Download or read book Debating Critical Theory written by Julia Christ and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-10-02 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Axel Honneth is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary critical theorists. His oeuvre, which spans more than four decades of writing—from his early engagement with critique in the Frankfurt School tradition to his theory of recognition and the latest discussions of freedom in modern ethical life and the question of socialism—has been enormously influential in the shaping of current critical theory and beyond. Bringing together leading scholars in contemporary social and political philosophy, this authoritative book takes the central themes of Honneth’s work as a starting point for debating the present and future of critical theory as a form of socially grounded philosophy that is geared toward analyzing and critiquing society. Honneth’s writings revolve around five key themes: critique, recognition, freedom, progress, and socialism. His arguments engaging with each of these themes have substantially advanced current debates in critical theory and social and political philosophy more generally. The contributing authors take on these five themes and use them as a springboard to structure their discussion of the future of critical theory in our contemporary moment.
Download or read book Habermas Critical Debates written by John B. Thompson and published by Mit Press. This book was released on 1982-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this book - all of them published here for the first time - provide a long-overdue critical discussion of Jürgen Habermas's cascade of ideas. These are topped off by a freshet of original Habermas: in the final essay, he replies to the criticism developed in the preceding contributions and to other recent assessments of his work, provides an important clarification of his earlier views, and reveals the direction of his current thought.Each essay probes a particular theme in Habermas's work, and each presents both an exposition and a critique. Among the subjects covered are Habermas's theory of knowledge-constitutive interests, his account of language and truth, his "overcoming" of hermeneutics, the concept of universal pragmatics, the orientation of his thought relative to the Marxist tradition, and his project of analyzing the crisis tendencies of capitalism within the context of evolutionary theory.The contributors are philosophers and social theorists of international standing, most of them affiliated with German, English, and American universities. They are Agnes Heller, Rudiger Bubner, Thomas McCarthy, Henning Ottmann, Mary Hesse, Steven Lukes, Anthony Giddens, Michael Schmid, Andrew Arato, and the editors. The editors have also contributed a substantial introduction outlining the central contours of Habermas's work and summarizing the main arguments of the essays.John B. Thompson is a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and David Held is Lecturer in Politics, University of York.
Download or read book Debating the Post Condition in India written by Makarand R. Paranjape and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-10-25 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How was the post-modernist project contested, subverted and assimilated in India? This book offers a personal account and an intellectual history of its reception and response. Tracing independent India’s engagement with Western critical theory, Paranjape outlines both its past and ‘post’. The book explores the discursive trajectories of post-modernism, post-colonialism, post-Marxism, post-nationalism, post-feminism, post-secularism — the relations that mediate them — as well as interprets, in the light of these discussions, core tenets of Indian philosophical thought. Paranjape argues that India’s response to the modernist project is neither submission, willing or reluctant, nor repudiation, intentional or forced; rather India’s ‘modernity’ is ‘unauthorized’, different, subversive, alter-native and alter-modern. The book makes the case for a new integrative hermeneutics, the idea of the indigenous ‘critical vernacular’, and presents a radical shift in the understanding of svaraj (beyond decolonisation and nationalism) to express transformations at both personal and political levels. A key intervention in Indian critical theory, this volume will interest researchers and scholars of literature, philosophy, political theory, culture studies and postcolonial studies.
Download or read book Critical Theory written by Max Horkheimer and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1972-01-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays, written in the 1930s and 1940s, represent a first selection in English from the major work of the founder of the famous Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. Horkheimer's writings are essential to an understanding of the intellectual background of the New Left and the to much current social-philosophical thought, including the work of Herbert Marcuse. Apart from their historical significance and even from their scholarly eminence, these essays contain an immediate relevance only now becoming fully recognized.
Download or read book Cynical Theories written by Helen Pluckrose and published by Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA). This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller! Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn't practice yoga or cook Chinese food? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only white people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed so quickly to challenge the very logic of Western society? In this probing and intrepid volume, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay document the evolution of the dogma that informs these ideas, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields. Today this dogma is recognizable as much by its effects, such as cancel culture and social-media dogpiles, as by its tenets, which are all too often embraced as axiomatic in mainstream media: knowledge is a social construct; science and reason are tools of oppression; all human interactions are sites of oppressive power play; and language is dangerous. As Pluckrose and Lindsay warn, the unchecked proliferation of these anti-Enlightenment beliefs present a threat not only to liberal democracy but also to modernity itself. While acknowledging the need to challenge the complacency of those who think a just society has been fully achieved, Pluckrose and Lindsay break down how this often-radical activist scholarship does far more harm than good, not least to those marginalized communities it claims to champion. They also detail its alarmingly inconsistent and illiberal ethics. Only through a proper understanding of the evolution of these ideas, they conclude, can those who value science, reason, and consistently liberal ethics successfully challenge this harmful and authoritarian orthodoxy—in the academy, in culture, and beyond.
Download or read book Words That Wound written by Mari J Matsuda and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, the authors, all legal scholars from the tradition of critical race theory start from the experience of injury from racist hate speech and develop a theory of the first amendment that recognizes such injuries. In their critique of "first amendment orthodoxy", the authors argue that only a history of racism can explain why defamation, invasion of privacy and fraud are exempt from free-speech guarantees but racist verbal assault is not.
Download or read book Critical International Political Economy written by Stuart Shields and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amidst the continued debate surrounding the foundations of IPE, coupled with recent methodological and theoretical divides this book argues that an attempt should be made to re-visit the notion of the 'critical'. The challenge posed by contributors to this volume is to assess the development of so-called critical IPE and interrogate whether the theoretical foundations it was built upon have reached their potential. The essays in this volume take up this challenge in a number of different ways but all share a common concern - to re-assess the purpose of critical approaches, reflect on why certain social theorists have been favoured as a point of departure, yet others have largely been ignored. In light of recent debates on the notion of a 'trans-Atlantic divide' within IPE the collection the contributors aim demonstrates how the distinction between the 'critical' and the 'orthodox' (or 'empirical') is only significant if the 'critical' is geared towards a larger, more substantial body of critical social enquiry and engages with what it means to conduct such enquiry.
Download or read book The New Social Theory Reader written by Steven Seidman and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive reader will give undergraduate students a structured introduction to the writers and works which have shaped the exciting and yet daunting field of social theory. Throughout the text, key figures are placed in debate with each other and the editorial introductions give an orienting overview of the main points at stake and the areas of agreement and disagreement between the protagonists. The first section sets out some of the main schools of thought, including Habermas and Honneth on New Critical Theory, Bourdieu and Luhmann on Institutional Structuralism and Jameson and Hall on Cultural Studies. Thereafter the reader becomes issues based, looking at: * Justice and Truth * Nationalism, Multiculturalism, Globalisation * gender, sexuality, race, post-coloniality The New SocialTheory Readeris an essential companion for students who will not just use it on their theory course but return to it again and again for theoretical foundations for substantive subjects and issues.
Download or read book Critical Theories in Education written by Thomas S. Popkewitz and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Reappraisals written by Peter Uwe Hohendahl and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reappraisals is a provocative account of the development of modern critical theory in Germany and the United States. Focusing on the period since World War II, Peter Uwe Hohendahl explores key debates on the function of critical theory, illuminating the diverse positions and alliances among the participants. Bringing together six essays, as well as new introductory and concluding chapters, Hohendahl interprets and subjects to critical scrutiny many of the central ideas of the Frankfurt School. He first maps the trajectory of neomarxist criticism in Germany to the 1980s. Individual chapters then focus on the work of Georg Lukacs, Theodor W. Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas, and on such issues as the politicization of German criticism after 1965 under the influence of the Frankfurt School.
Download or read book Argumentation and Critical Thought written by Kevin Kuswa and published by . This book was released on 2015-12-31 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developed for introductory courses in argumentation and advocacy, Argumentation and Critical Thought: An Introduction to Advocacy, Reasoning, and Debateintroduces students to argumentation as a theory and as a practice. It clearly explains key concepts of argumentation and places it within the context of the larger field of communication studies. The emphasis is on critical theory and rhetoric as ways to ground the practical elements of formal debate. This encompasses ethos, pathos, logos, critical theory, notions of subjectivity, and social change, all of which are addressed in the text. The text also addresses the canons of rhetoric, the Toulmin diagram, logic and reason, and competitive debate and strategic research. Each chapter includes targeted learning activities to support self-assessment, and enhance comprehension and retention. Argumentation and Critical Thought: An Introduction to Advocacy, Reasoning, and Debate makes its subject matter both accessible and challenging. The textbook's blend of theory and practice, fundamentals, and critical thinking, as well as its exploration of all the intricacies of argumentation and advocacy, make it an ideal teaching and learning tool for any undergraduate course in debate or critical thinking. Kevin Kuswa holds a Ph.D. in communication studies and rhetoric from the University of Texas, Austin. He has been involved in nationwide debate pedagogy and coaching for over twenty years. He won the national debate tournament for Georgetown University, coached the national championship team for Dartmouth College, and is currently the head coach at Berkeley Preparatory School in Tampa, Florida. Cameron Sublett is an assistant professor at Santa Barbara City College, where he also serves as the director of Argumentation and Debate and Public Address. His research and writing focuses on education policy and leadership as well as political communication.
Download or read book Democracy and Relativism written by Cornelius Castoriadis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this vibrant debate with intellectuals influenced by Marcel Mauss, including Alain Caillé and Chantal Mouffe, the incisive Greek-French activist and philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis addresses the challenge of critical thinking in an international context. The first half explores the tradition of radical self-critique and the prospect of affirming its value in a non-ethnocentric way. While defending ancient Greek contributions to the Western tradition of radical self-critique — including the practice of “relativizing” one's own culture, of engaging in philosophical interrogation, and of establishing democratic institutions — Castoriadis is challenged to explore the trans-contextual features of any self-critical, or “autonomous,” social institution. In the second half Castoriadis offers a penetrating critique of representative democracy, and the discussion makes important strides toward a new conception of direct democracy, of political education, and of the institutional prerequisites for the continuation of radical self-critique in politics and philosophy.
Download or read book Debate and Critical Analysis written by Robert James Branham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rather than approach debate primarily as a form of interscholastic competition, this unique book identifies it as an activity that occurs in many settings: scientific conferences, newspaper op-ed pages, classrooms, courts of law, and everyday domestic life. Debate is discussed as an integral part of academic inquiry in all disciplines. As in all fields of study, various competing views are advanced and supported; Debate and Critical Analysis is designed to better prepare the student to assess and engage them. This text posits four characteristics of true debate -- argument development, clash, extension, and perspective -- which form the basic structure of the book. Each concept or aspect of argument covered is illustrated by an example drawn from contemporary or historical sources, allowing the reader to actually see the techniques and strategies at work. All popular forms of competitive debate, including "policy," "Lincoln-Douglas," "value-oriented," and "parliamentary," are discussed in detail -- as embedded in the actual topical controversies with which they are concerned. In this way, the student can learn the structures, reasoning processes, and strategies that may be employed, as well as the practical affairs of debating, from brief-writing to the flowsheet.
Download or read book The Habermas Luhmann Debate written by Gorm Harste and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-29 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years ago, the two leading German philosophers and sociologists since the Second World War, Jürgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann, embarked on a sweeping and contentious debate that would continue for decades. Their coauthored 1971 book Theory of Society or Social Technology laid out their opposing positions on meaning, communication, consensus, and dissent—and ultimately the foundations of modern social thought. Habermas and Luhmann would elaborate their disagreement in the years to come in a controversy whose aftershocks divided social theorists by presenting what appeared to be two fundamentally divergent views of the nature of society and what systems theory was capable of explaining. This is the first book in English about one of the most important conflicts in social theory today. Gorm Harste analyzes the Habermas-Luhmann debate from its inception through Habermas’s most recent works, exploring issues such as methodology, ideology, truth, history, and politics. He contextualizes their positions in terms of how each grappled with the legacy of Nazism and sought to provide grounding for an antitotalitarian politics. Harste follows the evolution of the debate, as the fundamental dispute over the normative and practical desirability of agreement and disagreement came to touch upon political questions including the rule of law, the separation of powers, human rights, individualization, and secularization. Ultimately, Harste emphasizes the convergence between Habermas and Luhmann—and the pressing need for social theorists to further unite these two formative accounts of contemporary society.
Download or read book Toward a Critical Theory of Nature written by Carl Cassegård and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-28 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the normalization of a capitalist reality in which environmental destruction and catastrophe have become 'second nature', Towards a Critical Theory of Nature offers a bold new theoretical understanding of the current crisis via the work of the Frankfurt School. Focusing on key notions of dialectics, natural history, and materialism, a critical theory of nature is outlined in favor of a more traditional Marxist theory of nature, albeit one which still builds on core Marxist concepts to confirm humanity's central place in manufacturing environmental misery. Pre-eminent thinkers of the Frankfurt school, including, Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, and Alfred Schmidt, are highlighted for their potential to diagnose the interpenetration of capitalism and nature in a way that neither absolutizes nor obliterates the boundary between the social and natural. Further theoretical claims and practical consequences of a critical theory of nature challenge other contemporary theoretical approaches like eco-Marxism, social constructivism and new materialism, to situate it as the only approach with genuinely radical potential. The possibility of utopian idealism for understanding and responding to the current climate crisis is carefully measured against the dangers of false hope in setting out realistic goals for change. Environmental change in turn is seen through the prism of recent cultural currents and movements, situating the power of a critical theory of nature in relation to understandings of the Anthropocene; concepts of apocalypse, and postapocalypse. This book culminates in a powerful tool for an anti-capitalist critique of society's painfully extractive relationship to a deceptively abstracted natural world.
Download or read book The Critical Theory of Axel Honneth written by Danielle Petherbridge and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-09-05 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Critical Theory of Axel Honneth provides a comprehensive study of the work of Axel Honneth, tracing the theoretical trajectory from his earliest writings on philosophical anthropology to the development of a theory of recognition. The book argues that Honneth’s early work provides important insights for the reconstruction of the normative project of critical theory and the articulation of a conceptual framework for analyzing social relations of power and domination. Danielle Petherbridge contends, however, that these aims are not fully realized in Honneth’s more mature project and that central insights recede as his project develops. Petherbridge seeks to demonstrate that the basis for an alternative theory of intersubjectivity that can account for both an adequate theory of power and normative forms of subject-formation can be immanently reconstructed from within Honneth’s own work. By contextualizing Honneth’s project in relation to its theoretical influences, The Critical Theory of Axel Honneth provides a critical study and excellent entry point that will be essential reading for both students and scholars who work in the areas of European philosophy, critical theory, social and political philosophy, or social and political theory.
Download or read book The Study of International Relations written by Hugh C. Dyer and published by Springer. This book was released on 1989-10-16 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging study surveys the present state of international relations as an academic field. It locates and assesses recent developments in the field - in short, what is being done where, by whom, and why. The editors have focused on some central and controversial theoretical issues, and included surveys of principal sub-fields, as well as the various approaches to the study of international relations in different countries. The book provides a comprehensive overview of an important and fast-growing area of academic endeavour, and is essential reading for teachers and students of international politics and the social sciences at large.
