Rethinking the Communicative Turn, livre ebook

Assesses linguistic versus aesthetic visions of critical theory and their capacity to contribute to the analysis of contemporary democratic society.

Assesses linguistic versus aesthetic visions of critical theory and their capacity to contribute to the analysis of contemporary democratic society.

Contrasting aesthetic versus linguistic centered visions for critical theory and the analysis of contemporary democratic theory and society, Martin Morris draws special attention to the concept of communicative freedom. He problematizes the paradigm shift within critical theory from the "philosophy of the subject" to the communicative action theory championed by Jürgen Habermas by opposing Habermas's reconstruction of critical theory to that of Theodor W. Adorno.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Frankfurt School and Habermas: A Snapshot View
1.2 Conflicting Paradigmatic Issues
2. CRITICAL THEORY AND THE ECLIPSE OF 'IDEOLOGY': THE EARLY FRANKFURT VISION AND ITS TRANSFORMATION
2.1 The Program of Critical Theory and the Problem of 'Ideology' Critique
2.2 The Dialectic of Enlightenment
2.3 Concluding Remarks
3. HABERMAS AND THE CRITIQUE OF REIFICATION
3.1 The Habermasian Critique of Reification in Late Capitalism
3.2 Capitalism and Social Crisis
3.3 Real Abstraction and Ideology
3.4 Concluding Remarks
4. FROM THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH TO THE PARADOXES OF APORIA AND CONTRADICTION: HABERMAS AND ADORNO
4.1 The Primacy of Language-Use
4.2 Validity and the Ethical Force of Language-Use
4.3 The Performative Contradiction in the Radical Critique of Domination
4.4 A Concluding Note on Contradiction and Dialectic
5. RECOVERING THE ETHICAL AND POLITICAL FORCE OF ADORNO'S AESTHETIC-CRITICAL THEORY
5.1 The Priority of the Object and the Passion for Critique
5.2 Language and the Subject: Adorno
5.3 Art and the Recovery of Negativity and Non-Identity: Toward a Politics of the 'Mimetic Shudder'
6. CONCLUSION
Notes
Bibliography
Index