This is a study of the epistemological theory of Theodor Adorno.

Political Freedom By George G. Brenkert Routledge, 1991. Pp. 278. ISBN 0–415–03372–1. £35 hbk.Wittgenstein: A Bibliographical Guide By Guido Frongia and Brian McGuinness Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. x + 438. ISBN 00631–13765–3. £60.00.Metaphysics By Peter van Inwagen Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. xiii + 222. ISBN 0–19–8751400. £11.95 pbk.The Nature of Moral Thinking By Francis Snare Routledge, 1992. Pp. 187. ISBN 0–415–04709–9. £9.99 pbk.Filosofía analitica hoy: Encuentro de tradiciones Edited by Mercedes Torrevejano Servicio de Publications Universidade de Santiago de (...) Compostela, 1991. Pp. 284. ISBN 84–7191–722‐X. $15.5 pbk.The Puzzle of Experience By J.J. Valberg Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. 227. ISBN 0–19–824291–3. £25.Religion and Philosophy Edited by Martin Warner Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 31 Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. vi + 155. ISBN 0–521–42951‐X. £10.95 pbk.The Uses of Philosophy By Mary Warnock Blackwell, 1992. Pp. 256. ISBN 0–631–18038–9. £35.00 hbk. £11.95 pbk.The Disappearance of Time: Kurt Godel and the Idealistic Tradition in Philosophy By Palle Yourgrau Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. x + 182. ISBN 0–521–41012–6. £27.50. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno was one of the foremost philosophers and social theorists of the post-war period. Crucial to the development of Critical Theory, his highly original and distinctive but often difficult writings not only advance questions of fundamental philosophical significance, but provide deep-reaching analyses of literature, art, music sociology and political theory. In this comprehensive introduction, Brian O’Connor explains Adorno’s philosophy for those coming to his work for the first time, through original new lines of interpretation. Beginning with an (...) overview of Adorno’s life and key philosophical views and influences, which contextualizes the intellectual environment in which he worked, O’Connor assesses the central elements of Adorno’s philosophy. He carefully examines Adorno’s distinctive style of analysis and shows how much of his work is a critical response to the various forms of identity thinking that have underpinned the destructive forces of modernity. He goes on to discuss the main areas of Adorno’s philosophy: social theory, the philosophy of experience, metaphysics, morality and aesthetics; setting out detailed accounts of Adorno’s notions of the dialectic of Enlightenment, reification, totality, mediation, identity, nonidentity, experience, negative dialectics, immanence, freedom, autonomy, imitation and autonomy in art. The final chapter considers Adorno’s philosophical legacy and importance today. Including a chronology, glossary, chapter summaries, and suggestions for further reading, _Adorno_ is an ideal introduction to this demanding but important thinker, and essential reading for students of philosophy, literature, sociology and cultural studies. (shrink)

An analysis of how Adorno's "pure" philosophy can be seen to provide a justification of the rationality required by critical theory.

For millennia, idleness and laziness have been regarded as vices. We're all expected to work to survive and get ahead, and devoting energy to anything but labor and self-improvement can seem like a luxury or a moral failure. Far from questioning this conventional wisdom, modern philosophers have worked hard to develop new reasons to denigrate idleness. In Idleness, the first book to challenge modern philosophy's portrayal of inactivity, Brian O'Connor argues that the case against an indifference to work (...) and effort is flawed--and that idle aimlessness may instead allow for the highest form of freedom. -/- Idleness explores how some of the most influential modern philosophers drew a direct connection between making the most of our humanity and avoiding laziness. Idleness was dismissed as contrary to the need people have to become autonomous and make whole, integrated beings of themselves (Kant); to be useful (Kant and Hegel); to accept communal norms (Hegel); to contribute to the social good by working (Marx); and to avoid boredom (Schopenhauer and de Beauvoir). -/- O'Connor throws doubt on all these arguments, presenting a sympathetic vision of the inactive and unserious that draws on more productive ideas about idleness, from ancient Greece through Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Schiller and Marcuse's thoughts about the importance of play, and recent critiques of the cult of work. A thought-provoking reconsideration of productivity for the twenty-first century, Idleness shows that, from now on, no theory of what it means to have a free mind can exclude idleness from the conversation. (shrink)

There are different ways of responding to the absence of a shared physical causal core among the range of mental disorders currently recognized by the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Obviously enough, some of the listed disorders are not physically explicable in principle, while others are merely likely to be biological in origin. Only a minority of disorders can be explained as the outcomes of impaired biological function, (...) and in some of those cases biological explanations capture their phenomena little more than partially. Psychiatry nevertheless is perceived as and understands itself... (shrink)

The course of German Idealism, which lasted from Kant to Schelling, is one of the most important and influential periods in the history of philosophy. _The Routledge Handbook of German Idealism_ is a superb resource for all students and scholars of the movement. Its twelve specially commissioned thematic chapters, all written by experts in the area, cover the essential aspects of German idealism, including Knowledge, nature, freedom and morality, law, history, religion, art and the European legacy of German idealism. In (...) addition to providing essential background to the thought of the period’s most important philosophers, Kant, Hegel, Fichte and Schelling, it also covers philosophers such as Herder, Holderlin, and Schleiermacher. Clearly written, it is accessible to any student of philosophy as well as those in other disciplines with an interest in German idealism, nineteenth century philosophy and continental philosophy. (shrink)

This essay will provide a comparative analysis of themes at work in both Jacques Derrida and Félix Ravaisson. By putting these thinkers in dialogue will I believe offers valuable insights into questions of deconstruction and vitalism. I will examine Derrida’s remarks on Ravaisson in On Touching: Jean Luc Nancy, and use his thoughts as a way of explaining the similarities and differences between Derrida and Ravaisson and thus of Derrida’s proximity to and distance from the vitalist tradition. I will also (...) be able to demonstrate the conceptual requirements and conditions for thinking how deconstruction operates, casting light on the ways in which deconstruction offers the conceptual resources to think a general theory of bodies and identities. (shrink)

Using the symbiotic sustainability model as a framework, this research investigates how many and with which businesses top nonprofit organizations report partnerships. We examined the websites of the 122 largest, most recognizable U.S. nonprofits. These websites included information about 2,418 business–nonprofit partnerships with 1,707 unique businesses. The results suggest key differences with previous research on how U.S. Fortune 500 companies report B2N partnerships. Leading nonprofits report more B2N partnerships than U.S. Fortune 500 companies do. Furthermore, nonprofits do not maintain industry (...) exclusivity in reporting B2N partnerships, like their business counterparts do. Finally, social issue industries do not exert the same isomorphic pressures on B2N partnerships that economic industries do. New propositions that extend the symbiotic sustainability model are presented to account for nonprofits’ unique goals for capital accumulation in B2N partnering and the industry characteristics. (shrink)

O'Connor and Wyatt use more than 250 color photographs and illustrations to help us break out of the linear mode and see the world differently.

Patrick O'Connor's contribution brings us back to the question with which this issue started, namely whether, after Husserl, phenomenology can still profit from a thinking of the epoché. In There is no World Without End : Derrida's Phenomenology of the Extra-Mundane O'Connor brings out the radicality of Jacques Derrida's philosophy with respect to a thinking of 'world'. Developing key Husserlian and Heideggerian themes to broaden Husserl's phenomenological theory of consciousness, Derrida's early work, according to O'Connor, assesses (...) the capacity of the phenomenological reduction to escape the mundane natural attitude. While working through phenomenology, Derrida still remains a post-phenomenological thinker, arriving at a more ontological albeit differential expression of phenomena. O'Connor then isolates the manner in which Derrida discusses phenomenological concepts such as the sensible and the intelligible, the natural attitude, immanence and transcendence, intentionality and finitude in order to reflect on how consciousness is pre-reflectively constituted by an irreducible intersection with the 'world' and the loss of world. O'Connor demonstrates that throughout his career, from his earliest work on genesis to his last works on spectrality and touch, Derrida always remained faithful to this centrality of a suspension of the phenomenologically mundane world. (shrink)

The core argument of the paper is that the modern philosophical notion of self-constitution is directed against the prospect of human beings dissolving into idleness. Arguments for self-constitution are marked by non-philosophical presuppositions about the value of usefulness. Those arguments also assume a particular conception of superior experience as conscious integration of a person’s actions within an identifiable set of chosen commitments. Exploring particular arguments by Hegel, Kant, Korsgaard and Frankfurt the paper claims that those arguments are problematic in the (...) various ways in which they suppose usefulness and explicitly or implicitly take extra-philosophical views of idleness. (shrink)

In drawing out the relationship between German idealism and critical theory on the question of reason’s autonomy I will concentrate on Adorno’s criticisms of transcendental idealism as it is the most sustained and detailed discussion within the critical theory tradition of the autonomy of reason. These criticisms open up for Adorno the conceptual space within which a more inclusive account reason’s autonomy might be articulated. The next section of this paper will turn to that criticism and a consideration of the (...) new theoretical direction that the critique seems to necessitate – the direction Adorno attempts – will follow. (shrink)

The case of Kafka stands at the very centre of Adorno’s articulation of modernist mimesis. His main study of Kafka is the long and complex essay “Notes on Kafka” (1953), which he republished in the collection Prisms (1955). But numerous references to Kafka are found throughout his unfinished masterpiece, Aesthetic Theory (first published in 1970) and in the four part collection of essays, Notes to Literature.

This is a critical theoretical investigation of Hubert Dreyfus’ ‘phenomenology of everyday expertise’ (PEE). Operating mainly through the critical perspective of the ‘emancipatory interest’ the article takes issue with the contention that when engaged in expert action human beings are in non-deliberative, reason-free absorption. The claim of PEE that absorbed actions are not amenable to reconstruction places those actions outside the space of reasons. The question of acting under the wrong reasons – the question upon which the emancipatory interest rests (...) – is thereby rendered groundless. A further difficulty for the emancipatory interest is the elimination by PEE of reflective agency. Framing expert action as perception- and affordance-driven, PEE diminishes practical reasoning. Furthermore, it understands freedom – consistently with its notion of action as affordance – as primarily the capacity of human beings to submit themselves to processes rather than to step back reflectively from them. Several criticisms of the philosophical delimitations created by methodology of PEE – phenomenology – are also developed. (shrink)

Given its centrality to the intellectual thought processes through which the great structures of logic, nature, and spirit are unfolded it is clear that mediation is vital to the very possibility of Hegel’s encyclopaedic philosophy. Yet Hegel gives little specific explanation of the concept of mediation. Surprisingly, it has been the subject of even less attention by scholars of Hegel. Nevertheless it is casually used in discussions of Hegel and post- Hegelian philosophy as though its meaning were simple and straightforward. (...) In these discussions mediation is the thesis that meanings are not atomic in that the independence of something is inseparable from its relation to something else. Hence being is mediated by nothing, the particular by the universal, the individual by society. But does Hegel ever explain mediation in a way which justifies such use of the concept? The same easy employment of mediation is found in Theodor Adorno whose works are replete with the use of this concept and, indeed, acknowledgements of its Hegelian origin. But the concept of mediation in Adorno’s negative dialectic is operative in an entirely different context from that of Hegel. How, it might be asked, can a concept be so adaptable? I want to argue that mediation is, in fact, an equivocal term which in both Hegel and Adorno covers a variety of entirely different conceptual relations. Furthermore, as propounded by both Hegel and Adorno it lacks the rigour which could allow the particular conclusions which the concept allegedly facilitates. (shrink)

This paper focuses on 3 features of Freyenhagen's Aristotelian version of Adorno. (a) It challenges the strict negativism Freyenhagen finds in Adorno. If we have morally relevant interests in ourselves, it is implicit that we have a standard by which to understand what is both good and bad for us (our interests). Because strict negativism operates without reference to what is good, it seems to be detached from real interests too. Torture, it is argued, is, among other things, a violation (...) of those interests. (b) Freyenhagen identifies the “impulse” in Adorno as an untutored yet moral reaction to morally demanding situations. The plausibility of this primitivism and its compatibility with Adorno's general worries about immediacy are considered. (c) The disruptive character of Adorno's version of the categorical imperative, its willingness to complicate action through wholesale reflection on the norms of what we are committing ourselves to, is set in contrast with Freyenhagen's Aristotelian claim that certain notions, such as “humanity,” cannot be intelligibly questioned. (shrink)

Hegel’s World Revolutions is a fascinating work which brings a new and illuminating narrative to the development of Hegel’s political thinking. Through examinations of Kant’s moral and political ph...

This paper critically evaluates what it identifies as ‘the institutional theory of freedom’ developed within recent neo-Hegelian philosophy. While acknowledging the gains made against the Kantian theory of autonomy as detachment it is argued that the institutional theory ultimately undermines the very meaning of practical agency. By tying agency to institutionally sustained recognition it effectively excludes the exercise of practical reason geared toward emancipation from a settled normative order. Adorno's notion of autonomy as resistance is enlisted to develop an account (...) of practical reason that is neither institutionally constrained nor without appropriate consideration of the historical location of the practical agent. (shrink)

In a task requiring speeded bidirectional responses to arrow symbols , “free choice” responses to interspersed bidirectional stimuli are influenced by masked directional primes . By varying stimulus–response compatibility, we tested whether this priming effect is mediated by the conscious instructional set, or instead by pre-existing directional associations to the symbols. In two experiments, one group of participants was instructed to respond with the hand consistent with the implied direction of the arrow symbols, while another group was instructed to make (...) the spatially opposite responses. Both groups showed priming of “free choice” responses. However, such priming was always biased according to the instructional set rather than pre-existing associations. Subliminal priming of “free choice” responses therefore depends on conscious task goals. (shrink)

The central concern of this paper is to explore the efforts of Schiller's post-Kantian idealism and Marcuse's critical theory to develop a new conception of free human experience. That conception is built on the notion of play. Play is said to combine the human capacities for physical pleasure and reason, capacities which the modern world has dualized. Analysis of their respective accounts of play reveals its ambivalent form in the work of both philosophers. Play supports the ideal of ‘freedom from (...) necessity’, understood as a release from all external constraint. But it also appears to serve as a model for ‘freedom as a higher necessity’. In the case of Schiller, the ambivalence encompasses idle play and an obligation to make ourselves worthy of freedom. For Marcuse, play represents a kind of libidinal idleness while also underpinning a non-alienated conception of labour. (shrink)

The belief in progress is now seen as the naïveté of those who really did not know, or want to know, how terrible we human beings can be. We regard ourselves as somewhat wiser and more honest about the self-destructive capabilities of human beings and can find only reasons to turn away from the idea of progress.

Neo-Kantian philosophers see accountability as a key property of autonomy, or of social freedom more broadly. Autonomy, among those theorists, is, I contend, implicitly co-conceived with responsibility, producing a quasi-juridical conception of autonomy and a limiting notion of freedom. This article criticizes the connecting of freedom with accountability on a number of grounds. First, various conceptions of autonomy not only operate without a notion of accountability, but, in fact, would be impaired by an accountability requirement. Second, the neo-Kantians are unable (...) to defend the freedom enhancing properties that are supposedly brought about by the giving of reasons for one’s beliefs and actions. Third, the project of accountability is indifferent to personal outlooks, not because it takes a holistic perspective, but because of its interest in social convergence. (shrink)

This book closely examines how the phenomenological lineage is received in deconstruction, especially the relation between deconstruction and Derrida's radical ...

This paper criticizes the assumptions behind Robert Brandom’s reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology, contending that Hegel’s concern with the rational structure of experience, his valorization of reflection over ordinary experience and his idea of the necessit y of progress in knowledge cannot be accommodated within the framework of semantic pragmatism. The central contentions are that Brandom’s pragmatism never comes to terms with Hegel’s idea of truth as a result, leading to a historicist distortion, and also that Brandom’s failure to deal with (...) Hegel’s distinction between natural consciousness and the phenomenological observer collapses Hegel’s phenomenology into a philosophy restricted to the level of natural consciousness. (shrink)

This chapter examines the notion of philosophical truth that Adorno, in Negative Dialectics, believes to be possible by means of his changed conception of philosophy. What that examination finds is that philosophical truth, as Adorno recommends it, is realized through “singular” philosophical experiences. The critical question is that of how the truths that are conveyed through “singularity” can be understood to have persuasive force over us, Adorno's readers. Also examined is the relationship between the philosophically authentic “singularity” approach and the (...) critical endeavors evident, in the same book, through Adorno's engagements with a range of figures from the modern philosophical tradition. (shrink)

This superb volume brings together for the first time the essential readings selections from Adorno's multidisciplinary work. It will be valuable to readers at various levels as it makes available Adorno material which previously was either difficult to access or was presented in a form which was intimidating.

This paper contends that Kant’s argument in the Refutation of Idealism section of the Critique of Pure Reason misses a step which allows Kant to move illicitly from inner experience to outer objects. The argument for persistent outer objects does not comprehensively address the skeptic’s doubts as it leaves room for the question about the necessary connection between representations and outer objects. A second fundamental issue is the ability of transcendental idealism to deliver the account of outer objects, as required (...) by the Refutation of Idealism itself. (shrink)

Critical social theory has long been marked by a deep, creative, and productive relationship with psychoanalysis. Whereas Freud and Fromm were important cornerstones for the early Frankfurt School, recent thinkers have drawn on the object-relations school of psychoanalysis. Transitional Subjects is the first book-length collection devoted to the engagement of critical theory with the work of Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, and other members of this school. Featuring contributions from some of the leading figures working in both of these fields, including (...) Axel Honneth, Joel Whitebook, Noëlle McAfee, Sara Beardsworth, and C. Fred Alford, it provides a synoptic overview of current research at the intersection of these two theoretical traditions while also opening up space for further innovations. Transitional Subjects offers a range of perspectives on the critical potential of object-relations psychoanalysis, including feminist and Marxist views, to offer valuable insight into such fraught social issues as aggression, narcissism, “progress,” and torture. The productive dialogue that emerges augments our understanding of the self as intersubjectively and socially constituted and of contemporary “social pathologies.” Transitional Subjects shows how critical theory and object-relations psychoanalysis, considered together, have not only enriched critical theory but also invigorated psychoanalysis. (shrink)

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 19, Issue 5, Page 753-760, December 2011.

This is a critical theoretical investigation of Hubert Dreyfus’ ‘phenomenology of everyday expertise’ (PEE). Operating mainly through the critical perspective of the ‘emancipatory interest’ the article takes issue with the contention that when engaged in expert action human beings are in non-deliberative, reason-free absorption. The claim of PEE that absorbed actions are not amenable to reconstruction places those actions outside the space of reasons. The question of acting under the wrong reasons – the question upon which the emancipatory interest rests (...) – is thereby rendered groundless. A further difficulty for the emancipatory interest is the elimination by PEE of reflective agency. Framing expert action as perception- and affordance-driven, PEE diminishes practical reasoning. Furthermore, it understands freedom – consistently with its notion of action as affordance – as primarily the capacity of human beings to submit themselves to processes rather than to step back reflectively from them. Several criticisms of the philosophical delimitations created by methodology of PEE – phenomenology – are also developed. (shrink)