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1

Extending Honneth’s Shift in Focus for Critical Theory

100%

Giles D., University of Essex

Internetowy Magazyn Filozoficzny Hybris

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2016

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vol. 35 B (4B)

EN

Axel Honneth has called for a change of focus in Critical Theory "from the self-generated independence of systems to the damage and distortion of social relations of recognition." I argue that Honneth does not shift his methodological focus sufficiently to succeed in his goal of illuminating the social relations of recognition. Despite Honneth's shift to relations of recognition, he considers these relations in terms of the macrosocial Hegelian triad of social spheres of recognition. A deeper analysis of recognition behaviors shows they cannot be mapped exactly to these spheres. I conclude that the Hegelian triad of social spheres is an insufficient basis for an exploration of misrecognition behaviors. To understand misrecognition, we need to seek a picture of misrecognition that reflects the complex diversity of individuals' lived experiences and practices, gives sufficient attention to interpersonal recognition and misrecognition, and offers potential reasons for why individuals might engage in misrecognition behaviors.

2

Passionate Enlightenment Redeeming Modernity Through David Hume

88%

Zhang M.

Dialogue and Universalism

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2021

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issue 3

197-215

EN

This paper aims to redeem part of the Enlightenment project through a critical appreciation of David Hume’s practical philosophy. It argues that Hume’s practical philosophy, if interpreted correctly, is immune to two major charges leveled against the Enlightenment in critical theories and in philosophical ethics, respectively. One trend is represented by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, who claim that inherent to the advocacy of rationality typical of the Enlightenment is the irrational adoration of instrumental reason, which obliterates individual particularity, commodifies human relationships, and oppresses the human urge to express passionately. The other trend is represented by Alasdair McIntyre, who claims that the Enlightenment project is doomed to fail because it ventures to justify a historically and culturally conditioned morality as universal. Against the first critique, I argue that Hume’s reliance on the affective tendencies to derive a standard of moral values avoids the idolatry of rationality. Against the second critique, I argue that Hume’s characterization of virtues as qualities of personality that facilitate interpersonal relationships allows ample room for the cultural variance of values.

3

Rethinking Digital Games in a Critical and Participatory Perspectives. A Brief Reflection

75%

da Silva Leite P., Andrade Torquato Schimidt D.

Ethics in Progress

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2019

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vol. 10

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issue 2

112-117

EN

Digital games are social objects created based on our culture and society and at the same time they contribute to shaping our world. Through a critical perspective of digital games and technology, it is possible to discuss the unfolding of these artefacts in our society and also understand their relevance beyond an instrumental view. In this paper, we present a brief reflection based on two researches developed by the authors: the first, regarding the link between digital games and people with disabilities; and the second, about contributions of digital games to a critical education. Our goal with this work is to highlight the emancipatory and participatory potential present in the critical vision of digital games.

4

Critical Theory in Regressive Times: Liberalism, Global Populism and the “White Left” in the Twenty-First Century

75%

Xingfu W.

Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Philosophica. Ethica – Aesthetica – Practica

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2019

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issue 34

67-77

EN

In this paper, I consider not only the crisis in conservative neoliberalism and free market economics, but a crisis of representation and plausibility in progressive new liberalism; a situation which leads to deadlock for progressivism in which things cannot progress. In order to address this state of crisis in the global perception of the “white left,” Critical Theory, as a mode of Western liberal thought, needs to rethink the direction of its own criticism. Additionally, Critical Theory needs to adjust its focus to respond to the deadlock presented by the rise of right-wing populism and the derogation of liberal values in these regressive times (I refer antonymically, here, to Jürgen Habermas’s use of the term “progressive”). The radical democratic ideal advocated by Habermas, comprising universal equality and emancipation, should still be the goal for liberalism, and for Critical Theory, but first of all, the achievements and advances liberal progressivism has already made need to be secured to prevent society from regressing. This does not mean making a choice between neoliberalism and authoritarianism, but that a new paradigm of thinking is due. I argue that universality is anterior to cultural pluralism, as are social topics to cultural issues, and justice of distribution to justice of identity. In the complex world of modernity, good things do not come together if there is conflict between desirable values, so choices need to be made: a ranking of real, material conditions is necessary, to ensure cohesion and progression.

5

“Etwas Fehlt”: Marxian Utopias in Bloch and Adorno

71%

Truskolaski S.

Praktyka Teoretyczna

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2020

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vol. 35

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issue 1

EN

During a radio debate in 1964, Bloch and Adorno clashed over the status of Utopia in Marx’s thinking. In particular, the disagreement concerned the possibilities (or, rather, limitations) of picturing – with Marx and beyond Marx – a condition in which all societal antagonisms have been reconciled. It is telling, then, that their conversation quickly came to turn on a surprising term: the Old Testament interdiction against making images of God. Given both authors’ commitment to an ostensibly secular critique of capitalist modernity, the prominence of this figure, which is emblematic of the decades-long exchange between these authors, invites further questions. What, for instance, are the epistemic and aesthetic conditions under which Bloch and Adorno propose to present their Marxian Utopias? By considering these questions in light of issues arising from their debate, and applying it to their writings more generally, mypaper aims to contribute to the on-going exploration of “Utopia” in German Critical Theory.

6

Jews and Cosmopolitanism: An Arc of European Thought

63%

Shore M.

Historická sociologie (Historical Sociology)

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2015

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vol. 2

61-81

EN

Isaac Deutscher, raised in his youth to be a Talmudic scholar, instead became a communist. In 1958, he addressed the World Jewish Congress on the topic of “The Non-Jewish Jew.” There was a Jewish tradition – Deutscher began, citing Spinoza and Marx, Freud and Luxemburg and Trotsky – of breaking with Jewish tradition. Jews had always been restless and rootless, always lived on the borders of various heritages, languages, and cultures, at once in and apart from society. Victimized by religious intolerance and nationalist sentiments, Jews longed for a universalist Weltanschauung. It is true that “non-Jewish Jews” played a disproportionate role in the history of European Marxism. Yet Jews’ contributions to Marxism might be understood in a larger context: namely, that “non-Jewish Jews” have played a disproportionate role in the intellectual history of modern Europe much more broadly. This essay is an attempt to place the relationship between Jews and Marxism in a larger context – less the larger sociological context than the larger intellectual context of European modernity.

7

Dziedzictwo Leo Lowenthala: znaczenie teorii krytycznej i jej reakcja na autorytaryzm, politykę oszczędności oraz antysemityzm. Rozmowa z Martinem Jayem

45%

Stoll K.

Studia Litteraria et Historica

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2021

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issue 10

PL

Prezentowana rozmowa dotyczy spuścizny Leo Lowenthala (1900–1993), który przyszedł na świat w żydowskiej rodzinie we Frankfurcie nad Menem. Lowenthal należał do pierwszego pokolenia teoretyków krytycznych działających w Instytucie Badań Społecznych Uniwersytetu Frankfurckiego pod kierownictwem Maxa Horkheimera. Przyjmując za punkt wyjścia wypracowaną przez Lowenthala koncepcję teorii krytycznej, Katrin Stoll i Martin Jay zastanawiają się nad możliwościami odnowy teorii krytycznej, a w szczególności nad koniecznością myślenia pojmowanego jako forma negacji. Rozmówcy nawiązują też do obecnej sytuacji politycznej spowodowanej przez globalny porządek kapitalistyczny, który zawdzięcza swą stabilność tak obiektywnym procesom społecznym, jak i autorytaryzmowi, polityce oszczędności, autokratyzmowi, antysemityzmowi, rasizmowi i faszyzacji. Przekształcenie teorii krytycznej wymaga, jak przekonująco argumentuje Martin Jay, twórczego eksperymentowania w sferze teorii. Ilustracją takiego podejścia jest podjęta przez rozmówców krytyczna lektura i rewaluacja książki Prophets of Deceit. A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator [Prorocy fałszu. Studium technik amerykańskiego agitatora], wydanej w 1949 roku przez Leo Lowenthala i Norberta Gutermana, a ostatnio wznowionej w Niemczech. Rozwijając pojęcie „społeczeństwa mafijnego” (racket society), wypracowane w latach trzydziestych i czterdziestych XX wieku przez teoretyków krytycznych po ich emigracji z nazistowskich Niemiec, Martin Jay przedstawia analizę współczesnego społeczeństwa i współczesnej kultury politycznej, zwłaszcza w Stanach Zjednoczonych. Argumentuje, że relacja wodzowsko-kliencka staje się możliwa za sprawą zinternalizowania wzorów dominacji oraz lojalności i ochrony. Rozmowę zamyka refleksja na temat tego, dlaczego ważne jest, by poddawać krytyce fałszywe sposoby życia, a tym samym otwierać się na możliwość życia, które nie upływa w błędzie.

EN

The interview is concerned with the legacy of Leo Lowenthal (1900–1993), who was born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Lowenthal belonged to the first generation of Critical Theorists under Max Horkheimer’s directorship at the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. Taking Lowenthal’s understanding of Critical Theory as their point of departure, the interlocutors – Katrin Stoll and Martin Jay – discuss ways of renewing Critical Theory in general and the necessity of thinking as a form of negation in particular. The interview provides reflections on the current political situation brought about by the global capitalist order, which owes its stability to both objective social processes and to authoritarianism, austerity, autocracy, antisemitism, racism, and fascization. Recasting Critical Theory in new ways, requires, as Martin Jay forcefully argues, creative theoretical experimentation. By way of example, the interlocutors engage in a joint critical rereading and reevaluation of Leo Lowenthal’s and Norbert Guterman’s 1949 book Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator, recently reissued in Germany. Adopting the concept of “racket society”, which was developed by the Critical Theorists in the 1930s and 1940s, after their emigration from Nazi Germany, Martin Jay provides an analysis of current society and political culture in general and the United States in particular. He makes the point that the strongman/client relationship becomes possible through an internalization of patterns of domination as well as by loyalty and protection. The interview closes with a reflection on why it is important to criticize the false way of life and in so doing opening up the possibility of a life that is not wrong.

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1 Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Philosophica. Ethica – Aesthetica – Practica

1 Dialogue and Universalism

1 Ethics in Progress

1 Historická sociologie (Historical Sociology)

1 Internetowy Magazyn Filozoficzny Hybris

1 Praktyka Teoretyczna

1 Studia Litteraria et Historica

1 Andrade Torquato Schimidt D.

1 Giles D.

1 Shore M.

1 Stoll K.

1 Truskolaski S.

1 University of Essex

1 Xingfu W.

1 Zhang M.

1 da Silva Leite P.

2 2021

1 2020

2 2019

1 2016