Critical Theory Today: On the Limits and Relevance of an Intellectual Tradition

Acknowledgements
About This Book
Contents
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Contributors
1 On the Crisis of Critique: Reformulating the Project of Critical Theory
	A Crisis of Critical Theory
	Post-Metaphysics and Neo-Idealism
	Paradigm Shift I: The Rise of Cybernetic Society
	Paradigm Shift II: The Post-Metaphysical Turn
	Towards a Critical Social Ontology
	References
2 An Anticolonial Deficit in Frankfurt School Critical Theory: A Need for a Decolonial Turn
	Introduction
	The Problem of Decolonizing Frankfurt School Critical Theory
	Understanding the Decolonial Challenge: Eurocentrism and Frankfurt School Critical Theory’s Anticolonial Deficit
	Notes
	References
3 Critical Condition
	What is the Purpose of Critical Theory?
	Is Critical Theory Still Possible?
	Conclusion
	References
4 Critical Theory, Political Modernity and Sociological Modernity
	Introduction
	Critical Theory and Mixed Constitutions
	Collective Learning in the Democratic Lifeworld, East and West: The Run up to the Velvet Revolutions and the Legacies of the Treaties of Maastricht and Lisbon
	Social Systems and Systemic Environments: Collective Learning in the Post-1989 Democratic Lifeworld in Question
	Re-Thinking the Relations Between the Delimiting and Enabling Dimensions of Democratic Statehood After Communicative Action
	Works Cited
5 Erich Fromm and Contemporary Critical Theory
	Introduction
	Contemporary Critical Theory is in Crisis
		Political
		Philosophical
		Social Theoretical
	Fromm’s Key Interventions
		Pathological Normalcy
		Socially Patterned Defects
		Normative Humanism
	Fromm as a Rejuvenating Force for Critical Theory Today
		Lost Marxist Insights
		Fromm’s Normative-Objectivity
		Humanist Psychoanalysis
	Conclusion
	Notes
	References
6 The Uses of Marx’s Value-Theoretical Concept of Reproduction for Social Reproduction Theory
	Introduction
	A Value-Theoretical Reading of Capital’s Reproduction
	The Money-Form: The Medium of Reproduction of Capital’s Abstract Forms
	Interruptions: Duration of Turnover Time
	Finance Capital and the Reproduction of the Whole of Capital’s Social Relations
	SRT and Concrete Limits to capital’s Accumulation
	Conclusion
	Notes
	References
7 Abandonment or Liberation? Anorexia, Refusal of Treatment, and the Limits of Proceduralism
	Introduction
	Some Data on Anorexia
	The MCA’s Solution
	Giordano’s Solution
	Christman’s Solution
	Overcoming Proceduralism
	Fine-Grained Values
	Dialogical Answerability
	Conclusion
	Notes
8 Responding to Precarity: Ethics and Mediation in Butler and Adorno
	Introduction
	The Precarity of Wrong Life
	Ethics and Relationality
	Insurrectionary Ontology and Social Critique
	Mediation
	Constellations
	Conclusion
	Notes
	References
9 Re-thinking Social Transformation: Utopian Consciousness Within Critical Theory—Covid-19, “The New Normal” and “Dreams of a Better Life”
	Social Critique and Social Transformation in Light of Covid-19
	The “New Normal”: The Current Impasse in Critical Theory Brought to Light
	Ernst Bloch and “Dreams of a Better Life” as a Way Out of the Crisis
	The “New Normal”: Utopian Consciousness as an Opportunity for Socio-political Change
	Covid-19 and the Confrontation with Death: From Despair and on Towards Hope
	Re-thinking Social Transformation: Utopian Consciousness Within Critical Theory
	Notes
	References
10 Beyond Post-Truth: Critical Theory and the Possibility of Radical Enlightenment
	Introduction
	What is Post-Truth?
	Post-Truth Theory as a Traditional Theory
	The Problems with Post-Truth Theory as Traditional Thinking
		The Limits of “Neutral” Explanation
		The Myth of Rational Normality
		The Truth in Post-Truth
	Beyond Post-Truth: Critical Theory
	Notes
	Bibliography
11 Totality, Malaise and Agitation: Towards a Critical Theory of Authoritarian Politics
	Introduction
	The Limitations of Contemporary Theoretical Debates About the Populist and Far Right
	Revisiting the Studies of Fascism by the Early Institute of Social Research
		Totality: The Systematicity of Social Relationships
		Malaise: The Ambivalent Experience of Totality
		Agitation: The Regressive Mobilisation of Malaise
	Conclusion
	Notes
	Bibliography
12 Adorno’s Exaggerations and the Limits of Social Pathology Critique
	Notes
	Bibliography
13 Towards a Post-capitalist Horizon of Possibility. Mark Fisher, the Renewal of Critical Theory of Society for the Twenty-First Century
	Introduction
	Re-Drawing the Limits of the Possible
	Critical Theory in Britain
	The New Left, Cultural Studies, and Popular Modernism
	1968–1979: Missed Opportunities
	Left Melancholia and the Postmodern Interregnum
	From Capitalist Realism to Post-Capitalist Desires
	Back to the Future? Beyond Left Melancholia: A Popular Cultural Theory
	Notes
	Bibliographys