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Originally published in Czechoslovakia just prior to Prague Spring in 1968, this collection of three essays on the political and philosophical thought of Montaigne, Voltaire, and Holbach examines the relationships between social life and ideological categories, and economics and the development of ideas.
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After half a century exploring dialectical thought, renowned cultural critic Fredric Jameson presents a comprehensive study of a misunderstood yet vital strain in Western philosophy. The dialectic, the concept of the evolution of an idea through conflicts arising from its inherent contradictions, transformed two centuries of Western philosophy. To Hegel, who dominated nineteenth-century thought, it was a metaphysical system. In the works of Marx, the dialectic became a tool for materialist historical analysis. Jameson brings a theoretical scrutiny to bear on the questions that have arisen in the history of this philosophical tradition, contextualizing the debate in terms of commodification and globalization, and with reference to thinkers such as Rousseau, Lukcs, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida, and Althusser. Through rigorous, erudite examination, Valences of the Dialectic charts a movement toward the innovation of a "spatial" dialectic. Jameson presents a new synthesis of thought that revitalizes dialectical thinking for the twenty-first century.
Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) was one of the most recognizable and controversial public intellectuals throughout the 1960s until his death in the late 1970s, but today Marcuse’s work largely stands in the shadows of other Frankfurt School members and critical thinkers. Despite having once held a prominent and influential position amongst scholars, activists, and readers in the twentieth century, it is argued that Marcuse’s work nevertheless remains largely misunderstood. The Dialectic of Herbert Marcuse offers a new interpretation of Marcuse, one that attempts to show how Marcuse’s work has so often been turned into something else—into its opposite. In shining a light on parts of the unknown Marcuse, through the use of archival material and published works, this book reveals Marcuse’s Critical Theory to be one of hope, not one of pessimism, as it is so often portrayed to be. Ultimately, it is argued that Marcuse’s Critical Theory remains a vital and important body of work for present-day society and ought to be revisited.
Drawing upon a wide variety of authors, approaches, and ideological contexts, this book offers a comprehensive and detailed critique of the distinct and polemical senses in which the concept of ressentiment (and its cognate 'resentment') is used today. It also proposes a new mode of addressing ressentiment in which critique and polemics no longer set the tone: care. Contemporary tendencies in political culture such as neoliberalism, nationalism, populism, identity politics, and large-scale conspiracy theories have led to the return of the concept of ressentiment in armchair political analysis. This book argues that, due to the tension between its enormous descriptive power and its mutually contradicting ideological performances, it is necessary to ‘redramatize’ the concept of ressentiment. By what right do we possess and use the concept of ressentiment, and what makes the phenomenon worth knowing? Inspired by Marxist political epistemology, affect theory, postcolonialism, and feminism, the book maps, delimits, and assesses four irreducible ways in which ressentiment can be articulated: the ways of the priest, the physician, the witness, and the diplomat. The first perspective is typically embodied by conservative (Scheler, Girard) and liberal (Smith, Rawls) political theory; the second, by Nietzsche, Deleuze and Foucault; whereas the standpoint of the witness is found in the writings of Améry, Fanon and Adorno; and the diplomat’s is the author’s own, albeit inspired by philosophers such as Ahmed, Stiegler, Stengers, and Sloterdijk. In producing a dialectical sequence between all four typical modes of enunciation, the book demonstrates how the first three reinterpretations of ressentiment are already implied in the theater set up in Nietzsche’s late polemical books, while the fourth proposes a line of flight out of it. The Dialectic of Ressentiment will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in critical theory, social and political philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, history, literature, political science, anthropology, and Nietzsche scholarship. It will also appeal to anyone interested in the politics of anger, discourse ethics, trauma studies, and memory politics. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
This volume comprises Adorno's first lectures specifically dedicated to the subject of the dialectic, a concept which has been key to philosophical debate since classical times. While discussing connections with Plato and Kant, Adorno concentrates on the most systematic development of the dialectic in Hegel's philosophy, and its relationship to Marx, as well as elaborating his own conception of dialectical thinking as a critical response to this tradition. Delivered in the summer semester of 1958, these lectures allow Adorno to explore and probe the significant difficulties and challenges this way of thinking posed within the cultural and intellectual context of the post-war period. In this connection he develops the thesis of a complementary relationship between positivist or functionalist approaches, particularly in the social sciences, as well as calling for the renewal of ontological and metaphysical modes of thought which attempt to transcend the abstractness of modern social experience by appeal to regressive philosophical categories. While providing an account of many central themes of Hegelian thought, he also alludes to a whole range of other philosophical, literary and artistic figures of central importance to his conception of critical theory, notably Walter Benjamin and the idea of a constellation of concepts as the model for an 'open or fractured dialectic' beyond the constraints of method and system. These lectures are seasoned with lively anecdotes and personal recollections which allow the reader to glimpse what has been described as the 'workshop' of Adorno's thought. As such, they provide an ideal entry point for all students and scholars in the humanities and social sciences who are interested in Adorno's work as well as those seeking to understand the nature of dialectical thinking.
While the popular talk of English common sense in the eighteenth century might seem a by-product of familiar Enlightenment discourses of rationalism and empiricism, this book argues that terms such as ‘common sense’ or ‘good sense’ are not simply synonyms of applied reason. On the contrary, the discourse of common sense is shaped by a defensive impulse against the totalizing intellectual regimes of the Enlightenment and the cultural climate of change they promote, in order to contain the unbounded discursive proliferation of modern learning. Hence, common sense discourse has a vital regulatory function in cultural negotiations of political and intellectual change in eighteenth-century Britain against the backdrop of patriotic national self-concepts. This study discusses early eighteenth-century common sense in four broad complexes, as to its discursive functions that are ethical (which at that time implies aesthetic as well), transgressive (as a corrective), political (in patriotic constructs of the nation), and repressive (of otherness). The selection of texts in this study strikes a balance between dominant literary culture – Swift, Pope, Defoe, Fielding, Johnson – and the periphery, such as pamphlets and magazine essays, satiric poems and patriotic songs.
Fully accessible to students and scholars alike, this engaging book introduces the constructivist approach to understanding world affairs. In a highly readable and witty way, it shows how people and their social relations are the basis for everything around us -- International Relations included.
Since the 1970s, critical realism has grown to address a range of subjects, including economics, philosophy, science, and religion. It has become a complex and mature philosophy. Enlightened Common Sense: The Philosophy of Critical Realism looks back over this development in one concise and accessible volume. The late Roy Bhaskar was critical realism’s philosophical originator and chief exponent. He draws on a lifetime’s experience to give a definitive, systematic account of this increasingly influential, international and multidisciplinary approach. Critical realism’s key element has always been its vindication and deepening of our understanding of ontology. Arguing that realist ontology is inexorable in knowledge and action, Bhaskar sees this as the key to a new enlightened common sense. From the definition of critical realism and its applicability in the social sciences, to explanation of dialectical critical realism and the philosophy of metaReality, this is the essential introduction for students of critical realism.