Critical Theory and Social Pathology

Neal Harris is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Oxford Brookes University

'Critical theory and social pathology provides a necessary recapturing of social pathology, unseating it from its position as a ‘second order’ phenomenon to the process of recognition. Harris recognises the important contribution of recent critiques of Critical Theory, but sets them aside, proposing a new way forward. Here, social pathology is regarded as an important platform for a renewed programme of social research. By engaging with this new synthesis of Fromm and Marcuse’s work, Harris allows critical theorists to, once again, step beyond recognition.'Owen Brown, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books‘Critical theory and social pathology makes a major contribution to the field. Harris shows how Erich Fromm’s work offers profound and timely insights into the nature of societal pathologies. As such, the book points beyond the recognition approach to social research and offers the foundations for a critical theory of society which reconnects with the founding aspirations of the Frankfurt School.’Gerard Delanty, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University Of Sussex‘This timely and lucid study makes an important contribution to the growing chorus of voices that claim that Frankfurt School Critical theory is in crisis. Its thinkers have abandoned their animating commitment to radical and uncompromising criticism of the pathologies of capitalism and adopted instead a defanged, reformist political stance. In his scholarly and engaging work, Neal Harris identifies the roots of this domestication in the work of Axel Honneth and other theorists of recognition who have substituted the deep critique of power with superficial epistemological concerns. Through a distinctive rereading of the work of Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, Harris demonstrates how the radical thrust of Frankfurt School critique might yet be restored in a revivified diagnosis of the pathologies of neoliberal societies. Thought provoking and essential reading for anyone interested in the state of contemporary critical theory and possible pathways for the renewal of its original emancipatory aims.’Lois McNay, Professor of Political Theory, University of Oxford'Critical theory, once the purview of thinkers that were independent, iconoclastic and engaged, has sadly become academic and pedantic, flitting from one intellectual fad to the next. Neal Harris is a welcome exception to this trend. With original and committed intelligence, he reveals the pretensions of academic critical theory and exposes the pedantry that dominates the field. Above the deafening bleats of what now passes for critical theory, Harris's book renews the faith that critique can once again be fused with emancipatory political purpose and the best traditions of modern reason.'Michael J. Thompson, Professor of Political Theory, William Paterson University

• Introduction: on the battle for critical theoryPart I: Social pathology and the crisis of critical theory1 Social pathology: the ‘explosive charge’ of critical theory2 Distorted by recognition3 Pathologies of recognitionPart II: Foundations of pathology diagnosing critique4 Rousseau and the foundations of pathology diagnosing social criticism5 Hegelian-Marxism: pathologies of reason, pathologies of productionPart III: A Fromm-Marcuse synthesis6 Erich Fromm and pathological normalcy7 The pathological normalcy of what? Towards a Fromm-Marcuse synthesisConclusion: the Frankfurt School beyond recognitionIndex