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Enlightenment
About: Enlightenment is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6845 publications have been published within this topic receiving 116832 citations.
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21 citations
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06 Apr 2009
TL;DR: Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was one of the twentieth century's most important thinkers as discussed by the authors who revisited the essential insights of Western philosophy by revisiting the ethical and sociological arguments of his predecessors: Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel and Marx.
Abstract: Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) was one of the twentieth century’s most important thinkers. In light of two pivotal developments—the rise of fascism, which culminated in the Holocaust, and the standardization of popular culture as a commodity indispensable to contemporary capitalism—Adorno sought to evaluate and synthesize the essential insights of Western philosophy by revisiting the ethical and sociological arguments of his predecessors: Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Marx. This book, first published in Germany in 1996, provides a succinct introduction to Adorno’s challenging and far-reaching thought. Gerhard Schweppenhauser, a leading authority on the Frankfurt School of critical theory, explains Adorno’s epistemology, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and theory of culture.
After providing a brief overview of Adorno’s life, Schweppenhauser turns to the theorist’s core philosophical concepts, including post-Kantian critique, determinate negation, and the primacy of the object, as well as his view of the Enlightenment as a code for world domination, his diagnosis of modern mass culture as a program of social control, and his understanding of modernist aesthetics as a challenge to conceive an alternative politics. Along the way, Schweppenhauser illuminates the works widely considered Adorno’s most important achievements: Minima Moralia , Dialectic of Enlightenment (co-authored with Horkheimer), and Negative Dialectics . Adorno wrote much of the first two of these during his years in California (1938–49), where he lived near Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas Mann, whom he assisted with the musical aesthetics at the center of Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus .
21 citations
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TL;DR: Boyer et al. as discussed by the authors argue that the "French Nietzsche" transmitted through the deconstructionists must be reexamined in light of the original context in which Nietzsche worked, variously critiquing his philosophy of history as obsessed with hierarchy, his views on religion and art as myopic, and his stance on science as hopelessly reactionary.
Abstract: "To think with Nietzsche against Nietzsche." Thus the editors describe the strategy adopted in this volume to soften the destructive effects of Nietzsche's "philosophy with a hammer" on French philosophy since the 1960s. Frustrated by the infinite inclusiveness of deconstructionism, the contributors to this volume seek to renew the Enlightenment quest for rationality. Though linked by no common dogma, these essays all argue that the "French Nietzsche" transmitted through the deconstructionists must be reexamined in light of the original context in which Nietzsche worked. Each essay questions the viability of Nietzsche's thought in the modern world, variously critiquing his philosophy of history as obsessed with hierarchy, his views on religion and art as myopic and irrational, and his stance on science as hopelessly reactionary. Contending that we must abandon the Nietzsche propped up as patron saint by French deconstructionists in order to return to reason, these essays will stimulate debate not just among Nietzscheans but among all with a stake in modern French philosophy. Contributors: Alain Boyer, Andre Compte-Sponville, Vincent Descombes, Luc Ferry, Robert Legros, Philippe Raynaud, Alain Renault, and Pierre-Andre Taguieff.Luc Ferry is professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne and at the University of Caen. He is author or co-author of six volumes published by the University of Chicago Press, most recently "The New Ecological Order." Alain Renault is professor of political science at Caen. He is co-author of several books with Luc Ferry, and author of "Sartre, Le Dernier Philosophe."
21 citations
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16 Aug 2010
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a historical study of the Enlightenment project for a Science of Man which takes its perspective from the 20th century philosophical 'death of man', from the contemporary move against humanistic ideals associated already from the 1930's exemplified contrasting interpretations over an Enlightenment Science of man and its ambitions.
Abstract: The thesis presents a historical study of the Enlightenment project for a Science of Man which takes its perspective from the 20th century philosophical 'death of man'. From the contemporary move against humanistic ideals associated already from the 1930's exemplified contrasting interpretations over an Enlightenment Science of Man and its ambitions. In the 1960's Michel Foucault's pivotal approach gave this dispute the perspective of the 'death of man', which this thesis frames in relation to his reading of Kant. This forms a perspective from which to examine Kant's positive ambitions, as Foucault saw them extending beyond Critique. But a second perspective is taken up through what Gilles Deleuze ascribed to an empiricist tradition subjugated under a vitalism. This is indicated by the 'age of Bichat', the French medical tradition which Deleuze contrasted with Foucault's 'rarefied form of positivism'. A genealogical history of the Science of Man frames these as alternative models to a critique of reason, two perspectives derived of the Enlightenment project.
The 'age of Bichat' is understood around the French Enlightenment discourse on vitalism modelled on a post-Cartesian concept of the body. This gave the positive ambitions for early 19th century Positivism explored through Saint Simon's 'concept of labour' and August Comte's epistemological critique, intended as substitute for an older Enlightenment model. However, this becomes further complicated by the new positive paradigm of experimental medicine. The effect, during the early Third Republic, was to re-orientate the philosophical perspective on the older project for a Science of Man. This served Henri Bergson's critique of Positivist historical formations, but also the neo-Positive model of Emile Durkheim and the ambition for an autonomous new science that delimits a collective 'order of things'. The dilemma was legitimating vital norms in a modern society. This genealogy situates these as perspectives seen through the 18th century Science of Man from which the vital and the positive remained elements historically resistant to being the determinable object of study.
21 citations