Critical Theory and Political Possibilities

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Critical Theory and Political Possibilities Conceptions of Emancipatory Politics in the Works of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Habermas

By Joan Alway

ISBN: 0-313-29317-1

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-29317-7

DOI:

184 pages

Greenwood Press

Publication: 2/28/1995

List Price: $107.95 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)

Availability:

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: Contributions in Sociology

Series Number: 111

Reviews:

...well informed, nuanced, charitable, and quite persuasive. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
—
Choice

Description: Alway examines the works of Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas to argue the relevance of Critical Theory to contemporary efforts to reconceptualize radical politics. Indeed Alway argues that these theorists anticipate and point to new models of emancipatory politics. Unpacking the complexities of the critical theorists' writings and outlining them in a straightforward manner, Alway identifies the assumptions about human actors and history that inform their analyses of contemporary conditions. The explication of how these background assumptions inform their analyses then allows the author to clarify and assess the critical theorists' positions concerning the possibilities for radical social change, as well as their views on the issues and agents of such change. The author concludes that to the extent that the critical theorists abandon the notion of a revolutionary subject, their work leads us toward a new conceptualization of radical politics. The first generation of critical theorists, however, never fully extricate themselves from a subject-object framework that ultimately limits their efforts. Habermas's transposition of Critical Theory onto new foundations extricates it from the subject-object framework of the philosophy of consciousness, but also fundamentally alters accepted notions of radical politics. The first generation's reconceptualization of radical politics becomes with Habermas a radical reconceptualization of politics itself.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
The Marxian Emancipatory Vision and the Problem of Revolutionary Agency
Departures from Traditional Marxism: Origins and Development of Critical Theory
Dialectic of Enlightenment: The Eclipse of the Emancipatory Vision
Horkheimer and Adorno: Despair and Possibility in a Time of Eclipse
Marxism Revisited: Marcuse's Search for a Subject
Habermas: Reconstructing Critical Theory
Reconceptualizing Radical Politics
References
Index

LC Card Number: 94-29849

LCC Class: HM24

Dewey Class: 301


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