scholarly journals Bourdieu and Adorno on the Transformation of Culture in Modern Society: Towards a Critical Theory of Cultural Production

2012 ◽  
pp. 173-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Susen
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Modern Society

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).

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 Philosophical Reflection of the Concept of Borders in Modern Culturechinese Performing

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (SPE3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Du Ying ◽  
A. V. Kuznetsova ◽  
G. N. Kalinina
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Integrative Model ◽  
Science Knowledge ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Frontiers Of Science ◽  
Science And Culture ◽  
Intercultural Integration

Objective: philosophical reflection problems of the frontiers of science, knowledge and creativity in the modern intercultural integration; rationale for new interpretations and understanding of the concept "border" providing an integrative model for science and culture, which, in turn, implies the unacceptability of Orthodox approaches, and rigid demarcation between different spheres of cultural production. This explains the need to develop a "rational-reflexive culture" that meets the new demands of modern society.

Drugs and Popular Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitri A. Bogazianos
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Crime Policy ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Media Constructions

While criminological analyses of drugs and popular culture often focus on media constructions of drug scares and epidemics, they also draw from a wide range of interrelated influences, including critical theory, cultural studies, feminism, and critical race theory, among many others. Given that current trajectories of hypermediated cultural production in a post-crack drug landscape is unlikely to change anytime soon, ever more fine-grained analyses will be needed in order to make sense of the inextricable links between drug-related representations, crime policy, and social justice. Future scholarship in this area will continue to draw from its rich heritage as well as innovate new methodological and theoretical emphases that pay closer attention to the nontextual elements of popular cultural forms.

scholarly journals Review of Hegemony, Mass Media, and Cultural Studies: Properties of Meaning, Power, and Value in Cultural Production by Sean Johnson Andrews (Rowman & Littlefield)

Lateral ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Wood
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Readership ◽  
History Of

Sean Johnson Andrews has produced an engaging text of multifaceted value. His work, particularly the opening chapters, provides a concise history of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), the (early) Frankfurt School Critical Theory, and the Political Economy of Communication (PEC). Although the histories and notable figureheads of these schools will be broadly familiar to most scholars working in the realm of cultural studies, these opening chapters would be an excellent introduction to the field for either a general readership or students. Indeed, this would make a good textbook in many contexts.

scholarly journals TYPOLOGY OF MODERN THEORETICAL CONCEPTS OF CULTURAL ECONOMY

2018 ◽  
pp. 30-32
Author(s):  
I. I. Parkhomenko
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Cultural Economy ◽  
Cultural Industries ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Production And Consumption

The article proposes theoretical concepts typology of the modern cultural economy, which proves the existence of economic relations in the field of culture according to the Western European scientific tradition of XX-XXI centuries: 1) cultural and philosophical (T.W.Adorno, J. Baudrillard, P.Bourdieu, M.Horkheimer, S.Lash, C.Lury, J.Urry); 2) cultural industries approach (R.Williams, B.Miege, N.Garhnam, P.L.Sacco); 3) economic and managerial (W.J.Baumol, W.G.Bowen, M.Blaug, V.A.Ginsburg, D.Hesmondhalgh, A.Klamer, B.Miege, A.J.Scott, D.Throsby, B.S.Frey). According to these modern theoretical concepts, culture is the sphere of production and consumption of goods and services; it is functioning as a resource for economic, social and cultural development. This understanding of culture is the basis of the current policy of cultural and creative industries in the European Union and the United Kingdom. Cultural production is an interdisciplinary object of study, since the cultural good has its own peculiarity: its cultural value determines economic value. The article analyzes production in the field of culture and, at first, determines economy of culture as a scientific approach for understanding the functioning of the modern society in the categories of production and consumption; secondly, economics of culture is a scientific discipline in the field of economics. Theoretical and methodological bases were interdisciplinary scientific approaches to the understanding of culture as a sphere of production and consumption. For that reason were organized and systematized approaches to the understanding of culture as an economic reality in scientific discourse: 1) critical theory of T.W.Adorno, W.Benjamin and M.Horkheimer and the concept of "cultural industry"; 2) the interaction of cultural and power institutions in the processes of democratization of society and industrialization of culture (R.Williams, N.Garhnam, P.L.Sacco); 3) culture as a set of cultural industries, which form cultural capital (P.Bourdieu, D.Hesmondhalgh, B.Miege, D.Throsby); 4) the functioning of modern society as global culture industry in theory of S.Lash and C.Lury; 5) cultural economics theory (W.J.Baumol, W.G.Bowen, M.Blaug, V.A.Ginsburg, A.J.Scott, D.Throsby, B.S.Frey).

The Klezmer Revival in Poland as a Contact Zone

2020 ◽  
pp. 461-476
Author(s):  
Magdalena Waligórska
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Contact Zone ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
General Phenomenon ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Jewish Heritage

This chapter analyzes the general phenomenon of the revival of klezmer. It explains the klezmer revival as the most visible and controversial aspects of the popular surge of interest in the Jewish past, traditions, and heritage that unfolded over the last two decades in post-Holocaust and post-communist eastern Europe. It also mentions the various scholars that labelled the klezmer revival in different degrees of scepticism, such as “Jewish space,” “virtual Jewishness,” “redemptive cosmopolitanism,” or “post-Jewish culture.” The chapter discusses the Jewish heritage revival in Poland that addresses the lack of spiritual intensity in modern society. It notes the new surge of philosemitism in Polish cultural production that is merely a new incarnation of antisemitism and has a harmful or violent aspect.

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