Social and Critical Theory – serie

Many commentators have noted the fertile new intellectual period Critique of Modernity opened up in the social theory of Alain Touraine, but until now its innovations have not been the subject of a sustained analysis. This work locates the wellsprings of Touraine’s renewed interpretive power in an implicit and unfinished, but unmistakable ‘hermeneutical turn.’ To deepen and extend his potent but only partly developed insights, the second part of the book develops his hermeneutical premises more explicitly, through a dialogue with the hermeneutical philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. The outcome is a critical hermeneutics of the subject, which opens new possibilities for theorising human agency and social creativity, and renews the project of critical theory.

The essays in Recognition, Work, Politics indicate the diversity and continuity of contemporary French critical theory concerning both the question of politics and its philosophical articulation. These themes are approached and addressed from directions that include post-structuralism, the paradigm of the gift, and post-marxism. Recognition, Work, Politics also highlights critical theories developed in France today that concentrate on the central issues of recognition and work. These themes highlight the renewed reception of German Critical Theory in contemporary French thought particularly around the project of recognition developed by Axel Honneth. Philosophers and social and critical theorists published in Recognition, Work, Politics include Etienne Balibar, Jacques Rancière, Axel Honneth, Christophe Dejours, Alain Caillé, Christian Lazzeri, Emmanuel Renault, Gérard Raulet and Yves Sintomer.

Music is a ubiquitous and hard to grasp cultural form. It is semiotically and aesthetically open-ended; yet even a 'non-musical' person is able to follow the basics of rhythmic structure and flow. Its presence in social and cultural life is further complicated by its multiple forms of existence - as both 'live' and 'technologically mediated', as self-referential language and as accompaniment to text, dance and other cultural expressions. This collection brings together philosophers, sociologists, musicologists and students of culture who theorize the multiple roles of music through cultural practices as diverse as opera and classical music, jazz and pop, avant-garde and DIY musical cultures, music festivals and isolated listening through the iPod, rock in urban heritage and the piano in contemporary Asian societies.

Axel Honneth: Critical Essays brings together a collection of critical interpretations on the work of Axel Honneth, from his earliest writings on philosophical anthropology, his reappraisal of critical theory and critique of post-structuralism, to the development and extension of the theory of recognition, his debate with Nancy Fraser and his most recent work on reification. The book also includes a comprehensive reply by Axel Honneth that not only addresses issues and concerns raised by his critics but also provides significant insights and clarifications into his project overall. The book will be essential reading for all those interested in Honneth’s work, and in critical theory, philosophy and social theory more generally.

One of the most vexing questions in contemporary political philosophy and social theory concerns the framework within which to undertake a normatively well-grounded, empirically attuned critique of capitalist society. This volume takes the debate forward by proposing a new framework that emphasizes the central anthropological significance of work (its role in constituting human subjectivity) as well as the role work has in the formation of social bonds. Drawing on the philosophy of Hegel and the post-Hegelian tradition of critical social theory, special attention is given to the significance of recognition in work, the problems of misrecognition generated in the present culture of capitalism, and the normative resources available for criticising it.

Aesthetic Capitalism debates the social aesthetics of contemporary economic processes. The book connects modern cultural dynamics with the workings of contemporary capitalism. It explores art and the new spirit of capitalism; visual culture and the experience economy; aesthetics and organisations; the art of fiscal management; capitalism without myth; and architecture in the age of aesthetic capitalism.Contributors include: Peter Murphy, Eduardo de la Fuente, Antonio Strati, Ken Friedman, Dominique Bouchet, Anders Michelsen, David Roberts, Carlo Tognato

Aesthetics is no longer the preserve of art historians and philosophers of art. Changes in society, culture, economy, urban dynamics and everyday life, push us towards considering the aesthetic components of traditionally non-aesthetic domains. Today it is not only legitimate but necessary to query the relationship between the social as a cohesive and encompassing form of community and human institutions and the aesthetic, that is the sensual, sensory, or, perhaps better, the sensible. Increasingly the social seems to emerge from the sensible and sentient meaning of objects. The volume SocioAesthetics: Ambience – Imaginary collects scholars from social science, aesthetics, arts, and cultural studies in case-driven debate, ranging from biometrics to luxury commodities, on how a new alignment of aesthetics and the social is possible and what the possible prospects of this may be.

Camus, Philosophe: To Return to our Beginnings is the first book on Camus to read Camus in light of, and critical dialogue with, subsequent French and European philosophy. It argues that, while not an academic philosopher, Albert Camus was a philosophe in more profound senses looking back to classical precedents, and the engaged French lumières of the 18th century. Aiming his essays and literary writings at the wider reading public, Camus’ criticism of the forms of ‘political theology’ enshrined in fascist and Stalinist regimes singles him out markedly from more recent theological and messianic turns in French thought. His defense of classical thought, turning around the notions of natural beauty, a limit, and mesure makes him a singularly relevant figure given today’s continuing debates about climate change, as well as the way forward for the post-Marxian Left.

Camus, Philosophe: To Return to Our Beginnings is the first book on Camus to read Camus in light of, and critical dialogue with, subsequent French and European philosophy. It argues that, while not an academic philosopher, Albert Camus was a philosophe in more profound senses looking back to classical precedents, and the engaged French lumières of the 18th century. Aiming his essays and literary writings at the wider reading public, Camus’ criticism of the forms of ‘political theology’ enshrined in fascist and Stalinist regimes singles him out markedly from more recent theological and messianic turns in French thought. His defense of classical thought, turning around the notions of natural beauty, a limit, and mesure makes him a singularly relevant figure given today’s continuing debates about climate change, as well as the way forward for the post-Marxian Left.

This book is a collection of recent lectures by Agnes Heller, delivered all over the world. These essays are edited and introduced by the author of the most significant intellectual biography of her work, John Grumley. In these lectures, Heller engages one of her greatest strengths: to discover philosophy within the very flux of contemporary events. These bring together such timely topics as refugees, human rights, truth in politics and the contemporary university as well as perennial issues like the possibility of artistic representation of the Holocaust, the question whether revolutions are always betrayed, and the possibility of universality in the contemporary multicultural world.

The book situates itself in the fields of philosophy, political theory, aesthetics and theories of art, linking its discussions of fictional dystopias to debates on ongoing crises. It asks: Are dystopias a useful tool for imagining ways out of sombre situations or do they prevent us from engaging in transformative action? The book consists of a thorough introduction and three major sections: 1. Dystopias of Meaninglessness, 2. Techno-Euphoria vs. Terror of Technology, and 3. Dystopias Come True?The individual chapters discuss, among other things, liberalism and conservatism, “luxury communism”, pandemics, technology-induced anxiety, empty speech, ethics, film, literature, architecture and music.

Stranger Cities explores the metaphysics of Australian society and the clash between its competing strands of romantic culture and classic civilization. The social expression, artistic resonance, economic significance, civic character, historic phases, mythic representations, creative antinomies, and imaginative contribution of these metaphysical fundamentals form the background of Australia’s distinctive urban civilization with its bustling stranger populations, ocean-facing portal cities, revealing art and architecture, and cyclical worlds of markets and industries, war and peace. Murphy portrays a classic eudemonic society whose dominant ethos of phlegmatic happiness vies with a subsidiary current of melancholic and choleric romanticism.

The pursuit of justice is an unending journey. It is the name of an impending promise that we always pray for, hope for, and sincerely desire but cannot quite see its fulfilment. Justice always encourages openness to the future and refuses to be confined to a particular definition. It occurs at different times with various demands and perspectives, and it cannot be reduced to a single definition and a single norm. This is precisely why this book consists of philosophical conversations that aim to expose the different faces of justice and to bring together the thoughts and concerns of thinkers talking about justice from different contexts. The interviews address issues such as God, ethics, otherness, anarchism, the refugee crisis, law, democracy and human rights in the framework of their relation to justice. The book is an invitation to everyone who wants to discuss the demands of justice in different contexts and witness the different faces of justice.

Modernity is stuck on an unsustainable course, which poses a challenge to both critical theory and praxis. My book develops a comprehensive diagnosis of the times by reviewing the rapidly growing field of critical theories that focus on structural paradoxes and social suffering. To address the complex challenges of the era of permacrisis, various emancipatory praxes are elaborated from the perspective of intersubjective (e.g., mimetic violence), technological (e.g., algorithmic reification), and discursive (e.g., cynical justification) distortions. In order to provide a synthetic framework, a new social contract is proposed, based on responsibility towards the particularistic other instead of universal justice.

The role of silence in democratic settings should be rehabilitated. Democratic theories are concerned with mechanisms and institutions that counteract silence in society. As a supplement to this, it is first demonstrated that we must not forget how silence determines the significance and meanings of utterances made. Secondly, that silence can be used as a critical tool to get better listening, more open conversations, and greater thoughtfulness in the public sphere. The widely recognized freedom of expression should thus be supplemented with a freedom of silence, a freedom to let silence disturb the discursive relevance criteria.