Task Of Critical Theory Research Articles

Interpretation for Emancipation: Taylor as a Critical Theorist

The paper argues that we should read Taylor’s philosophy as a philosophy of liberation and that it is as a philosopher of liberation that Taylor distinguishes himself as a critical theorist. It begins with a short outline of Taylor’s theory of freedom, emphasising the conception it contains of the process of becoming free. It then looks at Taylor’s view of the role theory can take in that process. The liberating power of theory isn’t something that Taylor often remarks explicitly upon, but from the few remarks he does make it is clear that he sees his own theory as potentially having such a power. The discussion then turns to the tasks of critical theory. After summarising these tasks, the paper considers how Taylor attempts to address them in his own work. The point of the discussion is not just to show the convergence between Taylor’s theoretical agenda and that of critical theory, but also to indicate how critical theory can learn from the integration in Taylor’s work of the tasks critical theory sets itself. The paper concludes by noting a dilemma that faces critical theorists who aspire to such integration today.

Critical theory in crisis? a reconsideration

The recent rise of populism has generated a resurgence of interest in critical theory, in the wider public debate and in academia—with critical theory being variously accused of paving the way for post-truth politics, hailed as explaining the rise of populism, or criticized for failing to achieve its emancipatory political goals. Failure of the latter kind, many International Relations scholars argue, calls for a fundamental reform of critical theory if it is to address current political developments. Investigating this claim, this article makes three contributions: First, an empirical account shows that, far from failing, critical theory has been politically highly successful. Second, a theoretical reconstruction of critical theory shows that it is precisely this success that leads to the alienation of critical theorists from their own approach. In light of this analysis, third, the article concludes that the task of critical theory in times of Brexit and Trump does not lie in abandoning its core principles but in systematically applying them to a new historical conjuncture.

Understanding the Differences as a Task of Critical Theory

Understanding the Differences as a Task of Critical Theory

I would Prefer not not-to: Critical Theory after Bartleby

The politics of critical theory after ’68 revolves around the question of the new revolutionary subjectivity and its conditions of possibility. The so-called post-theories attempt to criticize the classic Marxist idea of resistant subjectivity and to pay a closer attention to the complex mechanism of power. As Foucault insisted, the analysis of power leads to a realm that traditionally remains outside political analysis. This was the result of serious critical reflections on the failure of the resistant politics of May ’68. The failure of May forced critical theorists to rethink the political itself at least in terms of subjectivity and power, and the main question became how to leave the old framework of Marxist political analysis. Since then, the politics of critical theory have included the various turns that alternatively dominated the intellectual atmosphere in the western world. As Gilles Deleuze summed up, the urgent task of critical theory after ’68 was to answer the question why people voluntarily fight for their own servitude. Focusing on how various critical theorists address the figure of Bartleby and his famous formula “I would prefer not to” in terms of a new political subjectivity, this essay reassesses the significance of the so-called politics of Bartleby and his gesture of inaction as a new possibility of political resistance in a micro-fascist system of capitalism, criticizing at the same time critical theory's unconscious desire to separate Bartleby's passive resistance from the character's textual and cultural context. In the era of a global civil war, the most radical form of political subjectivity is arguably to be found in the realm of culture, where various Bartlebys struggle to cope with the system of micro-fascism in the network and in the street.

A Frommian perspective on the socio-psychological structure of post-fascism in liberal democracies

ABSTRACT My research explores Erich Fromm’s social theories of narcissism, alienation and authoritarianism for the purpose of linking those theories together, thereby analysing current populist phenomena as an extension of a fascist development in terms of Enzo Traverso’s conception of post-fascism. In my view, Fromm’s critical social theory of narcissism, which pertains to his two other theories, has great potential to unravel current political issues in liberal democracies that are generally tackled in terms of populism. Through a demonstration of the theoretical scope of Fromm’s social theory, which sheds light on pathological social and political phenomena in historical continuity, I argue that the primary tasks of Critical Theory in Frommian terms are to divulge the sources of fascist orientations in seemingly democratic practice and to offer appropriate remedies for these difficulties. In this light, I conclude that in terms of a Frommian social theory of narcissism, fascist types of politics thrive even in advanced liberal-democratic countries, taking the form of authoritarian populism, particularly where society rests on a narcissistic character structure intertwined with an authoritarian orientation.

Two attempts at grounding social critique in „ordinary“ actors’ perspectives: The critical theories of Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth

This paper analyzes two contemporary, ?third-generation? perspectives within critical theory - Nancy Fraser?s and Axel Honneth?s - with the aim of examining the degree to which the two authors succeed in grounding the normative criteria of social critique in the perspectives of ?ordinary? social actors, as opposed to speculative social theory. To that end, the author focuses on the influential debate between Fraser and Honneth Redistribution or Recognition? which concerns the appropriate normative foundations of a ?post-metaphysical? critical theory, and attempts to reconstruct the fundamental 29 disagreements between Fraser and Honneth over the meaning and tasks of critical theory. The author concludes that both critical theorists ultimately secure the normative foundations of critique through substantive theorizations of the social, which frame the two authors? ?reconstructions? of the normativity of everyday social action, but argues that post-metaphysical critical theory does not have to abandon comprehensive social theory in order to be epistmologically ?non-authoritarian?.

Paradoxes of Neoliberalism and the Tasks of Critical Theory

Critical theory must add to its agenda “disrupt[ing] the easy passage from critique [to] its neoliberal double”, Nancy Fraser recently argued. Emancipatory movements have not only been transformed by neoliberalism. They have, “unwittingly”, provided powerful “ingredients” for the transition to neoliberalism. This essay examines Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser’s assessment of and normative proposal for addressing the paradoxes of neoliberalism. The constraints of neoliberalism, I argue, bring into focus the structural challenge of immanent critique as understood within second and third generation Critical Theory. Normative ambivalence within neoliberalism, I maintain, calls for a shift in the way that critical and justificatory practices are understood within the Frankfurt School.

A Filosofia e seu ensino a partir de uma perspectiva da teoria crítica

Este artigo analisa dois pressupostos teóricos considerados centrais da prática do ensinar e aprender Filosofia: o agir comunicativo em Habermas e o pensar como forma de resistência em Adorno. A Filosofia e seu ensino em Habermas são desenvolvidos a partir da teoria do agir comunicativo, proporcionando-nos uma base teórica de reflexão, de uma educação racional e crítica. Na perspectiva adorniana, a função social do ensino está intrinsecamente ligada à crítica da sociedade burguesa e, por conseguinte, com a indústria cultural. Adorno procura mostrar que a educação formal tem um forte poder de resistência em relação ao rumo caótico do processo civilizatório. Aproximar esse sentido adorniano de resistência à prática de ensinar Filosofia é o intento proposto aqui. Ensinar Filosofia significa não aceitar as imposições políticas, institucionais e sociais como sendo naturais. A tarefa da Teoria Crítica - da Filosofia como ensino -, tem uma dimensão que remete à busca do exercício da autonomia do sujeito e de sua emancipação social.

Spiraling into Transformative Learning

This article explores how technical and vocational learning may spiral into transformative learning. Transformative learning theory is reviewed and the learning tasks of critical theory are used to integrate various approaches to transformative learning. With this as a foundation, the article explores how transformative learning can be fostered in adult vocational education.

Habermas’s Communicative Concepts of Power

Jurgen Habermas (1982b) sees his project as both a continuation and a critical evaluation of earlier critical theory (which primarily means the works of the Frankfurt School). On the one hand, Habermas agrees with earlier critical theory's attempt to shift from the critique of the political economy to the critique of the socio-cultural sphere. That is, the problem of power and domination in late capitalist societies is no longer mainly to do with inequalities and exploitation in the production sphere. Instead, power, in the name of rationality, extends itself to the socio-cultural sphere to instrumentalize our action orientation. The critique of the instrumental rationality becomes the major task of critical theory. On the other hand, Habermas considers the major weakness of earlier critical theory as lying in its confusion of reason with mis instrumental form of rationality. In his view, earlier critical tiieory adopts a totalist critique of Western reason, and hence turns its back on the very foundation of critique. In other words, for Habermas, the basis of critical theory is undermined by the line that the Frankfurt School pursues. Therefore from the beginning Habermas has been preoccupied with two tasks: first, searching for the ground of critique, and second, providing a critique of power in modern societies. Habermas's theory of communicative action, which seeks to demonstrate an internal relation between reason and communication, can be seen as an attempt to accomplish these two tasks. For Habermas, his theory of communicative action provides not only a basis of critique in reason, but also a yardstick according to which one can differentiate legitimate and illegitimate power. This essay focuses primarily on the second task, that is, how Habermas uses his theory of communicative action to provide a critique of power. Habermas's critique of power consists in a differentiation of legitimate and illegitimate power. This differentiation, for him, is also a differentiation between reason and force. Illegitimate power is one which is connected to force and implies a problem of coercion. Legitimate power, on the other hand, is one which is connected to reason. His notion of communicative reason, he asserts, provides the basis for legitimate power. He considers power which is based on the consensus achieved in communicative action as legitimate and connected to reason. This legitimate power, for Habermas, is separated from force and avoids the problem of coercion. In this essay, I intend to examine whether Habermas's communicative concept of power is successful in resolving the problem of coercion which he perceives in a relation of force. I would like to point out that throughout his discussions of power, Habermas does not have only one way of applying the concept of communicative action but uses it in different ways and hence produces different versions of communicative concept of power.11 shall delineate two distinct versions of Habermas's communicative concept of power: an earlier version which conceives legitimate power as arising in communicative action; a later version which conceives power in terms of purposive-instrumental action of which the legitimacy is defined by determination of collective goals in communicative action. There are questions that I would like to put to Habermas. In producing the earlier version of communicative concept of power, Habermas criticizes instrumental-strategic action in terms of its relation to force and coercion, and determines to have a notion of legitimate power which is under the category of communicative action. He argues that legitimate power only arises in communicative action. His later version of communicative concept of power, however, understands legitimate power in terms of instrumental-purposive action rather than as a form of communicative action. Is there any contradiction incurred by upholding these two different versions of communicative concept of power? …

Abnormal Justice

Abnormal Justice