Axel Honneth: Reconceiving Social Philosophy (Reframing the Boundaries: Thinking the Political) - Hardcover

Wilhelm, Dagmar

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783486392 ISBN 13: 9781783486397

Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Axel Honneth is one of the most influential social and political philosophers in contemporary German political thought and one of the central figures of the third generation of the Frankfurt School. Honneth's philosophical project presents at once a solution to a problem that has beset Frankfurt School Critical Theory from the first generation onwards, and offers a re-conceptualisation of social philosophy and its methodology in general. Honneth's work presents a viable alternative to mainstream (especially Rawlsian) political philosophy by taking on challenges mainstream theories tend to avoid.

This book provides one of the first substantial critical assessments of Honneth's achievements so far. Dagmar Wilhelm locates Honneth in critical theory and mainstream political theory debates and offers a detailed exploration of his account of social philosophy, methodology, social pathology, recognition, and humiliation. The book also includes an in-depth discussion of Honneth's critique of capitalism and programme for the new left and an assessment of the future of the project of the Frankfurt School in light of Honneth's approach.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dagmar Wilhelm is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the West of England.

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Axel Honneth

Reconceiving Social Philosophy

By Dagmar Wilhelm

Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.

Copyright © 2019 Dagmar Wilhelm
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78348-639-7

Contents

Acknowledgements, vii, 
Introduction, ix, 
1 The Frankfurt School, 1, 
2 Honneth on Social Philosophy, 27, 
3 Honneth's Recognition Theory, 53, 
4 Recognition Theory, Morality and Justice, 73, 
5 Recognition and Social Pathologies, 103, 
6 Social Freedom and Recognition-Theoretical Socialism, 129, 
7 Honneth and Political Philosophy: Democracy and Rawls, 171, 
8 Honneth, Postmodernism and the Future of Critical Recognition Theory, 193, 
Bibliography, 219, 
Index, 227, 
About the Author, 233, 

CHAPTER 1

The Frankfurt School

"Reconceiving Social Philosophy" refers to the project of Frankfurt School Critical Theory in general and Axel Honneth's appropriation of the project in particular. Faced with the failure of traditional philosophy, traditional humanities and sciences to significantly alleviate meaningless human suffering, extreme poverty, starvation, war, exploitation and the like, the members of the early Frankfurt School radically change the way we do social philosophy. In this chapter, I will outline and assess the project of the Frankfurt School to engage in a critical social theory that possesses explanatory, normative and practical force. This critical social theory differs from both traditional mainstream social philosophy and sociology. I will begin with an exposition of Max Horkheimer's re-conceptualisation of social philosophy as critical social theory and trace the realisation of this project in the first- and second-generation Frankfurt School. This will help to better understand the aims and challenges of the project and to locate Honneth in his philosophical-historical contexts. The work of each member of the different generations of the Frankfurt School is manifold, complex and diverse. For reasons of brevity, I will focus on Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse's outlines of the project, Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's execution of the project in their social analysis and Jürgen Habermas's appropriation of the original project as outlined, for example, in his inaugural lecture.

1.1. HORKHEIMER AND THE PROJECT OF A CRITICAL THEORY

The Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research) was formed in 1923. From its inception, the institute was a Marxist centre for social research, associated with the Goethe Universität in Frankfurt. When Max Horkheimer becomes director of the institute, following Carl Grünberg and Friedrich Pollock, he formulates the programme of a new Critical Social Theory (CT).

The two programmatic texts I will discuss in this section are Horkheimer's 1930 inaugural lecture, "The Current Condition of Social Philosophy and the Task of an Institute for Social Research" ("Die gegenwärtige Lage der Sozialphilosophie und die Aufgaben eines Instituts für Sozialforschung", published in 1931), and his 1937 article "Traditional and Critical Theory" (TCT).

In his inaugural lecture, Horkheimer outlines the project of the Institute of Social Research under his directorship. He formulates his conception of social philosophy in opposition to the dominant Kantian and Hegelian approaches and proposes an interdisciplinary program. Rather than offering a definition of social philosophy, Horkheimer describes the task of the new discipline as the "philosophical interpretation of the fate of human beings, insofar as they are not just individuals but members of a community". Social philosophy must be concerned with all phenomena of human sociality — for example, state, law, right and economics, as well as culture and art.

Because Horkheimer formulates his view partly with reference to Kant and Hegel, appropriating some and rejecting other aspects of both, it makes sense to outline his project against both and thus to begin with brief remarks about Kantian and Hegelian approaches to social philosophy.

In contrast to Horkheimer's position, which is (also) strongly influenced by Marxism, Kantians interpret the meaning and significance of social phenomena, including social institutions and structures, in terms of the will of autonomous subjects. The abstract autonomous subject is the ground and end of social life and culture. In Hegel, the relationship between the individual and society is turned around. Autonomous agents do not create social structures, institutions and culture (art, religion, etc.); rather, society and history determine and create autonomous subjects. Social phenomena do not receive their meaning from individuals; instead, the life of individuals becomes meaningful and significant only in relation to "the whole" and the role the individual plays in this whole. In his critique, Horkheimer understands the Hegelian "whole" as society, the state, ultimately "world spirit" actualised. World spirit is the end of history and human beings are "sacrificed" for the actualisation of spirit. In the face of human suffering and death throughout history — that is, in face of the "slaughterhouse of history" (Schlachtbank der Geschichte), necessary for the self-actualisation of world spirit — the task of Hegelian social philosophy is "Verklärung" (transfiguration). Verklärung means that philosophy explains the suffering that might appear unjust and irrational as part of reason and as rational. It proceeds by showing that human suffering leads to the actualisation of spirit, ultimately in form of the state. The state in turn is where citizens can be truly free, and hence the state is rational. Verklärung, as Horkheimer asserts, is more than mere consolation in the face of suffering; it is reconciliation with suffering and so with the status quo. While the Hegelian metaphysical system has lost credibility, Horkheimer holds that social philosophy is still engaged in the Hegelian project of reconciling humans with ultimately meaningless and arbitrary suffering and death with reference to an "objective spirit". This objective spirit is conceived of as something superior to human individuals and it is able to provide meaning. Different philosophies, cultures and religions offer different interpretations of objective spirit.

There are two key problems with Hegel for Horkheimer: Verklärung and a lack of an objective standard to adjudicate between different conceptions of objective spirit. For one, Horkheimer ultimately rejects Verklärung itself, the task of reconciling human beings with meaningless horrors. This rejection forms part of his critical attitude towards idealism in the 1937 essay. The other problem is the inability of social philosophy to formulate a standard by which to evaluate the different notions of objective spirit. Social philosophy is unable to claim that some interpretations are more rational than others, which must thus be rejected. In the remainder of this essay, Horkheimer focuses on this second, intellectual weakness. Social philosophy must not just describe different notions of the whole or objective spirit. In order to maintain intellectual force, social philosophy must be able to come up with objective criteria that prevent a slide into relativism. It must be capable of rejecting reconciliation in terms of a "Volksgeist" (a spirit of the people, the fate of a people) as less rational than other explanations.

Horkheimer suggests that in order to properly interpret social phenomena and in order to be able to judge social...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1783486392
• ISBN 13: 9781783486397
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 246
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland