Concrete Critical Theory

William S. Lewis is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Media and Film Studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. He has published in political philosophy, American pragmatism and philosophy of the social sciences, including the book Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism (Lexington, 2005).

• Acknowledgements1 Introduction1  Concrete Analysis and Frankfurt School Critical Theory2  Methodology3  Structure the Book2 ‘But Didn’t He Kill His Wife?’1  The Duty to Cite2  Countervailing Harms3  External and Internal Approaches4  A Duty to Speak and to Respond3 Althusser’s Scientism1  Definition of Althusser’s Scientism2  Althusser’s (Mostly) Consistent Scientism: 1960–19803  Althusser 1982–1987: Marxist Philosophy without Marxist Science?4  An Aleatory Materialism Consistent with Marxist Science?5  Conclusion4 Historical Materialism and Concrete Analysis1  The Theoretical and Political Context for Concrete Analysis2  Althusser’s Original Formulation of Concrete Analysis3  Critique of Concrete Analysis4  Reconstructing Concrete Analysis5  Historical Materialism and Critical Theory5 ‘Class as Concrete and Normative’Introduction1  Gender Theories2  Marxian Class Theories3  Trait/Norm Covariant Class Model6 Separating Racist Science from Racial Science1  Separating Science from Ideology2  Critical Technique Defined3  Critical Technique Applied7 Manipulation of Consent and Deliberative Democracy1  Deliberation from Procedural to Feasible2  Obstacles to Deliberation3  Overcoming Obstacles4  Insurmountable Obstacles?8 Cosmopolitanism and Class Erasure1  Against a ‘Cosmopolitanism of Fear’2  Reconstruction of Althusser’s Anti-Cosmopolitan Argument3  Contemporary Cosmopolitanisms4  Critique of Moral and Cultural CosmopolitanismsWorks CitedIndex