scholarly journals Affective recognition and social freedom - the psychoanalytic and normative-reconstructive logics of grounding social critique in Axel Honneth’s work

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-434
Author(s):  
Werner Euler
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Individual Recognition ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Normative Concept ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Normative Reconstruction ◽  
Legal Subjects

The task of this paper is the following: how should one explain and solve the theory-immanent tension in Honneth?s recent works, i.e. the tension that reflects the difference between the concept of social freedom (a concept grounded in Hegel?s social philosophy methodologically articulated through normative reconstruction) and the concept of ?affective recognition? (which has replaced the earlier normative concept) - in other words: is there a certain logically-factually grounded path from the question of subjective-individual recognition to the intersubjective recognition of free (legal) subjects in society? My thesis is the fol?lowing: this supposed tension is a pseudo-tension. It loosens up - without completely resolving itself - as soon as we combine the two logics of grounding critique that we find in Honneth. However, unrelated to my claim about the pseudo-nature of the mentioned tension, the psychoanalytic mode of grounding critique is erroneous, since one cannot directly arrive at collective components of society starting from the empirical constellation of individual consciousnesses. The relation between subjective individuality and objective (intersubjective) generality is an objective contradiction (as opposed to a purely theoretical tension). If we still decide to pursue this path of grounding critique, we inadvertently introduce a psychologistic approach into social theory. Such an approach can be found in Honneth?s theory of intersubjective (normative) recognition as well.

scholarly journals Theory’s Method?

2021 ◽  
pp. 345-363
Author(s):  
Marianna Poyares
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter addresses the use of ethnographic methods in critical social theory, and the assumption that such methods prove to be useful because they allow the researcher to be closer to ‘matter itself’. Instead, I argue for ethnography from within a framework of historical materialism and social critique, marking the difference between such ‘materialism without matter’, based on Marx’s ‘fetishism of the commodity’, and some strategies of New Materialism. My goal is to situate the uses of ethnography for a transformed consideration of the relation between theory and practice.

scholarly journals Social pathologies, false developments and the heteronomy of the social: Social theory and the negative side of recognition

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luiz Souza
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Negative Side ◽  
Axel Honneth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Normative Reconstruction ◽  
Mature Work

The aim of this paper is to explore a tension between two concepts designed to expose social discomforts in Axel Honneth?s mature work, namely social pathologies and anomie. Particular emphasis will be given to how they contribute or obstruct Honneth?s apprehension of social tensions. In the first session of this exposition I will show that Honneth?s interpretation of social pathologies is based on a conception of society as an organic whole (I). While this interpretation represents a slight change regarding Honneth?s understanding of social pathologies in Das Recht der Freiheit, it does not change the fact that in his work subsequent to that book the concept of false developments has not been properly theorized. Accordingly, social discomforts related to deviations from expected patterns of a normative reconstruction remain largely ignored. This calls for a perspective more fully able to grasp the heteronomy of social life (II). As a result, in Honneth?s mature work there seems to be a tension between the aims of a normative reconstruction and those of social critique, mainly due to an inability of the author to combine both elements of his social theory. In its final section (III), the paper will address that tension in order to critically contribute to Honneth?s attempt to link normative reconstruction, social analysis and criticism.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Peter E. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Criticism ◽  
Max Horkheimer ◽  
Proper Sense ◽  
Religious Theme

Dwelling, in the proper sense, is now impossible. —Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia This book is a meditation on a philosophical and religious theme. In it I explore the problem of secularization, not as a social process, but as a conceptual gesture that appears with some prominence in the writings of three key theorists: Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, and Theodor W. Adorno. The fact that all three of these writers were affiliates of the Institute for Social Research, the so-called Frankfurt School of social philosophy and cultural criticism, may encourage the impression that they agreed upon a common doctrine, though in fact their differences were often profound. This is especially clear when we examine their distinctive views on secularization, a topic that surely ranks among the more controversial problems in modern social theory. Philosophers, political theorists, sociologists, and historians continue...

Social Theory and the Critique of Capitalism in a Communication Society

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick O'Mahony
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The Third ◽  
Normative Reconstruction ◽  
Theoretical Developments

The essay attempts to re-contextualise the normative import of capitalism in the light of modern social theoretical developments. It firstly explores the significance in this regard of the procedural turn in both social theory and political philosophy. While important, this turn has come at the price of a loss of focus on the substantive plane of how unjust social relations – such as those often arising from capitalist structures – diminish the moral capacities of democratic institutions to shape social change. The essay goes on to show in the second section how Axel Honneth (2004, 2007), offering a partial corrective, combines a procedural emphasis on communication with a substantive account of embedded normative structures, opening the way to a differentiated sociological approach that remains normative but not one-sidedly transcendent and deontological. Taking a lead from these reflections, the third section presents a social theoretical architecture concerned both with social structures and processes and with normative grounding, balancing a perspective drawn from sociological constructivism with normative reconstruction. Finally, in the concluding section, the foregoing is brought to bear on the study of capitalism in a manner that is intended to open up new avenues for its critical theoretical exploration.

scholarly journals Social Philosophy and Interdisciplinarity

2018 ◽  
pp. 131-135
Author(s):  
Alexander Pavlov
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Juergen Habermas ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
Interdisciplinary Character ◽  
The Problem Of Evil

The present article considers the problematical nature of social philosophy’s interdisciplinary character. The author considers that we can discover its specification as an independent area of the humanities, with exarticulation of adjacent to social philosophy disciplines like political philosophy, historic sociology and social theory. If it will be done, we will be able as the scientists to prove that social philosophy, which if often considering as the synonymous of social theory, has right to exist. The author comes to conclusion that the most part of social theory supporters try to ignore valuative dimension in “theories” of thinkers they research (Georg Simmel, Hanna Arendt, Juergen Habermas, Zygmunt Bauman). In fact it is а duty of social philosophy which nature is valuative. In author’s point of view, such a trend in theoretical sociology as “cultural sociology,” which use not only explanatory and descriptive methods but also interpretations, reflects the differences between social theory and social philosophy because it emphasizes the cultural dimension of social processes. For example, cultural sociology deals with issues that are more relevant to philosophy than to sociology, in particular, it concerns the problem of evil.

scholarly journals On the Difference of the Approaches of Searle and Durkheim to the Description of Social Reality

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-198
Author(s):  
A. A. Sanzhenakov
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Common Features ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
The Individual

The article is devoted to the comparison of the social ontology of John Searle with the social theory of Emile Durkheim. It was shown that the approaches of Searle and Durkheim have a number of similar features. These common features are the rejection of reductionism of the collective to the individual, attention to language as one of the most important conditions of the emergence of social reality, the recognition of unawareness and automatism in accepting the rules of social interaction by its participants. However, there are certainly differences between the conceptions of Searle and Durkheim, and therefore the possibility of influence of analytic philosophy represented by Searle on social theory is obvious. As the basis from which this discrepancy arises, the author points to the understanding of science and the level of objectivity of scientific research that have changed since by the time of Searle.

Theology and Social Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
The Church

This chapter examines how Bonhoeffer sets up his engagement with social theory. While Bonhoeffer’s initial decisions with respect to social theory have been widely criticized, this chapter demonstrates that these are, in fact, theologically motivated, and are defensible precisely on this basis. This includes Bonhoeffer’s distinction between the disciplines of social philosophy and sociology’, as well as his preference for formal over historical approaches to sociology. This chapter also provides a preliminary outline of how Bonhoeffer’s engagement with social theory is governed by a theological dialectic or ‘concept of reality’, an understanding of social reality itself as ruptured or fragmented in terms of states of creation, sin, and reconciliation. This is one of the central claims in this monograph: Bonhoeffer’s engagement with social theory and study of the church are governed by this dialectic.

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