslides that took place during the 1960s and 1970s; second, I disentangle it from practices such as journalism and activism; third, I argue that whistleblowers are particularly well positioned to detect normalized wrongdoing within organizations; and fourth, I discuss how whistleblowers’ most pronounced effect is the disclosure of gray areas that have gone under the democratic radar.

scholarly journals Georg Simmel: una teoría crítica de la cultura

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-88
Author(s):  
Eduardo Gutiérrez Gutiérrez ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social

The main object of the article is the exposition of the critical theory of culture of Georg Simmel, which we can call «tragedy of modern culture». In connection with this exhibition, whose topicality we do not doubt since the social and cultural problems that to a large extent are still suffered in large cities are being brought to the table, we present Simmel’s idea of culture as a condensation of the idea of culture developed by German idealism. On the other hand, and as a second objective, we will try to demonstrate the line of continuity that exists between Simmel and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School with respect to the criticism of modern culture.

scholarly journals Holden Caulfield: A Marginal Player Made by Historical Context

2018 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Zari Dorri
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Historicism ◽  
Environmental Condition ◽  
The Public ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Opening Up

Holden Caulfield, the major character in Jerome David Salinger’s most rewarded novel The Catcher in the Rye, long stood as the innovative and leading figure for such distinctive and revolutionary traits in a character he presented in 1959s’ America literary domain. Salinger media-shy and no interview policies led the public to spread out the idea of the author’s being the whole genius behind the sheer novelty of Holden Caulfield character by making a myth out of the author who turns down any kind of publicity and is finally lionized. This student-friendly hero who denigrate respectability and” phoniness” with his cynical attitude and obscene language, in one way or another, is kept being compared to such huge characters like Huckle Berry Finn whose universal popularity is barely deniable; but the question is that, could at any rate, J.D.Salinger be the sole innovator behind this genuineness? On the other hand, are there any other social and environmental factors, which came to pave the way for any kinds of Holden to be born and well liked? The main purpose of the paper is to answer these questions by a kind of critical theory as New Historicism and survey through the history as a discourse in this method. The results and findings indicate that, apparently, there was a specific social context for the emergence of this novel, with which the author had to interact. By opening up the environmental condition of those days and considering the facts, which affected Holden’s birth and popularity in that era. This essay will point out the fact that criticizing America’s 50s in such aforementioned ambience was inevitably and to some extent predictable.

scholarly journals An der Oberfläche der Tauschgesellschaft

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (180) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Lotz
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Basis ◽  
Normative Concept ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Social Totality ◽  
The One ◽  
Ethical Idealism

In this paper I argue that we should not accept the normative turn that major contemporary critical theorists, such as Habermas, Honneth, and Jaeggi, have introduced to critical theory. On the one hand, the introduction of a communicative and ultimately ethical paradigm led to a loss of a dialectical concept of society. On the other hand, this turn led to a loss of a non-normative concept of critique. Accordingly, I argue that we should return to a Marxian concept of critique as analysis of (capitalist) social totality, which, in turn, enables us to re-introduce a concept of society that is not based on abstract moral or normative assumptions, but, instead, functions as their basis. For only a non-normative concept of critique can help us to see the finite and historical limits of capitalist society. Moreover, this return to Marx not only helps us understand that capitalist social totality is not established on ethical grounds but that it is constituted by money and labor. As a consequence, the return to a Marxist paradigm allows critical theory to include an analysis of the natural basis of capitalist sociality, of which it has lost sight due to its ethical idealism.

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