Alessandro Ferrara, Rousseau and Critical Theory, Leiden, Brill, 2017 Marjan Ivković.

The paper considers the possibility of detecting points of contact between Michel Foucault’s theory of power and the theory of communicative agency formed by Jurgen Habermas. In the beginning, the development of the philosophical discourse of modernity, which Habermas analyzes in his work bearing the same title, is laid out, with the aim to gain insight into the nature of Habermas’s critique of Foucault. After having reviewed some of the basis of Foucault’s theory, the author points out Habermas’s depiction of (...) the theory of power as the pinnacle of Nietzschean, anti - modernist stream of the philosophical discourse. The critique is based on Habermas’s assumption that Foucault’s analyses of power fails to comprehend the complexity of modernity. Foucault, according to Habermas, over - emphasizes one dimension of the process of modernization - gradual strengthening of the disciplinatory power based on the "control of the spirit". The author, however, wishes to point out the importance the theory of power ascribes to the preservation of insight into the complexity of history. Through the insight into multiple and divergent nature of historical processes that are responsible for the formation of modern society, the individual becomes historically self - conscious and able to step out of the paradigm of self - relating subject. As the theory of communicative agency also tends to transcend the "limits of the subject - philosophy", the author concludes that Foucault’s work is, to the same extent as Habermas’s, imbued with the idea of "modernity as an unrealized undertaking". Towards the end of the paper the author analyzes Foucault’s relation to Enlightenment, in order to show the essentially modern nature of his thought. (shrink)

The author attempts at questioning Habermas’ and Honneth’s claim that the linguistic turn within Critical Theory of society represents a way out of the “dead end” of the first generation of Frankfurt School theorists, who were unable to formulate an action-theoretic understanding of social conflicts. By presenting a view that Adorno, in his “Negative dialectic”, develops an insight into a crucial characteristic of the conflict nature of modern societies, which eludes the lingustic-pragmatist Critical Theory, the author tries to defend and (...) reactualize Adorno’s perspective. The paper analyzes some key aspects of the original idea of Critical Theory, and the “negativistic turn” that Adorno and Horkheimer made with the writing of “Dialectic of Enlightenment”. Having considered the central arguments of the “Negative Dialectic”, the author presents his understanding of Adorno’s concept of social conflict, which is then being contrasted with Habermas’ understanding of social conflict, formulated in terms of a systemic colonization of the lifeworld. Pointing out the weaknesses of Habermas’ concept, the author aims at sharpening the image of the conflict nature of modern societies that Adorno sketches, concluding that his perspective is able to question the framework of intersubjectivity that Habermas and Honneth take for granted. (shrink)

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?. (shrink)

This paper presents three interconnected examinations of Asger S?rensen?s arguments in Capitalism, Alienation and Critique, which thematize S?rensen?s overarching understanding of the relationship between theory and practice: his general methodological perspective on critical theory, its distinctive epistemology and its anchoring in the empirical world. The paper authors each try to push S?rensen on these crucial points by considering how S?rensen?s variant of critical theory actually operates, scrutinizing in more detail the particular relationship between the?experience of injustice?, which for S?rensen constitutes (...) the empirical foothold for critical theory, and the theoretical diagnosis of social reality which the critical theorist should formulate against the backdrop of this experience. (shrink)