Month: November 2007

He will present the methodological foundation for his entire book.

Axel speaks with a smart German accent. Wow, he is reading his work. Not paraphrasing, but actually reading it.

The political changes have not been beyond social criticism. Wow, he just mentioned Foucault’s work.
Critical theory is out of the Hegelian tradition. The historical past should be understood in an historical way. Positive form in Horkheimer or Marcuse or negative in Adorno or Benjamin.

One of the main tasks today is to develop an alternative concept of justice (not a Kantian way), but rather from a Hegelian concept. From Hegel, the theory of justice is immediately an analysis of society. With Kant, there is a split between analysis and a concept of justice.

Division of left and right Hegelians, and the sense that existing institutions should be given moral legitimacy. In Germany, the revived sense of Hegelian justice. Axel wants to reconstruct Hegel’s theory of right. This can not be resurrected as is, but will need to look at it in light of current society and history.

Axel is concentrating of four premises:

1. Specific concept of society to presuppose of justice. The ordering of society shape the actions of its members into mechanism of different social practices in different spheres. The members of society normally follow the norms that have been established. The economically subsystem as a normative aspect of society. The idea that we should understand society as objective spirit. The notion of objective spirit as an analysis of all of society.
2. Justice as imminent claim of all societies. For Hegel and those in his tradition, such as Marx, the notion of justice indicates the binding intention to render everybody his or her due. Thus, others should be treated in a manner required by different aspects, dependent on the differences of people. What is just is what produces actions in a given society with an ethical distribution of labor. All people produce different amounts and are complementary way. In taking up Hegel’s approach we have to refrain from taking up structures in society before judging them. This immanent approach

• liveblogging is tough when the content is tough. Not much of the this is what I will say, here I am saying it, and this is what I said!

Normative reconstructioin in opposition of normative

how critiique worjs on these four

No wonder the Symposium has not yet started; that welcome is outside the room where the presentations will take place. I have no energy to go out there, so will sit here and type and check email. Isn’t liveblogging interesting? It is like longer Twittering. Perhaps Twitter (without formatting or image inserts or tags) is really a liveblogging application?

Technorati Tags: liveblogging

The symposium was started in 1980 by Reiner Shurmann, the chair of the philosophy department at the time. The purpose was to look at the contemporary issues that were important to Hannah Arendt’s thinking. Reiner chaired the philosophy department for many years, especially during the time when the administration was considering eliminating the program.

It was through his efforts that the philosophy department exists and thrives today.

Nancy Fraser gave the introduction.

Many important thinkers have spoken at this symposium.

Critical Theory Today is the theme for this year. It is narrow in that it is associated with the thinkers of the Frankfurt School (even the New School

there is also a broader meaning of critical theory, which also has connections with the NSSR, that include reflections on what(ever) meanings of emancipation means.

Critical theory, in both senses, is at a crossroads, as it is a time for cross-disciplinary work and dialogue for what critical theory should be. The hard and fast lines between the Frankfurt School and french post-structuralism, and critical theory is becoming much more inter-disciplinary sense–incuding historians and sociologists. To foster this cross-disciplinary and cross-paradigm was to bring together the five most interesting thinkers as people who can be identified with charting a path in critical theory today.

This is thus a symposium to get a glimpse at some possible futures.

Jay Bernstein introduced Axel Honneth, the director of the Institute of Critical Theory in Frankfurt. Jay said he has made a distinctive contribution within critical theory. Axel has innovated and provided a vision for making critical theory sensitive and applicable to a variety of cases. He is the image of where critical theory will go after Habermas.