Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism PDF full book. Access full book title Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism by Agnes Heller. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Agnes Heller
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000948730
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 499
Get Book Here
Book Description
Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism provides a theoretical construction to the extraordinary events of the past several years in Europe and the Soviet Union, and China. These masterful essays attribute much of the problem of totalitarianism to its blind acceptance of a Marxist philosophy of practice. With the failure of communist practice, the collapse of the Marxian paradigm was quick to follow.At its roots this volume is a critique of the idea that we can have "scientific knowledge" of the social and political future. Totalitarian Marxism combined statements of history and claims of omniscience. Free choice was surrendered to history, and when the predicted outcomes fail to materialize, when communism came closer to being buried than capitalism, and western ideals of democracy proved far more compelling than inherited doctrines of authoritarianism, the outcome proved monumental and disastrous.The authors position themselves as evolving from critical Marxism to post-Marxism, and then post modernism. By this, they mean a modest view of life, one that moves beyond radical universalism and grand narrative, into a realization of individualism and equity concerns are central to the end of the twentieth century. The volume proceeds historically: from studies of the classic Marxian legacy; to the early twentieth century efforts of Lukacs, Weber and Adorno; proceeding to the disintegration of the Marxian paradigm in both its pure and revisionist forms. It ends with a study of options posed by this paradigmatic collapse - to consideration of the status of postmodernity and the choices between pure relativism and a theological fundamentalism. ,This is a work of absolute importance for political philosophy, the sociology of knowledge, and the history of ideas. In raising recent events to a theoretically meaningful framework, it represents a refreshing as well as remarkable step toward understanding Revolutions from 1789 to 1989.
Author: Agnes Heller
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000948730
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 499
Get Book Here
Book Description
Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism provides a theoretical construction to the extraordinary events of the past several years in Europe and the Soviet Union, and China. These masterful essays attribute much of the problem of totalitarianism to its blind acceptance of a Marxist philosophy of practice. With the failure of communist practice, the collapse of the Marxian paradigm was quick to follow.At its roots this volume is a critique of the idea that we can have "scientific knowledge" of the social and political future. Totalitarian Marxism combined statements of history and claims of omniscience. Free choice was surrendered to history, and when the predicted outcomes fail to materialize, when communism came closer to being buried than capitalism, and western ideals of democracy proved far more compelling than inherited doctrines of authoritarianism, the outcome proved monumental and disastrous.The authors position themselves as evolving from critical Marxism to post-Marxism, and then post modernism. By this, they mean a modest view of life, one that moves beyond radical universalism and grand narrative, into a realization of individualism and equity concerns are central to the end of the twentieth century. The volume proceeds historically: from studies of the classic Marxian legacy; to the early twentieth century efforts of Lukacs, Weber and Adorno; proceeding to the disintegration of the Marxian paradigm in both its pure and revisionist forms. It ends with a study of options posed by this paradigmatic collapse - to consideration of the status of postmodernity and the choices between pure relativism and a theological fundamentalism. ,This is a work of absolute importance for political philosophy, the sociology of knowledge, and the history of ideas. In raising recent events to a theoretically meaningful framework, it represents a refreshing as well as remarkable step toward understanding Revolutions from 1789 to 1989.
Author: Joseph Gabel
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412825825
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Get Book Here
Book Description
Thirty-five years ago Joseph Gabel pubÂlished a modern masterpiece, which in 1975 appeared in English as False ConÂsciousness: An Essay on Reificalion . Combining his special knowledge of existential psychiatry, axiology, MarxÂism, and political history, Gabel proÂposed the utterly novel idea that victims of serious mental disturbances (espeÂcially paranoia and schizophrenia) reÂproduce those distorted thought patÂterns commonly associated with ideoÂlogical beliefs at the collective level. Such beliefs initially had been laid bare in the 1920s by Gabel's intellectual progenitors, Karl Mannheim and George Lukacs. Gabel's remarkable innovation was to transfer the private crisis of mental collapse into the analytic frameÂwork previously reserved for ideological critique, making him an expert on what was later called "the micro-macro probÂlem." Ideologies and the Corruption of Thought includes Gabel's essays over the last 40 years, characteristically treating micro and macro theoretical matters simultaneously. Originally writÂten in French and German, they have been recast in idiomatic English and bibliographically updated. Using a unique mode and vocabulary of analyÂsis, Gabel offers theoretical investigaÂtions of McCarthyism and Stalinism (original and more recent types), as well as Althusser, Orwell, and Jonathan Swift in his capacity as a psychiatric theorist. He also explores anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, and a fascinating case study of a paranoid who regarded himÂself as the pope. In addition this volume includes a range of general commentarÂies on ideological "thought," utopianism, and false consciousness. This rich feast of social and political analysis and theory illuminates a range of contemporary concernsâracism, Utopian fantasy, ethnocentrism, anti-Semitism, the interplay of social strucÂture and mental illness, and ideological transformations of social lifeâwhich only Gabel's unique mixture of the cliniÂcal and the political could achieve. It will be studied with interest by all theoÂrists and politically alert readers in the social sciences, philosophy, and related fields of study.
Author: John Rundell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315472430
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 507
Get Book Here
Book Description
Critical Theories and the Budapest School brings together new perspectives on the Budapest School in the context of contemporary developments in critical theory. Engaging with the work of the prominent group of figures associated with Georg Lukács, this book sheds new light on the unique and nuanced critiques of modernity offered by this school, informed as its members’ insights have been by first-hand experiences of Nazism, Soviet-type societies, and the liberal-democratic West. With studies of topics central to contemporary critical theory, such as the political and historical consciousness of modernity, the importance of bio-politics, the complexity of the human condition, and the relevance of comedy and friendship to developing critical perspectives, the authors draw on the works of Ágnes Heller, Maria Márkus, György Márkus, and Ferenc Fehér, demonstrating their enduring relevance to critical theory today and the ways in which these philosophers can inform new perspectives on culture and politics. An innovative reassessment of the Budapest School and the importance of its legacy, this book opens a much-needed and neglected dialogue with other schools and traditions of critical theorizing that will be of interest to scholars of sociology, philosophy, and social theory.
Author: Peter Pericles Trifonas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317248678
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Get Book Here
Book Description
The varying interests of competing minority groups often part company with regard to how to achieve an equitable community. Worlds of Difference rethinks the traditional interpretation of the principle of educational equity in light of this difficulty. Theorists and educational practitioners influenced by many disparate schools of thought reflect upon the possibilities of a "curriculum of difference" in relation to questions of language, culture, and media at the forefront of global education issues today. Collectively, the authors argue that education in theory and practice must reawaken an ethical consciousness that affirms the negative values of difference, but still recognizes the uniqueness and particularity of each group.
Author: Teppo Eskelinen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786999587
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 173
Get Book Here
Book Description
The Revival of Political Imagination offers a unique examination of the methodological aspects of utopia. Discussing utopia as a tool for social criticism, method and imaginative spaces - rather than in terms of its content - this volume analyses the function of utopias, to develop utopias as methodology and to show how instrumental utopian modes of thought can be in such diverse fields such as education, labour, and housing. Including discussions of traditional and contemporary utopias, as well as various forms of expression of utopian hope, from literature to social science and cultural practices, The Revival of Political Imagination is both analytical and practical in its elucidation of how political theory can function to foster our imaginative skills.
Author: Eduardo Mendieta
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0742569438
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Get Book Here
Book Description
Karl-Otto Apel is one of the most important German philosophers of the 20th century, and is finally coming to be recognized as such. However, his work is still poorly understood and inadequately treated throughout most of the world. In The Adventures of Transcendental Philosophy, critical theory scholar Eduardo Mendieta examines the philosophical origins of discourse ethics through the prism of Apel's thought. Mendieta finds that Apel fundamentally transformed German philosophy, which had become stagnant in the years before World War II, and deeply influenced later thinkers such as JYrgen Habermas. Apel's turn toward pragmatism and analytic philosophy helped him bring the concept of a linguistic paradigm shift to Germany.
Author: M. Cowling
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230518761
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Get Book Here
Book Description
This collection investigates the "state of play" in studies informed by Marxism. Among other contributions, it includes an essay on state theory by Bob Jessop, a discussion of fundamental socialist values using analytical Marxism by Alan Carling.
Author: Simon Tormey
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719060380
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Get Book Here
Book Description
This thorough examination of Agnes Heller's political thought covers a range of subjects, from Marxian anthropology, through aesthetics, the philosophy of history, ethical socialism, postmodernism, and the political forms of the modern state. Simon Tormey treats Heller's work historically and thematically, placing it in a postmodern, 21st-century context.
Author: Lucy Jane Ward
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739189778
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Get Book Here
Book Description
Ward’s book focuses on the work of the Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller; prominent member of the Budapest School, a group of students who studied under the Marxist social theorist György Lukács. For both Marx and Heller (albeit in different ways) dissatisfaction emerges as the inevitable result of the expansion of need(s) within modernity and as a catalyst for the development of anthropological wealth (what Marx refers to as the 'human being rich in need'). Ward argues that dissatisfaction and the corresponding category of human wealth–as both motif and method–is central to grasping Heller’s seemingly disparate writings. While Marx postulates a radical overcoming of dissatisfaction, Heller argues dissatisfaction is integral not only to the on-going survival of modernity but also to the dynamics of both freedom and individual life. In this way Heller’s work remains committed to a position that both continually returns and departs, is both with and against, the philosophy of Marx. This book will be of interest to scholars of political philosophy, social theory, critical theory, and sociology.
Author: George Ritzer
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1452265461
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1053
Get Book Here
Book Description
Click ′Additional Materials′ for downloadable samples The Encyclopedia of Social Theory is an indispensable reference source for anyone interested in the roots of contemporary social theory. It examines the global landscape of all the key theories and the theorists behind them, presenting them in the context needed to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Theories covered include • Critical Theory • Enlightenment • Ethnomethodology • Exchange Theory • Feminism • Marxist Theory • Multiculturalism • Phenomenology • Postmodernism • Rational Choice • Structural Fundamentalism Led by internationally renowned scholar George Ritzer, the Encyclopedia of Social Theory draws together a team of more than 200 international scholars covering the developments, achievements, and prospects of social theory from its inception in the 18th century to the present. Understanding that social theory can both explain and alter the social world, this two-volume set serves as not only a foundation for learning, but also an inspiration for creative and reflexive engagement with the rich range of ideas it contains. Key Themes • American Social Theory • British Social Theory • Comparative and Historical Theory • Cultural Theory • Economic Sociology • Feminist Theory • French Social Theory • German Social Theory • Macrosociological Theories • Marxist and Neo-Marxist Approaches • Method and Metatheory • Network and Exchange Theories • Other/Multiple National Traditions • Politics and Government • Postmodern Theory • Psychoanalytic Theory • Schools and Theoretical Approaches • Symbolic Interaction and Microsociology • Theorists • Topics and Concepts in Social Theory Key Features • More than 300 entries from fourteen countries • Master Bibliography • Reader′s Guide • Extensive biographical coverage of major theorists • Extensive cross-referencing
