Critiques of critical theory (original) (raw)
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Habermas's Metacritique of Marx
It would not be too unkind to say of Jurgen Habermas, the talented epigone of the Frankfurt School of Philosophy, that he devoted his lifetime to bridging the gap between theory and practice…. in theory alone! And it is not too unkind to say this when one considers that Habermas fundamentally misconstrued the entire Marxian notion of "praxis" -intended in the Gramscian sense of an intellectual activity that in its very theorization of capitalist society contains its critique in a manner that challenges directly and practically the operation of the society of capital and that by that very fact is the very first and necessary step toward its overthrow.
Crisis and Critique in Jürgen Habermas's Social Theory (European Journal of Social Theory)
European Journal of Social Theory, Vol 17, No 4 , 2014
At a time when ideas of crisis and critique are at the forefront of public discourse, this article seeks to understand moments of crisis vis-à-vis critique as a key feature of critical social theory. It addresses Jürgen Habermas’s strong claim that this relationship accounts for a ‘model of analysis’ concerned with grasping the ‘diremptions’ of social life. To elaborate this reading, the article pays attention to the main problems Habermas identifies in conventional ways of understanding the concepts of ‘crisis’ and ‘critique’ in social theory. The aim is to examine the mode in which he reconsiders each of these terms and then reasserts the dialectical link between them. I reconstruct this relationship by taking as cases two of his most substantive works of social theorizing: The Theory of Communicative Action, and Between Facts and Norms. Based on this interpretation, I suggest that though Habermas contributes to resituating the practice of critique as a communicative translation of objective crisis, he does not adequately account for another key movement: when critique actually initiates, enacts and furthers the moment of crisis.
Political Studies, 1981
T H E books being reviewed here differ in their objectives and their degrees of success in achieving them.' Perry Anderson provides a lucid study of the Marxist theory that developed in Western Europe from the early 1920s-the Marxism of, amongst others, Lukacs, Korsch and Gramsci; Adorno, Marcuse and Benjamin; Sartre and Althusser; and Della Volpe and Colletti. His objective is to provide a 'balance-sheet' of these authors' achievements and limitations. But the enterprise is misconceived, since Anderson's mode of assessment prevents proper appreciation of his subject matter. The critical reader edited by New Left Review also seeks to 'sum up' the contributions of 'Western Marxism'. It contains illuminating essays on Gramsci, Sartre and Althusser. The volume, however, is marred by the inclusion of some poorly grounded attacks on the Hegelian-Marxist tradition, typified by Goran Therbom's article on the Frankfurt school and Habermas. Phil Slater's book focuses on the 'formative years' of the Frankfurt School, 1930-42, concentrating on the thought of Horkheimer, Adorno, Fromm and Marcuse. The work is subtitled 'A Marxist Perspective'. But because this perspective is not elaborated at any length, many of his critical remarks are inadequately elucidated and justified. A more successful volume, in my view, is Andrew Arato's and Eike Gebhardt's anthology. This consists of a number of important, original essays by members of the Frankfurt School as well as a series of extremely useful introductory essays by the editors. Two important interpretations of Adorno's writings-interpretations which, interestingly, diverge on many key points-are provided by Susan Buck-Morss and Gillian Rose.' Buck-Morss centres attention on the relationship between Benjamin's and Adorno's thought; Rose presents a detailed and scholarly introduction to Adorno's central ideas and theories. An excellent account of Habermas's writings can be found in Thomas McCarthy's book. McCarthy does not develop an overall critical assessment of Habermas, but his work constitutes the most reliable and comprehensive study of the man who is one of the most influential thinkers in Germany today. The above-mentioned works cover an enormous range of ideas and problems, far too great a range to be satisfactorily dealt with here. Since most of them are directly concerned with critical theory, 1 shall focus below on the radically different appraisals
Flood Habermas's Critique of Marxism
Science & Society, 1977
Jürgen Habermas’s assessment of Marxism consists of both a defense and a critique. According to Habermas, Marx held the key to incorporating the German idealistic philosophical tradition into his critique of Hegel’s philosophy of subject-object identity, but failed to use it fully. In Habermas’s view, Marx only partially resisted positivistic social theory’s attack upon epistemology and consequently adopted a framework of sociological inquiry that actually prevents critical self-reflection, the methodological foundation of the theoretical recognition of the human interests in identity, control over nature, and emancipation. In spite of Marx’s obvious concern for the self-emancipation of the human species, his naturalistic theoretical framework, Habermas contends, cannot articulate that freedom’s realization except as the automatic by-product of natural-historic evolution. We examine Habermas’s theory of “cognitive interests” insofar as it determines his critique of Marxism, to which critique we shall then turn. I hope to show that Habermas’s view of Marxism is a sympathetically critical one from Marxists should learn, even as they attempt to answer it.
Habermas and Capitalism: An Historic Overview
Cadernos de Filosofia Alemã, 2022
The article reconstructs Habermas’ view of capitalism from the 1970s to his most recent writings. It takes its starting point from Wolfgang Streeck’s claim that Habermas has failed to acknowledge that the real enemy of democracy is not bureaucracy but capitalism and that, therefore, he underestimates the role of capitalism in shaping the global order. It first returns to the diagnoses of late capitalism that Habermas developed in the 1970s and early 1980s and then moves on to some of his later writings. This will reveal that there was indeed a shift of emphasis from a critique of capitalism to a critique of technocracy, but not because of Habermas’ unawareness of the role of capitalism in shaping reality. Rather, he has come to objectify capitalism while looking for legal and political tools for reining it in instead of looking for possible alternatives to it.
This article is a discussion of the formation of contemporary critical theory with particular reference to the work of Habermas and Honneth and the debates that have arisen from these. They have both extensively recast the earlier critical theory of Adorno and Horkheimer through Habermas’s communicative turn and then Honneth’s theory of recognition. However, core themes of critique of domination and the conditions for an emancipated form of life continue to inform contemporary debates.
"Habermas and the Project of Immanent Critique" (PRE-REVIEW VERSION)
Constellations, 2013
According to Jürgen Habermas, his Theory of Communicative Action offers a new account of the normative foundations of critical theory. Habermas’ motivating insight is that neither a transcendental nor a metaphysical solution to the problem of normativity, nor a merely hermeneutic reconstruction of historically given norms, is sufficient to clarify the normative foundations of critical theory. In response to this insight, Habermas develops a novel account of normativity, which locates the normative demands of critical theory within the socially instituted practice of communicative understanding. Although Habermas has claimed otherwise, this new foundation for critical theory constitutes a novel and innovative form of "immanent critique." To argue for and to clarify this claim, I offer, in section 1, a formal account of immanent critique and distinguish between two different ways of carrying out such a critique.