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Index
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
Note about translation
Introduction
Part One Critical Theory: The Frankfurt School
1 The formation of the Institute of Social Research
The Institute under Grünberg, 1923–9
The Institute and its programme under Max Horkheimer
The character of the Institute’s projects
Emigration
The post-war years
2 Class, class conflict and the development of capitalism: critical theory and political economy
Marx’s political economy as the foundation for critical social theory
Reflections on early twentieth century history
Capitalism and the authoritarian state
Rationalization: the rise of instrumental reason
Images of society and the prospects of revolutionary change
3 The culture industry: critical theory and aesthetics
The concepts of culture and art
Affirmation and negation in ‘autonomous’ art
The rise of mass culture and the culture industry
The produce of the culture industry: advertising aesthetics
Examples: television, astrology and music
Examples of modern art which resist assimilation
The changing structure of ideology
Further differences among Institute members
4 The changing structure of the family and the individual: critical theory and psychoanalysis
Erich Fromm
Wilhelm Reich
Concepts of human nature
Life and death in the works of Marcuse
The individual, family and society
Adorno’s essays on ego weakness and narcissism
Marcuse: the obsolescence of the Freudian concept of man?
Studies on prejudice and authoritarianism
Anti-Semitism
5 The critique of instrumental reason: critical theory and philosophy of history
Dialectic of Enlightenment: philosophical fragments towards a philosophy of history
The idea of reconciliation
Enlightenment and morality
Science, social science and positivism
6 Horkheimer’s formulation of critical theory: epistemology and method 1
Hegel
Feuerbach, Marx and materialism
The structure of critical theory
The critique of ideology
Interdisciplinary research
Theory and praxis
Post-war developments
7 Adorno’s conception of negative dialectics: epistemology and method 2
Differences between Horkheimer and Adorno
The critique of philosophy: initial orientation
Hegel, Benjamin and Nietzsche
Style
Negative dialectics: non-identity thinking
Negative dialectics and Marx’s theory of value
‘Meditations on metaphysics’
8 Marcuse’s notions of theory and practice: epistemology and method 3
Differences with Horkheimer and Adorno
The concept of critical theory
Stages of development
Heidegger and history
Reason and dialectics: Hegel
Foundations of historical materialism
Marxian dialectic
The integration of Freud
Nature and natural science
The nature of concepts: appearance and essence
Part Two Critical Theory: Habermas
9 Introduction to Habermas
Continuities and discontinuities with the Frankfurt school
Habermas’s project: overview of fundamental concepts
10 Discourse, science and society
The public sphere and the scientization of politics
Marx and historical materialism
Freud, social psychology and normative structures
Reconstruction of historical materialism
Crises and the development of capitalism
11 Interests, knowledge and action
The critique of knowledge
Positivism and the empirical-analytic sciences
The hermeneutic sciences
Psychoanalysis and emancipation
Rational reconstruction and critical self-reflection
12 The reformulation of the foundations of critical theory
Universal pragmatics
Theoretical and practical discourse
Critique and practical action
The structure of norms in advanced capitalism
Part Three The Importance and Limitations of Critical Theory
13 An assessment of the Frankfurt school and Habermas
A reply to Marxist critics
The economy, the polity and social struggle
14 The concept of critical theory
Adorno
Horkheimer
Marcuse
Habermas
Unresolved problems
Appendix The Odyssey
Notes and references
Select bibliography
Index
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