The Mediation is the Message

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Andrew Feenberg ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Technical Knowledge ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Theory Of Technology

Critical theory of technology brings technology studies to bear on the social theory of rationality. This paper discusses this connection through a reconsideration of the contribution of the Frankfurt School to our understanding of what I call the paradox of rationality, the fact that the promise of the Enlightenment has been disappointed as advances in scientific and technical knowledge have led to more and more catastrophic consequences. The challenge for critical theory is to understand this paradox without romantic and anti-modern afterthoughts as a contribution to a progressive worldview.

Feudal Europe, 800–1300: communal discourse and conflictual practices

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 427-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Structural Theory ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Fundamental Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Scientific Argument

The discipline of international relations faces a new debate of fundamental significance. After the realist challenge to the pervasive idealism of the interwar years and the social scientific argument against realism in the late 1950s, it is now the turn of critical theorists to dispute the established paradigms of international politics, having been remarkably successful in several other fields of social inquiry. In essence, critical theorists claim that all social reality is subject to historical change, that a normative discourse of understandings and values entails corresponding practices, and that social theory must include interpretation and dialectical critique. In international relations, this approach particularly critiques the ahistorical, scientific, and materialist conceptions offered by neorealists. Traditional realists, by contrast, find a little more sympathy in the eyes of critical theorists because they join them in their rejection of social science and structural theory. With regard to liberal institutionalism, critical theorists are naturally sympathetic to its communitarian component while castigating its utilitarian strand as the accomplice of neorealism. Overall, the advent of critical theory will thus focus the field of international relations on its “interparadigm debate” with neorealism.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Marinopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
First Century ◽  
Late Modernity ◽  
Scientific Philosophy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Epistemology

Critical Theory and Epistemology is a comparison of the major epistemological concerns in the twentieth century with critical theory of the Frankfurt School. I focus on modern epistemology as a theory of and about science that also addresses the social and political aims of scientific enquiry.The critique that the book deploys on the epistemological tendencies of late modernity suggests that the main distinction between Kant and the critical theorists lies in their understanding of rationality. Such a critique can be characterized as the ‘battle’ of modern epistemology for or against the scientifically, socially and politically rational. Thus, arguments of modern epistemology, as articulated by phenomenology, structuralism, poststructuralism, modernists and postmodernists, systems’ theory and critical realism, can certainly be considered ‘modern’ in historical terms, but in essence their concerns are of a pre-modern and pre-scientific nature. In such a manner, we come closer to understanding what constitutes the scientific, philosophy, truth, and whether modern epistemology paves the way for a political epistemology in the twenty-first century.

Reason and receptivity in critical theory

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (9) ◽  
pp. 1043-1051
Author(s):  
Fred Rush
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Hermeneutic Phenomenology ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Discourse Ethics ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
Future Direction ◽  
Historical Antecedents

Nikolas Kompridis' Critique and Disclosure is a sustained argument for the proposition that critical social theory in the tradition of the Frankfurt School is best carried forward by rejecting central aspects of Habermas' neo-Kantian version of it. The most promising future direction for critical theory according to Kompridis involves a reconsideration of the resources of hermeneutic phenomenology, especially renewed attention to the Heideggerian concept ‘disclosure’. To this end, Kompridis develops a distinctive dialectical version of this concept. I agree that Kantian versions of critical theory are philosophically suspect, and that critical theory is most conceptually vital and politically trenchant when turned away from ‘discourse ethics' and the like. I am a bit less sanguine than is Kompridis with a turn to Heidegger, however, and raise several issues having to do with that aspect of Kompridis' account. This caution is not rooted simply in the historical fact that critical theory from its inception has attempted to immunize itself against phenomenology; it is rather a conceptual matter. In my judgment, Kompridis does not need to develop, as he does, an intricate account of overlap between what he holds best about critical theory and Heidegger’s ontology. If one were looking for historical antecedents that do not come freighted with what Horkheimer derided as ‘irrationalism’, one would do better to investigate early German Romanticism, in which there is an explicitly interpretive yet dialectical methodology on offer. Moreover, the central doctrines of Jena Romanticism exhibit more positive points of contact with the earlier, more skeptical forms of critical theory that Kompridis might favor, e.g. Adorno’s.

The critical social theory of the Frankfurt School, and the ‘social turn’ in IR

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Weber
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Juergen Habermas ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Critical Social

Critical theory in the Frankfurt School mould has made various inroads into IR theorising, and provided many a stimulus to attempts at redressing the ‘positivist’ imbalance in the discipline. Many of the conceptual offerings of the Frankfurt School perspective have received critical attention in IR theory debates, and while these are still ongoing, the purpose of this discussion is not to attempt to contribute by furthering either methodological interests, or politico-philosophical inquiry. Instead, I focus on the near omission of the social-theoretic aspect of the work especially of Juergen Habermas. I argue that a more in-depth exploration of critical social theory has considerable potential in the context of the ‘social turn’ in IR theory. The lack of attention to this potential is arguably due in part to the importance of Habermas' contribution to cosmopolitan normative theory, and the status held by the cosmopolitan-communitarian debate as a key site of critical IR debate for many years throughout the 1990s. The productivity of the Habermasian conception of the discourse theory of morality within this set of concerns has been obvious, and continues.

scholarly journals On critical hope and the anthropos of non-anthropocentric discourses. Some thoughts on archaeology in the Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-170
Author(s):  
Piraye Hacıgüzeller
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Hope

AbstractIn this essay I scrutinize the non-anthropocentric discourses used by the social sciences and humanities narratives and critiques of the Anthropocene. Although not always predominant within the academic Anthropocene debate, such discursive strands remain politically and ethically inspiring and influential in that debate and for the public discourse concerning the epoch. I stress that these discourses inherit the hope for human progress that characterizes critical theory of the Frankfurt school, i.e. ‘critical hope’, a type of hope that renders the non-anthropocentric discourses self-contradictory. Even when they manage to escape the hold of critical hope, these discourses, I argue, suffer from ethical and political failings due to their inherent lack of focus on human–human relations and largely ahistorical nature. I conclude the essay by advocating an Anthropocene archaeology that remains critical of and learns from the ethical and political shortcomings of non-anthropocentric perspectives and making a related call for a slow archaeology of the Anthropocene.

scholarly journals Critical theory and holocaust

2006 ◽  
pp. 37-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Predrag Krstic
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Status ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
Social Critical ◽  
Historical Theology ◽  
The Relationship

In this paper the author is attempting to establish the relationship - or the lack of it - of the Critical Theory to the "Jewish question" and justification of perceiving signs of Jewish religious heritage in the thought of the representatives of this movement. The holocaust marked out by the name of "Auschwitz", is here tested as a point where the nature of this relationship has been decided. In this encounter with the cardinal challenge for the contemporary social theory, the particularity of the Frankfurt School reaction is here revealed through Adorno installing Auschwitz as unexpected but lawful emblem of the ending of the course that modern history has assumed. The critique of this "fascination" with Auschwitz, as well as certain theoretical pacification and measured positioning of the holocaust into discontinued plane of "unfinished" and continuation and closure of the valued project, are given through communicative-theoretical pre-orientation of J?rgen Habermas?s Critical Theory and of his followers. Finally, through the work of Detlev Claussen, it is suggested that in the youngest generation of Adorno?s students there are signs of revision to once already revised Critical Theory and a kind of defractured and differentiated return to the initial understanding of the decisiveness of the holocaust experience. This shift in the attitude of the Critical Theory thinkers to the provocation of holocaust is not, however, particularly reflected towards the status of Jews and their tradition, but more to the age old questioning and explanatory patterns for which they served as a "model". The question of validity of the enlightenment project, the nature of occidental rationalism, (non)existence of historical theology and understanding of the identity and emancipation - describe the circle of problems around which the disagreement is concentrated in the social critical theory.

scholarly journals Characterising social pathologies: an analytic grid

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Freyenhagen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Functional Differentiation ◽  
Social Pathology ◽  
Philosophy Today ◽  
The Social ◽  
In Virtue Of

In this paper, I would like to take up one proposal that I touch on as part of the longer paper delivered at the SPT conference on Critical Theory and the Concept of Social Pathology. The proposal is an analytic grid for characterising social pathologies, particularly in thelight of the conceptualisations of this idea specified within the Frankfurt School CriticalTheory tradition.Let me first summarise briefly the longer paper. I present some general features of the idea of social pathology (see below), and suggest that this idea can set FrankfurtSchool Critical Theory apart from mainstream liberal approaches – notably, in virtue of the specifically ethical register it involves (rather than a justice-based one dominant incontemporary liberalism) and the interdisciplinary approach it calls for (which marks a contrast to the relatively stark division between normative theorising and the social sciences characteristic of much of political philosophy today). I criticise the way Habermas and Honneth transform the early Frankfurt School conceptualisations of this idea by tying itto their respective models of functional differentiation of society.

scholarly journals Social criticism as medical diagnosis? On the role of social pathology and crisis within critical theory

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
Peter J. Verovšek
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Social Pathology ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
The Social ◽  
Talking Cure

The critical theory of the Frankfurt School starts with an explanatory-diagnostic analysis of the social pathologies of the present followed by anticipatory-utopian reflection on possible treatments for these disorders. This approach draws extensively on parallels to medicine. I argue that the ideas of social pathology and crisis that pervade the methodological writings of the Frankfurt School help to explain critical theory’s contention that the object of critique identifies itself when social institutions cease to function smoothly. However, in reflecting on the role that reason and self-awareness play in the second stage of social criticism, I contend that this model is actually better conceptualized through the lens of the psychoanalyst rather than the physician. Although the first generation’s explicit commitment to psychoanalysis has dissipated in recent critical theory, faith in a rationalized ‘talking cure’ leading to greater self-awareness of existing pathologies remains at the core of the Frankfurt School.

‘Radical’ Social Theory of Sport: A Critique and a Conceptual Emendation

1985 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
Sport Sociology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Turn ◽  
Advanced Capitalist

The social theory of sport literature has taken a new and welcome critical turn in the last few years. That turn is revealed in the emergence of a Marxist-based corpus of literature which challenges headlong the fundamental tenets of mainstream (functionalist) sport sociology. The purpose of the present paper is to critically respond to this new critical theory of sport; in particular to its two major versions—what I call, respectively, vulgar Marxist, and hegemonic sport theory. I argue that both versions of this theory are conceptually flawed, and that these conceptual flaws are themselves ideologically grounded. The point of my criticisms, however, is not to undermine or otherwise deflect the critical thrust of this theory, but to suggest that that thrust requires a new conceptual scaffolding which is more sensitive to the ideological temperament of advanced capitalist society.

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