Abstract
Much has been written about the lack of foundations for the critical method. In keeping with its original purpose, however, critical theory requires foundations very different from those demanded by traditional theory. This chapter begins by highlighting the transformative project of critical theory and the preconditions for privileging this kind of interpretation. Recent trends toward the metaphysics of “recognition” or insistence upon the “pragmatic universals” of language need to make way for a concern with uncovering the conflict-ridden constitution of the historical totality, or what Marx termed the “ensemble of social relations,” and how any transformative project rests on illuminating the ways in which freedom is linked with necessity.
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Notes
- 1.
This chapter complements an earlier study of mine, Bronner (2002).
- 2.
Note the discussion in Bronner (2011, 1ff).
- 3.
Note the excellent discussion in Krausz (2015, 306ff).
- 4.
In 1917, when Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks, the tradeoff was clear: Trotsky embraced Lenin’s notion of the vanguard party while Lenin endorsed Trotsky’s idea of the permanent revolution that essentially fused the bourgeois with the proletarian stage in reference to the Revolution of 1905. See Trotsky (2014).
- 5.
Affirming the claims of Karl Kautsky and his orthodox followers, Gramsci notes: “Events have exploded the critical schema determining how the history of Russia would unfold according to the canons of historical materialism. The Bolsheviks reject Karl Marx, and their explicit actions and conquests bear witness that the canons of historical materialism are not so rigid as might have been and has been thought.” Gramsci (1977, 34ff).
- 6.
“The leap into the open air of history is the dialectical leap Marx understood as revolution” is noted approvingly while “For every second was the small gateway in time through which the Messiah might enter” is the concluding line of the famous aphorism of Benjamin (2003, Volume 4, 395, 397).
- 7.
Intellectuals rather than workers were most drawn to radical political ideals according to the classic study of social democratic party organization by Michels (1963, 52ff, 167fff, and passim).
- 8.
See the discussion in Wiggershaus (1994, 14ff).
- 9.
Note the inaugural lecture by Horkheimer (1989, 25ff).
- 10.
Note the new edition of Horkheimer and Adorno (2002).
- 11.
Horkheimer (1989a, Volume 13, 571).
- 12.
Nietzsche would later be termed by Horkheimer “the most radical enlightenment figure in all of philosophy.” And in the general indeterminate way in which Horkheimer used the term “enlightenment” that might even be true. In terms of the values and political ideas deriving from the actual movement, however, such a claim is nonsense. Here, the unfortunate consequences of using one term in two very different ways becomes apparent. Horkheimer (1989a, 574).
- 13.
It is important to understand that this theme is ongoing in his thought and Leo Lowenthal, his close friend and associate, stated more than once that Adorno’s motto is “don’t participate.” Indeed, much like Kierkegaard, Adorno can claim: “The value of a thought is valued by its distance from the continuity of the familiar. It is objectively devalued as this distance is reduced … For the intellectual, inviolable isolation is now the only way of showing some measure of solidarity. All collaboration, all the human worth of social mixing and participation, merely masks a tacit acceptance of inhumanity.” Adorno (2006: 80, 26).
- 14.
The justification for this category can be found in Pollock (1989, 95ff).
- 15.
Originally written as an appendix to Negative Dialectics, it is Adorno’s critique of existentialism and particularly Heidegger for individuating rather than rendering the subject unique in his or her subjectivity. This is a questionable argument not only because Heidegger’s ontology rests on the claim that “Being unto Death” is always “mine” but because the same critique can be directed at Adorno himself. See Adorno (2003).
- 16.
This is initially what led the young Herbert Marcuse to attempt formulating a “concrete philosophy” by grounding Marx’s historical materialism in Heidegger’s phenomenological category of “historicity.” Note the excellent compilation of essays in Marcuse (2005) and also the classic written (ironically) by Lenin’s philosophical mentor Plekahnov (1898).
- 17.
This would lead Adorno to stress the uniqueness of his position on non-identity and subjectivity against those of possible competitors whose ultimate conclusions are not as different from his own as he and many of his followers would like to think. Note not only Adorno (1989) but also Adorno (1994) that might well be compared with Heidegger (1970).
- 18.
To be fair, however, Adorno was insistent that “the less identity can be subsumed between subject and object, the more contradictory are the demands made upon the cognitive subject, upon its unfettered strength and candid reflection.” Adorno (1972, 31).
- 19.
Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from a Damaged Life trans. E.F.N Jephcott (London: New Left Books, 1974), 16.
- 20.
Note the early complementary qualitative and quantitative studies by Adorno and then Pollock and Adorno (2010-2011).
- 21.
Note the succinct formulation in Habermas (1989, 136ff).
- 22.
This becomes clear from “The University in a Democracy” and “Student Protest in the Federal Republic of Germany” in Habermas (1987).
- 23.
Note Bronner (2016).
- 24.
There is an expanded discussion in Bronner (2012, 1ff, 145ff).
- 25.
Unsurpassed remains what was probably the first review by Marcuse (1973).
- 26.
Note the seminal work by Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason (London: Continuum, 2004)
- 27.
“The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation but not as sensuous activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in contradistinction to materialism, was developed by idealism – but only abstractly since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such … (Neither can—SEB) grasp the significance of ‘revolutionary,’ of ‘practical-critical’ activity.” See the first of Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach” 1:13.
- 28.
Note the collection edited by Michael J. Thompson, Rational Radicalism and Political Theory: Essays in Honor of Stephen Eric Bronner (Lanham Mass: Lexington, 2010).
- 29.
“Three questions have to be faced in the analysis of the roots of political power: the conceptual framework has to be established; the institutional setting to be clarified; and the historical process to be understood which leads to a change in institutions and different attitudes toward power and to a different political behavior.” Neumann (1957, 11).
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Bronner, S.E. (2017). Critical Theory and Resistance: On Antiphilosophy and the Philosophy of Praxis. In: Thompson, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory. Political Philosophy and Public Purpose. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55801-5_2
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