Critical Theory Goes Global: Transfers, (Mis-)Understandings and Perceptions since 1960 Workshop 12.4.-13.4.2018 HU Berlin (original) (raw)
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International Relations, Vol. 26, Issue 2, 2012
This article offers a reconstruction of the methodological tools pioneered by the first generation of the Frankfurt School (FS) and how they have been adapted in the contemporary project of emancipation in Critical International Relations Theory (CIRT). It is argued that the praxeological and methodological commitments of the early FS are of continuing utility in the post-positivist turn in IR theory. The paper also argues that CIRT has made significant advances on the original programme of CT developed by Horkheimer in the early 1930s. In particular, it is contended that the alleged pessimism typically associated with the later work of the early FS can be overcome if critical analysis looks beyond the state to those possibilities of emancipation pregnant within the global processes of world politics. Here the work of CIRT is argued to offer a number of advances on the sociology of the early FS, which was problematically confined to the examination of Euroand state-centric possibilities for emancipation.
Critical theory is a project of revisionist Marxism envisioned to consider the emancipation of individuals from hegemonic power in post-Enlightenment society. Aside from a select handful of consistent themes and concerns shared among the key fi gures of critical theory, there are some crucial distinctions between the models employed by different theorists. Within the fi eld of critical theory there are disparate views regarding the debate between idealism and realism, as well as drastically confl icting views regarding the application of traditional philosophy, hermeneutics, phenomenology, positivism and pragmatism. Due to the lack of a single critical theory, the most uniting aspect of the fi eld can be thought to be what it opposes rather than what it stands for. Critical theory aims to redirect traditional agencystructure debates by suggesting that the actions, beliefs and motivations of individuals are subject to infl uences that can be invisible. Yet the uniting element of critical theory has less to do with a question or a subject than with a methodology of critique that demands the examination of social life, with the intention of resolving inconsistencies and distortions of knowledge.
The Frankfurt School: Critical theory as the negation of culture
Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 1987
In examining the Frankfurt School's critical theory of society in an effort to discover the theoretical basis for the school's inability to merge theory with praxis, this paper points out that the school's analysis of culture in the 1930s and 1940s presents a radical, penetrating critique of the role of mass communication in advanced industrialized Western societies. The first section of the paper provides a discussion of the context in which the school emerged. This is followed by an examination of the school's theory of society, including implied theories of human nature, history, social research, and communication. The last sec::ion offers conclusions as-o the relationship between aspects of the social theory and the school's ultimate failure to initiate radical social change. (HOD)
What is Critical Theory? Max Horkheimer and the Makings of the Frankfurt School Tradition
Mabini Review, 2013
In order to answer the question, “What is Critical Theory?,” first, I will present a basic idea of Critical Theory by reconstructing the basic presuppositions Horkheimer laid down in “Traditional and Critical Theory.” This is to show the relation between philosophical thinking and society: how do we engage with reality from a theoreitico-practical standpoint. It should be made clear that my purpose is far from reductionist—I am not arguing that Critical Theory, as a model of social criticism, is only exclusive to the proponents of the Frankfurt School. Rather, I wish only to show that the point of origin is Horkheimer’s programmatic 1937 essay. Second, I will present a preliminary note on the possible appropriation of Critical Theory, as a form of social- and philosophical critique, in the diagnosis of social pathologies in the Philippines. My proposal will involve a somewhat ambitious shift in the way we understand and practice philosophy against the backdrop of what I refer to below as the “crisis of appropriation” here in the Philippines.
BRINGING CRITICAL BACK TO CRITICAL THEORY
To resurrect and revalorize the tradition of the early Frankfurt School, whose of Marxist-Hegelian dialectical approach to understanding the societal conditions of its emergence --post WWI Germany, the rise of fascism, New Deal politics, the defeat of fascism and the subsequent rise of consumer societyremains relevant to studying present circumstances, stressing the cultural dimension of capitalism, the proliferation of alienation, ideology and mass media, and, finally, the nature of the society-character/subjectivity nexus.
The Frankfurt School: The "Origins" of Critical Theory
This course will chart the nebulous notion of "critical theory" as it relates to the Frankfurt School of Social Research (~1923-1970). Beginning as an interdisciplinary Marxist reading group (in 1923), the Institute metamorphosed in relation to the catastrophes of the 20 th century, utilizing crisis and the experience of exile as a means to critically renew philosophy. Today, the School's notion of critical theory has become ubiquitous, encompassing a vast assemblage of social theory. Focusing on the "first generation" of Frankfurt School thinkers (1923-1970), this course will explore the complex origins of critical social theory by way of an examination of the writings of
Despite being similar, related, and overlapping projects, Frankfurt School Critical Theory and postcolonialism have had remarkably little to do with each other. This chapter explores the deeper reasons for this from both sides, exploring what this reveals about the histories and limits of both enterprises. It then takes up recent works that attempt to bridge the divide, suggesting how Critical Theory can benefit from opening itself to postcolonial influences, approaches, and themes.