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Negativity and Democracy
The current political climate of uncompromising neoliberalism means that the need to study the logic of our culture—that is, the logic of the capitalist system—is compelling. Providing a rich philosophical analysis of democracy from a negative, non-identity, dialectical perspective, Vasilis Grollios encourages the reader not to think of democracy as a call for a more effective domination of the people or as a demand for the replacement of the elite that currently holds power. In doing so, he aspires to fill in a gap in the literature by offering an out-of-the-mainstream overview of the key concepts of totality, negativity, fetishization, contradiction, identity thinking, dialectics and corporeal materialism as they have been employed by the major thinkers of the critical theory tradition: Marx, Engels, Horkheimer, Lukacs, Adorno, Marcuse, Bloch and Holloway. Their thinking had the following common keywords: contradiction, fetishism as a process and the notion of spell and all its implications. The author makes an innovative attempt to bring these concepts to light in terms of their practical relevance for contemporary democratic theory.
Illusion and Fetishism in Critical Theory
Through the negative dialectics of Theodore Adorno, Illusion and Fetishism in Critical Theory offers an examination of Nietzsche, Benjamin, Castoriadis and the Situationists, who put the concept of illusion at the forefront of their philosophical thought. Vasilis Grollios argues that these political philosophers, except Castoriadis, have up to now been wrongly considered by many scholars to be far from the line of thinking of negative dialectics, Critical Theory and the early Frankfurt School/Open Marxist tradition. He illustrates how these thinkers focused on the illusions of capitalism and attempted to show how capitalism, by its innate rationale, creates social forms that are presented as...
Negativity and Democracy
The current political climate of uncompromising neoliberalism means that the need to study the logic of our culture—that is, the logic of the capitalist system—is compelling. Providing a rich philosophical analysis of democracy from a negative, non-identity, dialectical perspective, Vasilis Grollios encourages the reader not to think of democracy as a call for a more effective domination of the people or as a demand for the replacement of the elite that currently holds power. In doing so, he aspires to fill in a gap in the literature by offering an out-of-the-mainstream overview of the key concepts of totality, negativity, fetishization, contradiction, identity thinking, dialectics and corporeal materialism as they have been employed by the major thinkers of the critical theory tradition: Marx, Engels, Horkheimer, Lukacs, Adorno, Marcuse, Bloch and Holloway. Their thinking had the following common keywords: contradiction, fetishism as a process and the notion of spell and all its implications. The author makes an innovative attempt to bring these concepts to light in terms of their practical relevance for contemporary democratic theory.
Max Weber’s Sociology
This volume outlines Max Weber’s comparative-historical sociology of "interpretive understanding" (verstehen) in a manner that clarifies his complex mode of analysis and multi-causal focus. Presenting the central features of his methodology, it demonstrates the strengths of his research strategies through discussions of his major works and overarching concerns. Among other themes, this study addresses the origins of the American political culture, the longevity of its civic sphere, and the multiple causes behind the unique historical pathways followed by several civilizations. Indeed, through summaries of Weber’s procedures and their application in his own empirical studies, Max Weber’...
A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion
This book explores a variety of interconnected themes central to contemporary Marxist theory and its further development as a critical social theory. Championing the critique of political economy as a critical theory of society and rejecting Marxian economics as a contradiction in terms, it argues instead that economic categories are perverted social categories, before identifying the sheer unrest of life - the struggle to make ends meet - as the negative content of the reified system of economic objectivity. With class struggle recognised as the negative category of the cold society of capitalist wealth, which sees in humanity a living resource for economic progress, the author contends that the critique of class society finds its rational solution in the society of human purposes, that is, the classless society of communist individuals. A theoretically sophisticated engagement with Marxist thought, A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion will appeal to scholars of social and political theory with interests in critical theory and post-capitalist imaginaries.
The Political Thought of John Holloway
This book provides renewed reflection and critical discussion on John Holloway's political and theoretical thought. Two decades ago, in Change the World without Taking Power, Holloway set out on a path that he followed a decade later in Crack Capitalism and continues to walk today with his new book, Hope in Hopeless Times. The contributions in this volume critically analyze his innovative attempt to rethink the meaning and dynamics of revolution in the conditions of contemporary capitalism. More than ten years after the publication of Crack Capitalism, this volume aims to question Holloway's attempt, as well as his theoretical foundations in his original rereading of Marxism and Critical Theory and their relations with the characteristics adopted by the anti-capitalist struggles during the last two decades. Its authors, from different geographies, traditions, and scientific disciplines, establish throughout its pages a fruitful dialogue convened by Holloway's innovative ideas.
Democracy and Defiance
This book explores an often neglected current in contemporary French political thought that challenges the limits of the concept of democracy. It situates the projects of Jacques Ranciere, Claude Lefort and Miguel Abensour in relation to each other, as well as to the larger philosophical question of the nature of democracy itself. In doing so, Bryan Nelson illuminates democracy's potential as a profound emancipatory and transformative project, offering an unprecedented challenge to modes of domination, strategies of inequality and hierarchies of all kinds. Against prevailing interpretations, the author draws on the central concepts, problems and polemics in the works of Ranciere, Lefort and Abensour to develop a bold conception of democracy that allows us to rethink its character, power and broader social and political implications.
Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy
Subversive thought is none other than the cunning of reason when confronted with a social reality in which the poor and miserable are required to sustain the illusion of fictitious wealth. Yet, this subsidy is absolutely necessary in existing society, to prevent its implosion. The critique of political economy is a thoroughly subversive business. It rejects the appearance of economic reality as a natural thing, argues that economy has not independent existence, expounds economy as political economy, and rejects as conformist rebellion those anti-capitalist perspectives that derive their rationality from the existing conceptuality of society. Subversion focuses on human conditions. Its critical subject is society unaware of itself. This book develops Marx's critique of political economy as negative theory of society. It does not conform to the patterns of the world and demands that society rids itself of all the muck of ages and founds itself anew.
Descent of the Dialectic
This book reconstructs the concept and practice of dialectics as a means of grounding a critical theory of society. At the center of this project is the thesis of phronetic criticism or a form of reason that is able to synthesize human value with objective rationality. This book argues that defects in modern forms of social reason are the result of the powers of social structure and the norms and purposes they embody. Increasingly, modern societies are driven not by substantive values concerning human good but by the technical imperatives of economic management, leading to a cultural condition of nihilism that has eroded dialectical consciousness. The first half of the book demonstrates the ...
Revolutionary Hope in a Time of Crisis
Revolutionary Hope in a Time of Crisis takes up the question of how to theorize and revive revolutionary hope in the present era of political disillusion. The collection consists of new cutting-edge research essays written by an interdisciplinary mix of established and emerging scholars, bringing together a wide range of intellectual traditions and perspectives. The contributors confront the challenge of relearning hope by exploring the politically transformative potential of past disappointments and defeats. They encourage us to acknowledge, come to terms with and learn from the complexities, failures, and losses entailed in resistance, and to consider them as an occasion for rethinking the...
