Of Critical Theory and its Theorists

Bronner, Stephen

1. Edition March 1994
384 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd

ISBN: 978-0-631-18738-7

John Wiley & Sons

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No project holds a more prominent place in the development of
modern European thought than the critical theory. Usually
associated with various members of the Frankfurt Institute for
Social Research of the 1920s and 1930s, critical theory has been
enormously influential and quite controversial in its manifold
claims.

Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists provides unique
interpretations of critical theory's most important
representatives: Georg Lukacs, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno,
Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Jürgen Habermas, and others.

Inspired by the interdisciplinary character of the original
enterprise, Stephen Bronner ranges across many fields, from
philosophy and aesthetics to politics and anthropology,
reconstructing the radical aims of critical theory, and evaluating
its success, its failings and its legacy.

Of Critical Theory and its Theorists offers a panoramic
view of an exciting tradition, and a bold new perspective, from one
of America's most prominent analysts of continental politics and
philosophy.

1. Introduction.

2. Karl Korsch: Western Marxism and the Origins of Critical
Theory.

3. Philosophical Anticipations: A Commentary on the
'Reification' Essay of Georg Lukacs.

4. Utopian Projections: In Honor of Ernst Bloch.

5. Horkheimer's Road.

6. Ontology and its Discontents: Unorthodox Remarks on the
Philosophy of Martin Heidegger. 7. Reclaiming the Fragments: On the
Messianic Materialism of Walter Benjamin.

8. Political Aesthetics in Retrospect: Reflections on the
Expressionism Debate and its Contemporary Relevance.

9. Dialectics at a Standstill: A Methodological Inquiry into the
Philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno.

10. From in America.

11. Remembering Marcuse.

12. The Anthropological Break: Herbert Marcuse and the Radical
Imagination.

13. Left Instrumentalism: A Critique of Analytic and Rational
Choice Marxism.

14. Jürgen Habermas and the Language of Politics.

15. Points of Departure: Sketches for a Critical Theory with
Public Aims.

Index.

"Has the foundation of critical theory been withdrawn with the collapse of communism? Stephen Eric Bronner argues the opposite: only now, liberated from marxian dogmatism, can a genuine critique of modern society begin. He develops his ideas in an immanent and emancipatory confrontation with critical theory and its proponents. A brilliant book! Don't miss it!" Ulrich Beck

Stephen Eric Bronner is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. His most recent works are Socialism Unbound and Moments of Decision: Political History and the Crises of Radicalism. He has also edited The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg and co-edited, with Douglas Kellner, the collection Critical Theory and Society.

S. Bronner, Rutgers University