Abstract

The Critical Turn undertakes a refutation of contemporary philosophical skepticism, focusing on the theories of Richard Rorty, Lyotard, Foucault, Kuhn, and Feyerabend, among others. The author shows how dogmatism and skepticism were together rendered obsolete in the eighteenth century by the "critical turn" of Kant and Herder, and again in the first half of the twentieth century by Wittgenstein. A provocative study of the importance of a partially neglected strain of the German philosophical tradition for contemporary American critical theory, the book will have a great impact on future discussions of German and American critical thought.