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Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)
Dialectic of Enlightenment is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism." Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization. Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book. This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory. .
Price: $19.80
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Critical Theory (Critical Theory Ppr)
These essays, written in the 1930s and 1940s, represent a first selection in English from the major work of the founder of the famous Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. Horkheimer's writings are essential to an understanding of the intellectual background of the New Left and the to much current social-philosophical thought, including the work of Herbert Marcuse. Apart from their historical significance and even from their scholarly eminence, these essays contain an immediate relevance only now becoming fully recognized..
Price: $26.94
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Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas
The writings of the critical theorists caught the imagination of students and intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s. They became a key element in the formation and self-understanding of the New Left, and have been the subject of continuing controversy. Partly because of their rise to prominence during the political turmoil of the sixties, and partly because they draw on traditions rarely studied in the Anglo-American world, the works of these authors are often misunderstood. In this book David Held provides a much-needed introduction to, and evaluation of, critical theory. He is concerned mainly with the thought of the Frankfurt school--Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, in particular--and with Habermas, one of Europe's leading contemporary thinkers. Several of the major themes considered are critical theory's relation to Marx's critique of the political economy, Freudian psychoanalysis, aesthetics, and the philosophy of history. There is also a discussion of critical theory's substantive contribution to the analysis of capitalism, culture, the family, and the individual, as well as its contribution to epistemology and methodology. Held's book will be necessary reading for all concerned with understanding and evaluating one of the most influential intellectual movements of our time..
Price: $26.95
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Eclipse Of Reason
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Stargazing with Jack Horkheimer: Cosmic Comics for the Sky Watcher
The vast night sky holds a special attraction for young readers, and Stargazing with Jack Horkheimer: Cosmic Comics for the Sky Watcher captures that sense of wonder in words and pictures Jack, whose monthly cartoon “Stargazing with Jack Horkheimer,” has been a popular feature in Odyssey Magazine for many years, appears in animated form. As his human counterpart does in real life at the Miami Space Transit Planetarium, this cartoon Jack guides youngsters into space, helping them to explore the amazing lore and science of the moon, the sun, the planets and constellations, and other objects visible in the night sky. The book also introduces the basic concepts of stargazing and mind-boggling facts — all presented from the viewpoint of Jack and his quirky cast of cartoon characters. Individual chapters cover “The Bright Stars and the Patterns They Make,” “Seasonal Star Watching,” and seasonal sky changes. Included are more than 50 cosmic comics, seasonal star-watching activities, star charts, tips for the best sky-watching, and an astronomy glossary and index. .
Price: $12.40
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Consequences of Enlightenment (Literature, Culture, Theory, 30)
What is the relationship between contemporary intellectual culture and the European Enlightenment? In Consequences of Enlightenment, Anthony Cascardi revisits the arguments advanced in Horkheimer and Adorno's seminal work Dialectic of Enlightenment. Cascardi argues that postmodern culture does not reject Enlightenment beliefs and explores the link between aesthetics and politics in thinkers as diverse as Habermas, Derrida, Arendt, Nietzsche, Hegel and Wittgenstein. He reverses the tendency to see art simply in terms of the worldly practices among which it is situated. Aesthetic objects, he argues, are themselves capable of disclosing truth..
Price: $69.89
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The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
In this rich interpretation of the history of critical theory, Axel Hormeth clarifies critical theory's central problems and emphasizes the social factors that should provide it with a normative and practical orientation. Axel Honneth is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Konstanz..
Price: $20.00
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Between Philosophy and Social Science: Selected Early Writings (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Max Horkheimer is well known as the director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research and as a sometime collaborator with Theodor Adorno, especially on their classic Dialectic of Enlightenment. These essays receal another side of Horkheimer, focusing on his remarkable contributions to critical theory in the 1930s. Included are Horkheimer's inaugural address as director of the Institute, in which he outlines the interdisciplinary research program that would dominate the initial phase of the Frankfurt School; his first full monograph; and a number ofother pieces published in the 1930s. The essays, most of which have not appeared in English before, are surprisingly relevant to current postphilosophy debates, notably "On the Problem of Truth," with its focus on pragmatism, and "The Rationalism Debate in Current Philosophy," a sustained critique of post-Cartesian philosophy of consciousness. There arealso essays relevant to the current foundations debate within Continental philosophy. And the question of rationality versus relativism is sustained throughout the volume..
Price: $30.20
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