Critical theory

About: Critical theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5372 publications have been published within this topic receiving 164765 citations.

Philosophical Interventions in the Unfinished Project of Enlightenment

Abstract: Part 1 Historical perspectives: metaphysics' forgetfulness of time - on the controversy over Parmenides, frag. 8,5, Michael Theunissen the origins of the theory of the subject, Dieter Henrich inwardness and the culture of modernity, Charles Taylor. Part 2 Theoretical issues: reflections on philosophical method from an analytic point of view, Ernst Tugendhat normatively grounding "critical theory" through recourse to the lifeworld? a transcendental-pragmatic attempt to think with Habermas against Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel what is a pragmatic theory of meaning? - variations on the proposition "We Understand a Speech Act when We Know What Makes It Acceptable", Albrecht Wellmer art and rationality - on the dialectic of symbolic and allegorical form, Peter Burger. Part 3 Postenlightenment challenges: philosophy and social practice - avoiding the ethnocentric predicament, Thomas McCarthy the debate over performative contradiction - Habermas versus the Poststructuralists, Martin Jay Foucault - critique as a philosophical ethos, Richard J. Bernstein the face in the sand - Foucault and the anthropological slumber, Herbert Schnadelbach.

Critical Ecologies: The Frankfurt School and Contemporary Environmental Crises

Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction: The Paradoxes of Contemporary Environmental Crises and the Redemption of the Hopes of the Past by Andrew Biro (Acadia University) PART ONE: Science and the Mastery of Nature * Modern Science, Enlightenment, and the Domination of Nature: No Exit? by William Leiss (Professor Emeritus, Queen's University) * Societal Relations with Nature: A Dialectical Approach to Environmental Politics by Christopher Gorg (University of Kassel) * The Politics of Science: Has Marcuse's New Science Finally Come of Age? by Katharine N Farrell (Autonomous University Barcelona) PART TWO: Critical Theory, Life, and Nature * Sacred Identity and the Sacrificial Spirit: Mimesis and Radical Ecology by Bruce Martin (New Mexico State University * From 'Unity of Life' to the Critique of Domination: Jonas, Freud, and Marcuse by Colin Campbell (York University) PART THREE: Alienation and the Aesthetic * Adorno's Aesthetic Rationality: On the Dialect of Natural and Artistic Beauty by Donald D Burke (York University) * On Nature and Alienation by Steven Vogel (Denison University) * Fear and the Unknown: Nature, Culture, and the Limits of Reason by Shane Gunster (Simon Fraser University) * Ecological Crisis and the Culture Industry Thesis by Andrew Biro PART FOUR: Critical Theory's Moment * Natural History, Sovereign Power, and Global Warming by Jonathan Short (York University) * Adorno's Historical and Temporal Consciousness: Towards a Critical Theoretical Environmental Imagination by Michael Lipscomb (Winthrop University) * Toward a Critique of Posthuman Reason: Revisiting 'Nature' and 'Humanity' in Horkheimer's 'The Concept of Man' by Timothy W Luke (Virginia Polytechnic Institute) Afterword: The Liberation of Nature? by Andrew Feenberg (Simon Fraser University)

Emancipatory Management: The Contradiction Between Practice and Discourse

Abstract: Emancipatory management is a practice based on Habermas’ critical theory characterized by the search for both individual and collective fulfillment. This article presents the findings of a study conducted in two community organizations, one in Bahia (Brazil) the other in Quebec (Canada), that both espoused the values of emancipatory management. We applied a constructivist approach and used Participatory Action Research methodology to analyze how the potentials and the limits of an emancipatory management are influenced by cultural context. Our research revealed that contradictions exist between individual and collective emancipation values and between social discourse and organizational practice. On the one hand, individual autonomy linked to self-interest hindered collective objectives. On the other hand, external social action and discourse aligned with critical ideas of participation, solidarity, and collective well-being were directly opposed to internal practices of inequality, manipulation, and domi...

Can a human rights culture enable emancipation? Clearing some theoretical ground for the renewal of a critical sociology

Abstract: A critical sociology, a sociology which is alive rather than moribund, has only existed as a result of the imagining of an emancipatory project of one form or other. At least from the rationalist project of the Enlightenment which wished to liberate thought from religious dogma, to the critique of capitalism and the imagining of an alternative in the 19th century, to the critique of ‘actually existing socialism’ in May 1968, to the imagining of freedom and development in the Third World, to the struggle for equality between men and women, to the anti-apartheid struggle for a better world; in all these moments sociology was able to rise to a critical analysis of what exists and its structuring by power in order to clear the ground for an alternative. Today the absence of an emancipatory project is reflected in the inability of sociology in most of the world to transcend the descriptive and the given. In South Africa in particular, this is reflected in the mainstream intellectual praise-singing of ...