Showing papers on "Critical theory published in 1979"

Critical Theory, Public Sphere and Culture. Jurgen Habermas and His Critics

Abstract: Bourgeois theory tends to separate carefully the domains of culture and politics. Its notion of the autonomy of art is particularly indispensible for countering arguments which conceive the relation between culture and politics as historically changing. One of the essential achievements of Critical Theory has been to dissolve this seeming opposition and make visible the objective link between the two. The category of the culture industry, introduced by Adorno and Horkheimer in 1944, contains this very insight. What it does not deal with is the concept of the public sphere. This question was taken up by Jiirgen Habermas in his study Strukturwandel der Offentlichkeit (Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere) (1962) and has generally defined the mass culture debate within the younger generation of the Frankfurt School. Even when Habermas has been contradicted, it is usually within the framework of his theory. The intensive and sometimes decidedly polemic argument about the history, present state and future of the public sphere has always been at the same time a discussion about the conditions and possibilities of culture in an advanced capitalist society. Habermas' theory of the public sphere offered a model for unravelling the political and social element in the concept of culture. Yet this assertion is still too general. The essentially political character of culture was certainly familiar to the older Frankfurt School. One has only to recall Herbert Marcuse's essay "Uber den affirmativen Charakter der Kultur" ("The Affirmative Character of Culture") (1937)' and Walter Benjamin's works from the 1930s in which the political function of cultural production was emphasized. Habermas' work presupposes these studies. His theory of the public sphere must be understood as an attempt to reformulate the dialectical relationship of the socio-cultural and political system (to introduce his later terminology). The theory of the culture industry, as it was developed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, needed historical grounding. The difference between the classical analysis of mass culture by Horkheimer and Adorno and the description of disintegration in the public sphere by Habermas is not so much at the level of subject matter and its critical

The Habermas-Gadamer Debate

Abstract: The full implications of the Habermas-Gadamer debate have yet to be drawn. In 1967, in the context of a discussion of the methodology of social science, Habermas criticized Gadamer's hermeneutics. His criticisms precipitated a confrontation which included replies and counter-replies by the two main figures as well as contributions by Karl-Otto Apel, Albrecht Wellmer, and Paul Ricoeur.' But the discussions of this intellectual event in English thus far have been either largely exegetical or have failed to put the issues in their proper context and to assess their broader implications.2 In particular, the meaning of the debate for Marxism and critical theory has to be made clear. It hinges most fundamentally on the relation of critical theory to the living traditions which prevail in the societies in which critique arises and which it seeks to transform.

Jürgen Habermas and the Dialectical Perspective on Argumentation

Abstract: Habermas' treatment of epistemological problems in his pursuit of a critical social theory may help us to understand the nature, significance, and promise of a dialectical perspective in the study of argumentation. This perspective is contrasted with logical and rhetorical perspectives, and its utility is explored within the context of Habermas' critical theory.

Sociology and the Twilight of Man: Homocentrism and Discourse in Sociological Theory

Abstract: A critique of modern sociological theory, this brilliant new work rather than announcing the twilight of man accepts the event both as an intellectual conclusion and an empirical fact, and proceeds systematically to examine the alternatives beyond the Weber-Durkheim-Parsons episteme.Addressing himself to the issues of pluralism in sociological theory, Lemert rigorously examines representative writings of important theorists in America and Europe, including the writings of Homans (Lexical Explanation), Blalock (Theory Constructionism), Parsons (Analytic Realism), Blumer (Symbolic Interactionism), Schutz, Berger, Luckmann (Phenomenology), Cicourel (Ethnomethology), and Habermas (Critical Theory). Lemert challenges the celebrated pluralism hypothesis in his argument that recent sociological theory is not so pluralistic after all and has not made particular use of available styles of thinking."""Sociology and the Twilight of Man "is an important contribution to the modern sociological enterprise for several reasons. First, it raises basic questions about the progress made beyond earlier theoretical writings. Second, it questions the explanatory force of current theories. Third, it questions whether contemporary theory can continue to develop in a meaningful way without a profound reexamination of its assumptions and premises. And fourth, it demonstrates the value of discursive analysis to theoretical studies. Lemert s critique could lead to fundamental revisions of sociologists perception of their discipline."

Praxis and method: A sociological dialogue with Lukács, Gramsci and the early Frankfurt School

Abstract: Part 1: Marx's Theory of Praxis 1. A Starting Point 2. Praxis and Practice in Hegel and Marx Part 2: Georg Lukacs: Theoretician of Praxis 3. Lukacs to Hegel and Back 6. Towards Conscious Mediations 7. Sociology and Mythology in Lukacs Part 3: Antonio Gramsci: Practical Theoretician 8. Gramsci in Context 9. Hegemony and Civil Society 10. Analysing the Historical Bloc Excursus: Myths and the Masses 11. Towards The Ethical State 12. The Unity of Common Sense and Philosophy 13. Inequality and the Unity of Mankind Part 4: Early Critical Theory: The Sociology of Praxis 14. Horkheimer in Context 15. Praxis and Method 16. Sociological Facts and Mass Praxis Excursus: Historical Invariants 17. Philosophical Sociology and Sociological Philosophy 18. Conclusion: The Cunning of Praxis Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Work and authority in Marcuse and Habermas

Abstract: I have argued that Marcuse's notions of the merger of work and play and of the possibility of nondominating organizational rationality and authority fly in the face of the mainstream Weberian tradition which venerates the labor-leisure dualism and the bureaucratic coordination of labor. I have further argued that this Weberian current is reappropriated by Jurgen Habermas in his own recent work on the epistemological foundations of social science. The counterpoint between Marcuse and Habermas reveals a split within modern critical theory. This split could be characterized as the split between radicalism and incrementalism. Marcuse takes the more radical viewpoint, arguing that if work and leisure are dialectically merged and if that work is organized democratically through workers' control, then social labor will be experienced, in Marx's early sense, as creative praxis—a type of self-externalizing activity which is both productive and recreative. Habermas, in his reformulation of Weberian sociology, endorses an incrementalist position (contra Marcuse's radicalization and deepening of early Marx's theory of praxis) which rejects the possibility of transforming labor into praxis, arguing instead for greater communicative democracy as a way of redirecting (what Habermas contends is categorically immutable) social labor toward more constructive ends such as the economic levelling of the capitalist welfare state.

Rationality and the Foundations of Political Philosophy: An Introduction to the Recent Work of Jürgen Habermas

Abstract: rvEN THE FACr that natural law theories about the relation of reason and politics have lost much of their force, philosophers and social scientists today generally approach the concept of practical rationality' from one of two perspectives: the strategic rational or the context rational. The latter may be seen as deriving from Peter Winch's The Idea of a Social Science, and entailing some form of ethical relativism.2 Context rationality refers to understanding an action or judgment in relation to a context of norms.3 The strategic rational perspective is of course the more predominant. For present purposes, it can be characterized as combining the view

The Prospects for Social Theory Today

Abstract: In this concluding paper, I shall try to place some of the issues discussed earlier in the book in the context of an overall analysis of the current prospects for social theory. The logical starting-point for such an analysis is the state of disarray that characterises social theory today — a matter of common awareness to anyone working within the social sciences. The past decade or so has seen the revival of traditionally established forms of theory (such as hermeneutics), the emergence of seemingly novel perspectives (including especially ethnomethodology), and the attempted incorporation within social theory of various approaches claimed to be drawn from formerly separate philosophical endeavours (the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein, ordinary language philosophy and phenomenology). To these we can add the important resurgence of Marxist theory. The latter however cannot always be clearly distinguished from trends in non-Marxist social science, since most of the same divisions appear, even if in rather different form, within Marxism: the contrasts between the various sorts of ‘phenomenological Marxism’, ‘critical theory’, ‘Marxist structuralism’, etc. are often as pronounced as those outside Marxism.

Critical Theory and Positivism: Popper and the Frankfurt School:

Abstract: This paper attempts to outline and discuss some of the principal areas of conflict between Popper’s critical empiricism and the Frankfurt School’s critical theory. In 1961 the meetings of the German Sociological Association at Tfbingen began what has since been called the positivist-dispute in German Sociology: however, despite the bitterness with which this debate was conducted, it really sheds little light on the issues which separate Popper and the Frankfurt School. Giddens described the controversy as being like ’Hamlet without the Prince’, since Adorno’s ’reply’ to Popper, instead of attacking the latter’s position, set out an alternative, and the confrontation never got off the ground. However, Habermas, who was dissatisfied with this ’strategy of mutually shrugging ones shoulders’ has since engaged in a more fruitful interchange with Hans Albert, which has considerably clarified their differences.’ Consequently the Habermas-Albert controversy is referred to extensively here. The Popperian position and that of critical theory are substantially opposed on questions of the methodology and objectives of social science, about what constitutes knowledge in the social sciences. This position is maintained here despite recent suggestions that critical theory, and Habermas in particular, is converging with Popperianism. These will be considered at the end of this discussion. Popper and Albert argue that their demarcation between science and non-science (which is implicitly a demarcation between knowledge and

Semiology and critical theory: from marx to baudrillard

Abstract: In the twentieth century several groups of social theorists have labored to unlock the Marxist paradigm from the grip of economic reductionism in which it was held by the Second International and Stalinism. The Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci, the theorists of the Frankfurt School, Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse, independent critics such as Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin and Karl Korsch, Eastern European Communists, Georg Lukacs in Hungary, Adam Schaff in Poland, the Praxis group in Yugoslavia and Karel Kosik in Czechoslavia, and finally the existential, phenomenological and even structuralist Marxists in France and Italy have all argued that the concept of the superstructure must account for the relative autonomy of culture. They have made this argument on both epistemological and historical grounds. The epistemological arguments are by now well known and need not detain us. The reflection theory of consciousness upon which Second International and Leninist Marxism rests is clearly false and was not maintained by Marx. Although the rejection of reflection theory leaves many questions unanswered, the historical arguments are equally important and lead di-

Reconstructing the Traditions: Quentin Skinner's Historians' History of Political Thought

Abstract: Quenitn Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought : Volume One, The Renaissanc e; Volume Two, The Age of Reformation , Cambridge University Press, 1978,

By Innis Out of Marx: The Revival of Canadian Political Economy

Abstract: Leo Panitch (ed .), The Canadian State: Political Economy and Political Power , University of Toronto Press, 1977.

Born-Again Functionalism? a Reconsideration of Althusser's Structuralism

Abstract:    Less than a decade ago, for those of us in the United-States who experienced the sixties as much in the streets as in the lecture hall, Marxism first emerged as a serious intellectual alternative to conventional social science. Not that Marxism was totally new to us : lost of us as read the Communist Manifesto in some introductory philosophy course, learned that Marx believed all societies had to pass through certain necessary stages (and had thereby erred in predicting the downfall of capitalism), and had studied the « plain Marxism » of C. Wright Mills. But about the beginning of the seventies, for many of us, a new, sophisticated Marxism was discovered. This Marxism was concerned with alienation, with the reification of thought (how perfectly that single word seemed to capture all American ideological productions, from pop culture to the truth of social science), and with political practice (or, seemingly more significantly, praxis) To a generation of humanistically-oriented, leftist-learning young academics, the new Marxism seemed to promise everything : a world view that made sense of the changes all round us; a philosophy capable of situating and criticizing (even negating) the dry, irrelevant, and often mindless empiricism with which we had been educated ; a new and complex language with which to intellectually pillory our teachers; and a notion of politics which somehow suggested the linkage was never quite clear that theory and practice were intertwined (again, praxis!) and that therefore our privileged academic status was not totally without redeeming political value. No one seemed to symbolize the excitement and promise of Marxism more than Georg Lukacs theorist no sociologist read in graduate school in the sixties who, in a few hundred dense pages, managed to synthesize much of western philosophy and sociology into a compelling critique that introduced us to reification and then showed the way to its inevitable dissolution.    It was therefore, perhaps not surprising that a generation with virtually no philosophical training whatsoever, whose education seldom if ever raised epistemological questions, sought to become instant Marxist philosophers. We graduated from Fromm and Marcuse to Lukacs and Hegel, and then with perhaps a brief detour in Frankfurt took up Habermas, whose writing often made Lukacs seem elementary by comparison. We learned that the evils of capitalism had been superseded (dialectically, to be certain) by the technocracy with its legitimating sciences, and that even Marx himself (and certainly Engels) was not immune to certain empiricist tendencies. We learned to selectively read the Marxist classics, to seek out the rational kernel in the early writings, in selected parts of Capital, and in the Grundrisse; we ignored Marxâ€TMs expressed concern with developing a science, and became at once critical theorists.    But at the same time, some of us felts uneasy with this sophisticated Marxism. It appeared to be, for one thing, profoundly anti-empirical: it dealt with ideas, not things, and seemed far more suited to the classroom and the library than the « outside world » of people and institutions and political events. Related to this was another problem: this new Marxism was, in the last analysis, philosophy; and most of us had been trained as empirical social scientists, not as philosophers. Fortunately, one possible route out of these dilemmas was being opened for us a new continent of Marxism was being charted that promised to satisfy both our empirical and philosophical inclinations. This new continent was being opened on a very old one Europe, and mainly France and its terrain had actually been undergoing exploration fir quite some time; but English translations were slow in making their way across the ocean and into our classrooms, so that the land had been well worked over by the time we first entered it. The new continent had first been discovered by yet another Marx — Marx the scientist whose work somehow managed to be scientific without lapsing into an untheoretical em piricism which simply reflected current conditions. Here, then, was real promise: the promise of a safe return to empirical work, uncontaminated by the mindless empiricism we had previously associated with all research. This new approach to Marxist social science contained a damning critique of those philosophical realms into which we had so recently ventured; and, while we might have rankled initially at the highly polemical and dogmatic quality of that critique we also felt ourselves — to paraphrase Lukacs — confirmed by it: because ultimately most of us were far more comfortable (and certainly more skilled) at being sociologists or political scientists or economists than at being philosophers. This new approach was expressed in a language at once more arcane and less elegant than even that of Marxist philosophy — yet it was somehow a familiar lan guage: while it spoke in terms of historical conjunc tures, of levels and regions and instances and specificities, of relative autonomy and contradiction and determination in the last instance (which never cornes) and overdetermination, somehow — it was difficult to specify exactly how — we knew we were on familiar terrain. For, given a certain interpretation, was it not possible that what was really being talked about were structures and functions, multivariate models of causation (with, of course, appropriate factor weightings), feedback loops, economic and political systems: in other words, an updated leftwing amalgam of Parsonian systems theory, Durkheimian structural-functionalism, and pluralist political science? An amalgam which came complete with its own epistemological self-reflections — a developed theory of knowledge (termed, of course, "dialectical materialism") which appeared to distance it from these seemingly closely-related cousins?    To answer these questions I shall reopen the explorations on structuralism's new continent, first examining the world as the structuralists view it, then their theory of knowledge, and finally their notion of history. I will then return to the question of the relationship between structuralism and conventional functionalist theory, before finishing with some persona) speculations concerning what is useful in the structuralist approach, and how that approach might be fruitfully wedded to the insights gained from Marxist philosophy. structuralisme.fr

Introduction to Bataille

Abstract: Georges Bataille's "The Psychological Structure of Fascism" is of historical interest in more than the degraded sense usually given to that term. An obvious question must, however, be addressed. What draws our attention to a long neglected essay, written in 1933-34, attempting to present the rudiments of a theory of fascism? Fascism, however much impelled by a silent drive to self-destruction, was in fact defeated from the outside. We still live the consequences of the failure of any oppositional politics to overcome fascism from the inside, and so our historical interest in the 1930s continues to take the form of a political interest in the state of critical theory itself, then and now. Fascist ideology was an antiMarxism to which Marxism found no adequate political response. National Socialism was a rehabilitation of capitalism which outstripped the socialist movement. And, most importantly, fascism was a mass movement that preempted the revolutionary organization of the masses. The labor of the historian has been to discern, in the social and cultural dynamics of the rise of fascism, the gaps which mark the failure of effective opposition to emerge or sustain itself. The belatedness of this historical knowledge rejoins the efforts of those theorists who, in the 1930s, confronted fascism as a crisis in their own cultural and intellectual practice. For the labor of theory addresses itself precisely to what, in the domain of historical and political realities, has become problematical. Bataille, like Ernst Bloch, saw in fascism elements of a social experience that the socialist movement could not afford to cede to the Right though it already had. Bataille's theoretical project thus shares another aim with that of Bloch: to discover in the ground of fascist mobilization the historical and affective forces which could and must form the base of social revolution. In this both of these theorists were too late and, therefore, too soon. It is precisely this misalignment, this temporal gap, between theory and reality, between historical process and political practice, that defines the relevance of Bataille (or Bloch) today. Marcuse put the problem succinctly in the preface to his writings collected in Negations: "At that time, it was not yet clear that the powers that had defeated fascism by virtue of their technical and

Pentland's Scarcity of Labour and the Industrial Revolution

Abstract: These volumes have been keenly awaited, and will doubtless be the occasion of a good deal of controversy . The author's methodological writings (cited at I, 286-7) have made him a central figure in what has been called "the new history of political thought", and though it should not be too readily inferred that he has written this long-range study of several centuries (c . 1250-1600) with the intention of exhibiting all his methods in practice, it is certain to be read with an eyenot always friendly to seeing what these have achieved . In the preface Skinner describes his approach to the study of texts and says that "if it were practised with success, it might begin to give us a history of political theory with a genuinely historical character" (I, xi) . On the jacket this becomes : "The work aspires, in this sense, to give the first genuinely historical account of the political thought of the period" : and, readers and reviewers being what they are, we may soon find ourselves supposing that it claims to be the first genuinely historical account of the history of political thought or theory (terms, by the way, which ought not to be used as if they were interchangeable) . Such a claim would be greeted with indignation, and there is probably going to be indignation anyway ; so it is desirable to be as clear as possible in understanding exactly what Skinner is claiming. He certainly does not assert that no one before him has written "genuinely historical" history of political thought . He is seeking to establish, and to practise, a method which will assure us that what we are getting is history ofpolitical thought written in a manner rigorously confined to the discipline of history ; an assurance which even the great historians (Figgis, Maitland, Woolf and Laski) who preceded him did not always provide . There are legitimate non-historical, and perhaps transhistorical, approaches to the study of political thought ; but these cause