From mpiscioneri at hotmail.com Thu May 1 01:57:07 2003 From: mpiscioneri at hotmail.com (matthew piscioneri) Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 00:57:07 +0000 Subject: FS & Marxism Dear List, I am trying to sort out what was C.T's self-understanding of its relation to Western Marxism. In particular, I am looking for perspectives on Habermas's reconstruction of C.T & Marxism both in the 1960s and in the 1970s. For eg., in _KHI_ is Habermas intention to reconstruct BOTH C.T and/or Western Marxism (is historical materialism a more accurate term?)? Does Habermas see his programme to move beyond the aporia of H. & A's critique of instrumental reason to be applicable to western marxism? in other words, does JH see this more general tradition to have been interrupted by their critique of instrumental reason also (the dialectical inversion of critical reason)? I guess what I am struggling with is understanding whether JH *primarily* is working out of the tradition of C.T, or within the tradition of western marxism. If so both, how are we to understand late-C.T's relationship to western marxism. Any contributions VERY welcome. Regards, MattP _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp From rdumain at igc.org Thu May 1 03:33:03 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 22:33:03 -0400 Subject: FS & Marxism Perhaps my contribution won't be welcome. The very first question to answer needs to be: who invented "Western Marxism" as a concept, and when? It is, after all, a categorial construct named after the fact, grouping people together many of whom never new they belonged together. Next question: did any of the Frankfurters of either the first or second generation recognize or even know of the concept of "Western Marxism"? I think it is naive to take "tradition"-s at face value. This would be a very provincial thing to do. Not that Habermas was not working out of one and perhaps eventually several traditions, but some traditions (i.e. the school of thought you were reared in) are more real for their participants than others. Discussing categories of categories of categories once again smacks of graduate student syndrome to me. "Western Marxism" as a construct seems to mean little more than "unorthodox" Marxism, usually considered sexier than "orthodox" marxism, the latter ultimately meaning something like Stalinism, the Communist Parties, Maoism, or even heresies like Trotskyism that compete for orthodoxy. The exception comes when Communists do something different from their brethren that we like--Gramsci, for example. What about Della Volpe? Colletti? Personally, I'm dubious about the category "western Marxism". It is useful for aggregating works of common interest, but should not be taken too seriously as an entity. But then I'm probably talking to myself here. At 12:57 AM 5/1/2003 +0000, matthew piscioneri wrote: >Dear List, > >I am trying to sort out what was C.T's self-understanding of its relation >to Western Marxism. In particular, I am looking for perspectives on >Habermas's reconstruction of C.T & Marxism both in the 1960s and in the 1970s. > >For eg., in _KHI_ is Habermas intention to reconstruct BOTH C.T and/or >Western Marxism (is historical materialism a more accurate term?)? Does >Habermas see his programme to move beyond the aporia of H. & A's critique >of instrumental reason to be applicable to western marxism? in other >words, does JH see this more general tradition to have been interrupted by >their critique of instrumental reason also (the dialectical inversion of >critical reason)? I guess what I am struggling with is understanding >whether JH *primarily* is working out of the tradition of C.T, or within >the tradition of western marxism. If so both, how are we to understand >late-C.T's relationship to western marxism. > >Any contributions VERY welcome. > >Regards, > >MattP From mpiscioneri at hotmail.com Thu May 1 12:15:31 2003 From: mpiscioneri at hotmail.com (matthew piscioneri) Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 11:15:31 +0000 Subject: FS & Marxism Ralph, thanks for your reply. As a grad. student my research project requires me to take these questions seriously. Moreover I *enjoy* taking these questions seriously because I feel it takes me closer to the heart of the critical-emancipatory project. On the other hand I also rue the partisanship that has emerged in this project. But I think I see things simplistically. We are generally in a post-enlightenment/ post emancipatory stage. Other than a consciousness revolution I don't foresee too much "progress" in the redistribution of wealth. Partly the question is what is the revolutionary subject of history with its share of the redistributed wealth? Anyway comrade it is May Day. A toast to Bakunin. As socialists let's celebrate the liberation of the working people of Iraq. Consumerism or religious dogma. Best Regards, MattP. >From: Ralph Dumain >Reply-To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu >To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu >Subject: Re: FS & Marxism >Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 22:33:03 -0400 > >Perhaps my contribution won't be welcome. The very first question to >answer needs to be: who invented "Western Marxism" as a concept, and when? >It is, after all, a categorial construct named after the fact, grouping >people together many of whom never new they belonged together. Next >question: did any of the Frankfurters of either the first or second >generation recognize or even know of the concept of "Western Marxism"? I >think it is naive to take "tradition"-s at face value. This would be a very >provincial thing to do. Not that Habermas was not working out of one and >perhaps eventually several traditions, but some traditions (i.e. the school >of thought you were reared in) are more real for their participants than >others. Discussing categories of categories of categories once again >smacks of graduate student syndrome to me. "Western Marxism" as a >construct seems to mean little more than "unorthodox" Marxism, usually >considered sexier than "orthodox" marxism, the latter ultimately meaning >something like Stalinism, the Communist Parties, Maoism, or even heresies >like Trotskyism that compete for orthodoxy. The exception comes when >Communists do something different from their brethren that we >like--Gramsci, for example. What about Della Volpe? Colletti? >Personally, I'm dubious about the category "western Marxism". It is useful >for aggregating works of common interest, but should not be taken too >seriously as an entity. But then I'm probably talking to myself here. > >At 12:57 AM 5/1/2003 +0000, matthew piscioneri wrote: >>Dear List, >> >>I am trying to sort out what was C.T's self-understanding of its relation >>to Western Marxism. In particular, I am looking for perspectives on >>Habermas's reconstruction of C.T & Marxism both in the 1960s and in the >>1970s. >> >>For eg., in _KHI_ is Habermas intention to reconstruct BOTH C.T and/or >>Western Marxism (is historical materialism a more accurate term?)? Does >>Habermas see his programme to move beyond the aporia of H. & A's critique >>of instrumental reason to be applicable to western marxism? in other >>words, does JH see this more general tradition to have been interrupted by >>their critique of instrumental reason also (the dialectical inversion of >>critical reason)? I guess what I am struggling with is understanding >>whether JH *primarily* is working out of the tradition of C.T, or within >>the tradition of western marxism. If so both, how are we to understand >>late-C.T's relationship to western marxism. >> >>Any contributions VERY welcome. >> >>Regards, >> >>MattP > _________________________________________________________________ MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp From jrovira at drew.edu Thu May 1 17:34:19 2003 From: jrovira at drew.edu (James Rovira) Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 12:34:19 -0400 Subject: FS & Marxism I tend to agree with Ralph that the category "western Marxism" may be too broad to be meaningful, but I don't think your particular questions RE: H and A's Marxism vs. Habermas' Marxism are at all irrelevant. Many writers I've seen contrast H and A's Marxism with the Marxism of the Internationals, or with Marxism as defined by other specific figures. It seems like specifically identifing the configuration of Marxism that H and A were in dialog with is the route to take. Jim matthew piscioneri wrote: > Ralph, > > thanks for your reply. As a grad. student my research project requires > me to take these questions seriously. Moreover I *enjoy* taking these > questions seriously because I feel it takes me closer to the heart of > the critical-emancipatory project. On the other hand I also rue the > partisanship that has emerged in this project. But I think I see > things simplistically. > > We are generally in a post-enlightenment/ post emancipatory stage. > Other than a consciousness revolution I don't foresee too much > "progress" in the redistribution of wealth. Partly the question is > what is the revolutionary subject of history with its share of the > redistributed wealth? > > Anyway comrade it is May Day. A toast to Bakunin. As socialists let's > celebrate the liberation of the working people of Iraq. Consumerism or > religious dogma. > > Best Regards, > > MattP. > > > > > > >> From: Ralph Dumain >> Reply-To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu >> To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu >> Subject: Re: FS & Marxism >> Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 22:33:03 -0400 >> >> Perhaps my contribution won't be welcome. The very first question to >> answer needs to be: who invented "Western Marxism" as a concept, and >> when? It is, after all, a categorial construct named after the fact, >> grouping people together many of whom never new they belonged >> together. Next question: did any of the Frankfurters of either the >> first or second generation recognize or even know of the concept of >> "Western Marxism"? I think it is naive to take "tradition"-s at face >> value. This would be a very provincial thing to do. Not that >> Habermas was not working out of one and perhaps eventually several >> traditions, but some traditions (i.e. the school of thought you were >> reared in) are more real for their participants than others. >> Discussing categories of categories of categories once again smacks >> of graduate student syndrome to me. "Western Marxism" as a construct >> seems to mean little more than "unorthodox" Marxism, usually >> considered sexier than "orthodox" marxism, the latter ultimately >> meaning something like Stalinism, the Communist Parties, Maoism, or >> even heresies like Trotskyism that compete for orthodoxy. The >> exception comes when Communists do something different from their >> brethren that we like--Gramsci, for example. What about Della >> Volpe? Colletti? Personally, I'm dubious about the category >> "western Marxism". It is useful for aggregating works of common >> interest, but should not be taken too seriously as an entity. But >> then I'm probably talking to myself here. >> >> At 12:57 AM 5/1/2003 +0000, matthew piscioneri wrote: >> >>> Dear List, >>> >>> I am trying to sort out what was C.T's self-understanding of its >>> relation to Western Marxism. In particular, I am looking for >>> perspectives on Habermas's reconstruction of C.T & Marxism both in >>> the 1960s and in the 1970s. >>> >>> For eg., in _KHI_ is Habermas intention to reconstruct BOTH C.T >>> and/or Western Marxism (is historical materialism a more accurate >>> term?)? Does Habermas see his programme to move beyond the aporia of >>> H. & A's critique of instrumental reason to be applicable to western >>> marxism? in other words, does JH see this more general tradition to >>> have been interrupted by their critique of instrumental reason also >>> (the dialectical inversion of critical reason)? I guess what I am >>> struggling with is understanding whether JH *primarily* is working >>> out of the tradition of C.T, or within the tradition of western >>> marxism. If so both, how are we to understand late-C.T's >>> relationship to western marxism. >>> >>> Any contributions VERY welcome. >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> MattP >> >> > > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.Go to > http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp > > From habhamaf at f-m.fm Fri May 2 00:39:35 2003 From: habhamaf at f-m.fm (habhamaf) Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 23:39:35 +0000 Subject: What does the felling of the monument mean? Translation of: "Was bedeutet der Denkmalsturz?" in: *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung*, 19.4.2003, p. 33. hm ****************************** Jürgen Habermas: *What does the felling of the monument mean? Let us not close our eyes before this revolution in world affairs: the normative authority of America lies shattered* The whole world watched that scene on the 9th of April in Baghdad, followed the American soldiers placing the noose around the neck of the dictator, watched the tyrant being felled from his pedestal in a most symbolic act, before a jubilant crowd. First the apparently immutable monument wobbles, then it falls. Before it crashes liberatingly to the ground, gravity has to overcome the grotesquely unnatural horizontal position in which the massive figure, gently see-sawing up and down, is poised for one last disturbing second. Like the perception of a picture-puzzle 'flipping', so the public perception of the war seems to switch with this image. The morally obscene spread of shock and fear amongst a mercilessly bombarded, starved and helpless population transforms itself on this day, in the Shiite quarter of Baghdad, in the enthusiastically greeted liberation of citizens from terror and repression. Both perceptions contain a kernel of truth, even if they evoke contradictory moral feelings and attitudes. Must the emotional ambivalence lead to contradictory judgments? On the face of it everything is clear-cut. An illegal war remains an offence against international law even if it leads to consequences which are normatively desirable. But is that the end of the story? Undesirable consequences can negate a good intention. Couldn't perhaps favorable consequences unfold, retrospectively, a legitimating influence? The mass graves, the subterranean cells and the reports of the tortured leaves no doubt about the criminal nature of the regime; and the liberation of a tormented population from a barbaric regime is a high good, the highest under the politically desirable goods. In this respect the Iraqis pronounce, whether they celebrate, loot, suffer apathetically or demonstrate against the occupiers, a judgment upon the moral nature of the war. With us [in Germany] two kinds of reactions have become apparent in the political sphere. The pragmatists believe in the normative power of the factual and place their faith in a practical judgment which, with an eye on the limitations which politics imposes on the realization of morality, pays its respects to the fruits of victory. In their eyes carping about the justification of the war is fruitless, since this has now become a historical fact. The others, whether capitulating before the power of the factual out of opportunism or out of conviction, brush what they hold to be the dogma of international law aside with the argument that the latter - full of post-heroic squeamishness against the risks and costs of military force - refuses to acknowledge political freedom as the true good. Both of these reactions are off the mark, since they give in to an affect against the ostensible abstractions of a 'bloodless moralism' without clarifying for themselves just what it is that the neo-conservatives in Washington are offering as an alternative to the domesticization of state force by international law. For the neo-conservatives confront the morality of international law not with realism or with the bathos of freedom but with a quite revolutionary perspective: when international law fails then the politically successful hegemonic enforcement of a liberal world order is morally justifiable even when it seeks recourse to means which are indefensible in the light of such international law. Wolfowitz is not Kissinger. He's much more a revolutionary than a power-cynic. Certainly, the superpower reserves for itself the right to act unilaterally - and bring to bear, if necessary, even preventively, all available military means - to strengthen its hegemonic position against possible rivals. But global power ambition is not an end in itself for the new ideologues. What distinguishes the neo-conservatives from the school of the 'realists' is the vision of an American world political order which has jumped the reformist rails of the UN policies on human rights. It does not betray the liberal goals, but it does break the civilizing bounds which the charter of the United Nations placed with good reason upon the process of goal-realization. The world organization is certainly not yet in a position, today, to force deviant member states into offering their citizens a democratic and rule-of-law based order. And the highly selectively pursued human rights policies are subject to the proviso of implementability: the veto-power Russia needs not fear an armed intervention in Chechnya. Saddam Hussein's use of nerve gas against his own Kurdish population is but one of many instances in the scandalous chronicle of the failure of the community of nations, which looks the other way even in cases of genocide. All the more important is hence the core function of peace-keeping, on which the existence of the United Nations is based - i.e. the enforcement of the ban on wars of aggression, with which, after World War II, the ius ad bellum was abolished and the sovereignty of individual states curtailed. With that, classical international law had at least taken one decisive step in the direction of a cosmopolitan legal order. The United States - which for half a century could claim to be a pacemaker on this road - has, with the Iraq war, not only destroyed this reputation and given up the role of a guarantor power in international law; with its violation thereof she sets future superpowers a disastrous example. Let's not kid ourselves: America's normative authority lies shattered. Neither of the two conditions for a legally justifiable use of military force was fulfilled: neither the situation of self-defense against an actual or imminent attack, nor an authorized decision by the Security Council in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Neither Resolution 1441 nor one of the seventeen preceding and ('used-up') Iraq resolutions could count as sufficient authorization. Something which the alliance of the war-willing confirmed performatively, for that matter, by first of all seeking a 'second' resolution, and then withdrawing it when it became clear that they would not be able to count even on the 'moral' majority of the non-veto members. Finally the whole procedure was turned into a farce by the President of the United States declaring repeatedly that he would act, if necessary, without a mandate of the Security Council. In the light of the Bush Doctrine the military build-up in the Gulf lacked from the outset the character of a mere threat. This would have presupposed the avertibility of the threatened sanctions. The comparison with the intervention in Kosovo also offers no exoneration. It is true that an authorization by the Security Council in this case was not reached either. But the retrospectively obtained legitimation could be based upon three circumstances: on the prevention - as it seemed at the time - of an ethnic cleansing in the process of taking place, on the imperative - covered by international law - of emergency assistance holding erga omnes for this case, as well as the incontrovertibly democratic and constitutional character of all the member states of the ad hoc military alliance. Today the normative controversy is dividing the West itself. Admittedly, a remarkable difference in the argumentative strategies between the continental European and the Anglo-Saxon powers had begun to manifest itself already then, in April of 1999. While the one side drew from the disaster of Srebrenica the lesson that military intervention was necessary to close the gap between efficacy and legitimacy which earlier missions had revealed - to make headway in the direction of a fully institutionalized world civil rights - the other side was content with the goal of spreading its own liberal order elsewhere in world, by force if necessary. At the time I ascribed this to differences in the respective legal traditions - Kant's cosmopolitanism on the one hand, John Stuart Mill's liberal nationalism on the other. But in the light of the hegemonic unilateralism which the policy theorists of the Bush Doctrine have been pursuing since 1991 - as Stefan Fröhlich showed in this newspaper on 10th April - one could surmise, with hindsight, that the American delegation was already pursuing the negotiations of Rambouillet from this novel perspective. Whether this is true or not, George W. Bush's decision to consult the Security Council is at any rate no longer based on a desire - internally long since regarded as superfluous - for authorization by international law. This backing was sought only because it could have increased support for the "Coalition of the Willing" and allay reservations within the domestic population. At the same time we should not read the new doctrine as an expression of normative cynicism. Functions like that of the geo-strategic consolidation of spheres of power and of resources which such a policy may *also* fulfill may tempt one to adopt a critique-of-ideology approach. But this conventional explanation trivializes the break - inconceivable even a year-and-a-half ago - with the norms to which the United States has been committed until now. We'd be well advised not to spend time on a search for motives, but rather to take the new doctrine at its word. Otherwise we'd misread the revolutionary character of a re-orientation based on the historical experiences of the past century. The historian Eric Hobsbawm quite rightly named the 20th "the American" Century. The Neoconservatives could see themselves as the 'victors' and regard the controversial successes - the reorganization of Europe and the Pacific/South East Asian area after the defeat of Germany and Japan, as well as the transformation of Eastern as well as Eastern and Middle-European societies after the disintegration of the Soviet Union - as a model for a new world order. From the point of view of a liberalistically read post-histoire à la Fukuyama this model has the advantage of being able to dispense with the complicated justification of normative goals: what more could people possibly want than the world-wide spread of liberal nations and the globalization of free markets? The road hence is also clear: Germany, Japan and Russia have been forced to their knees by war and the arms race. Military force is an all the more attractive option today as in asymmetric wars the victor is in any case an a priori certainty. Wars which improve the world require no further justification. At the price of negligible collateral damage they remove unambiguous evil, which under the aegis of a powerless community of nations would otherwise persist. The Saddam falling from his pedestal is the argument which suffices as justification. This doctrine was developed long before the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. The cleverly instrumentalized mass psychology of the shock of 11 September did however first of all create the climate within which this doctrine could find broad support - if in a somewhat modified version, that of the "War against Terrorism". That it should come to a head in the Bush Doctrine is something it owes to the definition of a novel phenomenon in the familiar concepts of conventional warfare. In the case of the Taliban regime there was indeed a causal connection between a terrorism difficult to pin down and an attackable 'rogue state'. According to this model it is possible to adapt the classical conduct of war between nations to deal with that treacherous danger posed by diffuse and globally operating [terror-]networks. Compared to the original version this connection of hegemonic unilateralism with defense against an insidious danger mobilizes the additional argument of self-defense. At the cost however of then being saddled with a a new burden of proof. The American administration had to seek to convince world public opinion of contacts between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida. This dis-information campaign was for all that successful enough domestically for 60% of Americans - according to the most recent opinion polls - to greet the regime change in Iraq as "expiation" for the terrorist attack of 11th September. But for the preventive use of military means the Bush Doctrine does not really provide a plausible explanation. Since the para-statal violence of the terrorists - the "war in peace" - is not graspable with the categories of war between nations it doesn't ground in the least the need to weaken the notion of national self-defense (strictly regulated in international law) in the direction of preemptive military action. Against the globally networked, decentralized and invisibly operating enemies what is of use is prevention at a different operative level. Here what is of use are not bombs and rockets, not airplanes and tanks, but the internationally connected national intelligence- and police services; the control of monetary channels, the tracking down of logistic connections in general. The corresponding "security programs" impinge not on international law but on nationally guaranteed civil rights. Other dangers, arising from the failure (America's own fault) of a politics of non-proliferation of ABC weapons is in any case more manageable through negotiations than through wars of disarmament - as the reserved reaction to North Korea shows. A doctrine concentrating on terrorism does not i.e. provide, compared to the directly pursued goal of a hegemonic world order, an increase in legitimacy. The Saddam felled from his pedestal remains the argument - symbol for the liberal reorganization of an entire region. The Iraq war is a link in the chain of a global politics which justifies itself by claiming that it has replaced the unavailing Human Rights policies of a used-up world organization. The United States takes over as it were the mandate in which the United Nations failed. What's to be said against this? Moral feelings can lead one astray, since they stick to individual scenes, to specific images. There's no way of avoiding the question of the justification of the war in general. The decisive controversy revolves around the question whether justification in the light of international law can and should be replaced by the unilateral global politics of a self-empowering hegemon. The empirical objections to the feasibility of the American vision boil down to the way world society has become too complex for it still to be steerable from some central point, based on a politics of military force. The fear of terrorism experienced by the technically highly-armed superpower seems to express the Cartesian fear of a subject seeking to turn itself and the world around it into an object, in order to bring everything under control. It is a politics which, in the horizontally connected media of the market and of communication, begins to fall behind, regressing to the original Hobbesian primordiality of a hierarchical security system. A nation which reduces all options to the dumb alternatives of war and peace runs up against the limits of its own organizational powers and resources. It also leads the negotiation with competing powers and foreign cultures in false channels and pushes the coordination costs to dizzying heights. Even if this hegemonic unilateralism were realizable it would still have side-effects which would, by its own criteria, be morally undesirable. The more political power manifests itself in the dimensions of military, secret service and police, the more does it undermine itself - the politics of a globally operating civilizing power - by endangering its own mission of improving the world according to liberal ideas. In the United States itself the permanent regime of a "War President" is already undermining the foundations of the rule of law. Quite apart from the practiced or tolerated torture methods beyond its borders, the war regime is not only denying the prisoners of Guantánamo Bay the legal rights conferred on them by the Geneva Convention. It confers powers on the security services which encroach on the constitutional rights of its own citizens. And what about the really counterproductive measures the Bush Doctrine is likely to demand in case of the by no means unlikely scenario of the citizens of Syria, Jordan, Kuwait and so on making unfriendly use of the democratic rights which the American Government has so kindly made them a present of? In 1991 the Americans liberated Kuwait - democratize it they did not. Most of all it is the superpower's presumptuous trusteeship which is criticized by its coalition partners, who are, for good normative reasons, unconvinced by the unilateral leadership claim. There was a time when Liberal Nationalism felt itself justified in propagating the universal values of its own liberal order throughout the world, with military backing where needed. This self-righteousness does not become any more sufferable by it being ceded from the nation State to a hegemonic power. It is the very universalistic core of democracy and human rights itself which forbids its universal propagation by fire and sword. The universalistic validity claim which the West associates with its 'political core values' - i.e. with the procedure of democratic self-determination and the vocabulary of human rights - may not be confused with the imperial demand that the political life-form and culture of a particular democracy, and be it the oldest, is to be exemplary for all other societies. Of this order was the 'universalism' of those ancient empires which perceived the world beyond their borders - shimmering on a distant horizon - from the central perspectives of their own world-views. The modern self-understanding is on the contrary marked by an egalitarian universalism which insists on the de-centering of each specific perspective; it requires the relativization of one's own interpretive perspective from the point of view of the autonomous Other. It was American Pragmatism itself which made insight into that which was good and just to all parties concerned dependent upon a reciprocal acceptance of mutual perspectives. The reason upon which modern rational law is based is not expressed in the validity of universal 'values' capable of being owned, exported, and distributed globally. 'Values' - including those for which one could expect global recognition - don't hang in the air; they become binding only in the normative order and practices of specific cultural forms of life. When in Nasiriya thousands of Shiites demonstrate against Saddam and the American occupation, they bring to expression that non-Western cultures must appropriate the universalistic content of human rights from within their own resources and within an interpretation which can make a convincing connection to local experiences and interests. For that reason the multilateral formulation of a common purpose is not one option amongst others - especially not in international relations. In its self-chosen isolation even the good hegemon, presuming for itself trusteeship in the name of the common good, has no way of knowing whether the actions it claims to be in the interests of others is indeed equally good for all. There is no meaningful alternative to the further cosmopolitan development of an international system of law in which the voices of all concerned are given an equal and reciprocal hearing. The world organization has not as yet suffered irreparable damage. Since the 'smaller' members did not buckle under to the bullying of the larger ones it has even grown in stature and influence. The reputation of the world organization can be damaged only by its own actions: if it should seek to 'heal' by compromise what cannot be healed. -- habhamaf@f-m.fm From mpiscioneri at hotmail.com Sat May 3 13:49:50 2003 From: mpiscioneri at hotmail.com (matthew piscioneri) Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 12:49:50 +0000 Subject: FS & Marxism James, but Western Marxism is already part of the historical discourse of Critical Theory. So can the present discourse retrospectively decree its irrelevance? Maybe it's a good thing to dispense with history altogether. Partly my response to Habermas's essay on post-liberation Iraq is that we have to live in the moment of history. it's a scarey predicament. But then it has been a scarey couple of months. life is scarey. As a species we are so so scared of the present mainly because of its existential ramifications. This is mainly why past and future orientated delusions are so powerful, I suppose. Cultural/historical identity construction + Hire/purchase, mortgages and life in the hereafter loom large as pretty good delusions in the majority consciousness. damned majorities. Nietzsche &/or the mediocrity of democracy? >I tend to agree with Ralph that the category "western Marxism" may be too >broad to be meaningful, ---------- Yes. I was hoping for further illumination along these lines. All this for me is to try and make certain/sense of Habermas's claims in the _TCA_ that H. & A's critique of instrumental reason had - in actual terms - interrupted the tradition of Critical theory >but I don't think your particular questions RE: H and A's Marxism vs. >Habermas' Marxism are at all irrelevant. Many writers I've seen contrast H >and A's Marxism with the Marxism of the Internationals, or with Marxism as >defined by other specific figures. It seems like specifically identifing >the configuration of Marxism that H and A were in dialog with is the route >to take. This is in part an empirical question asked of the list. I am hoping there are subscribers to this List who may be able to shed light on this aspect of Critical Theory's history. MattP. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp From JBCM2 at aol.com Sat May 3 14:40:21 2003 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2@aol.com) Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 09:40:21 EDT Subject: (no subject) --part1_75.102aca3c.2be520c5_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rumsfeld Says Fortunes Lie Ahead in Iraq: Declares U.S. New Cradle Of Civilization By MUTT COOLIE Assassinated Press Writer They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe. companions to liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson "America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. This is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know." Gore Vidal --part1_75.102aca3c.2be520c5_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Rumsfeld Says Fortunes Lie Ahead in Iraq:
Declares U.S. New Cradle Of Civilization

By MUTT COOLIE<= FONT COLOR=3D"#000000" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3D2 FAMILY= =3D"SERIF" FACE=3D"Times New Roman" LANG=3D"0">
Assassinated Press Writer





They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency
to render the head too large for the body.  A standing military
force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe.
companions to liberty.  -- Thomas Jefferson


"America is a quarter of= a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. T= his is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just b= eyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know."

Gore Vidal


--part1_75.102aca3c.2be520c5_boundary-- From JBCM2 at aol.com Sat May 3 14:45:05 2003 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2@aol.com) Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 09:45:05 EDT Subject: Rumsfeld Says Fortunes Lie Ahead in Iraq: --part1_15b.1ef0f4c5.2be521e1_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Click here: The Assassinated Press Rumsfeld Says Fortunes Lie Ahead in Iraq: Declares U.S. New Cradle Of Civilization By MUTT COOLIE Assassinated Press Writer They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe. companions to liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson "America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. This is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know." Gore Vidal --part1_15b.1ef0f4c5.2be521e1_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Click here: The Assassinated Press

Rumsfeld Says Fortu= nes Lie Ahead in Iraq:
Declares U.S. New Cradle Of Civilization

By MUTT COOLIE
Assassinated Press Writer=






They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency
to render the head too large for the body.  A standing military
force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe.
companions to liberty.  -- Thomas Jefferson


"America is a quarter of= a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. T= his is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just b= eyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know."

Gore Vidal


--part1_15b.1ef0f4c5.2be521e1_boundary-- From clausdh at tdcspace.dk Sat May 3 15:16:29 2003 From: clausdh at tdcspace.dk (Claus Hansen) Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 16:16:29 +0200 Subject: FS & Marxism Hello Matt and others,

now I am certainly no expert on this issue but I might as well give me behalf to this
quite interesting question. I would tend to agree with both Ralph and James that the
label Western Marxism is quite suspect. In any case I don't believe Habermas (and
certainly not Adorno & Horkheimer) were ever trying to fit in a tradition that included
figures like Gramsci, Sartre, Althusser and others. However, Georg Lukacs, Ernst
Bloch and Karl Korsch have all been influential at least for A & H.

A wild guess on articles etc to read about this would be the following:

        'The Topography of Western Marxism' in Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality
        in this introduction he refers to the following books/articles that deal with
        the term Western Marxism:
         =        
         =        'Considerations on Western Marxism' by Perry Anderson
         =        reviews of this book in Socialist Revolution 7, 5 (1977) by J. Herf,
         =        Monthly Review 30, 4 (1978) by R. D. Wolff, Telos 30 (1976-77)
        &n= bsp;       by P. Piccone
         =        
        'The Frankfurt School Revisited: A Critique of Martin Jay's The Dialectical
        Imagination'<= /i>  by D. Kellner in New German Critique, no. 4 (1973). Which
        as far as I can see gives an elaboration of the early critical theorists at
        the Institute (Felix Weil, Pollock, Horkheimer) commitment to marxism.

Now I have only very hastily flicked these articles through so I cannot guarentee
anything at all but as always please keep posting if anyone know anything - it is
such a good way to learn some more.

Best regards,

Claus


At 12:49 03-05-03 +0000, you wrote:
James,

but Western Marxism is already part of the historical discourse of Critical Theory. So can the present discourse retrospectively decree its irrelevance? Maybe it's a good thing to dispense with history altogether. Partly my response to Habermas's essay on post-liberation Iraq is that we have to live in the moment of history. it's a scarey predicament. But then it has been a scarey couple of months. life is scarey. As a species we are so so scared of the present mainly because of its existential ramifications. This is mainly why past and future orientated delusions are so powerful, I suppose. Cultural/historical identity construction + Hire/purchase, mortgages and life in the hereafter loom large as pretty good delusions in the majority consciousness. damned majorities. Nietzsche &/or the mediocrity of democracy?

I tend to agree with Ralph that th= e category "western Marxism" may be too broad to be meaningful,
----------
Yes. I was hoping for further illumination along these lines. All this for me is to try and make certain/sense of Habermas's claims in the _TCA_ that H. & A's critique of instrumental reason had - in actual terms - interrupted the tradition of Critical theory

but I don't think your particular questions RE: H and A's Marxism vs. Habermas' Marxism are at all irrelevant.  Many writers I've seen contrast H and A's Marxism with the Marxism of the Internationals, or with Marxism as defined by other specific figures. It seems like specifically identifing the configuration of Marxism that H and A were in dialog with is the route to take.

This is in part an empirical question asked of the list. I am hoping there are subscribers to this List who may be able to shed light on this aspect of Critical Theory's history.

MattP.


_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to 
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp

_________________________________________________________________________= ___
"Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, n=E5r de siger 'jeg'" (T.W. Adorno) From jrovira at drew.edu Sat May 3 19:36:35 2003 From: jrovira at drew.edu (Jim Rovira) Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 14:36:35 -0400 Subject: FS & Marxism I'm looking forward to seeing what comes up. To add on to Claus' reading list, Jameson's _Aesthetics and Politics_ has some good essays by Adorno in critique of Lukacs and Brecht, which could shed some light on this issue. Jim matthew piscioneri wrote: > This is in part an empirical question asked of the list. I am hoping there > are subscribers to this List who may be able to shed light on this aspect of > Critical Theory's history. > > MattP. From mpiscioneri at hotmail.com Sat May 3 23:07:24 2003 From: mpiscioneri at hotmail.com (matthew piscioneri) Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 22:07:24 +0000 Subject: FS & Marxism This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_2d15_5d3b_634a Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Claus, Jim, Thanks for both your replies. I appreciate the reading list. You'll have to excuse my lack of a broader knowledge of the relationship of the FS to (western)Marxism. Given my focus of research I am adressing these issues from Habermas's discourse over the viability of C.T post-_DoE_ & _Negative Dialectics_ especially. >From this generational distance it is (obviously) difficult to reconstruct accurately the sense of the milieu in FDR in the late-1960s and 1970s. I only travelled to the FDR in the early 1980s. Previous to that most my awareness of the FDR cultural and intellectual scene came via acquaintance with the artistic post-object avant-garde (Beuys & Fluxus, Documentas etc). More specifically, my line of inquiry leads towards making sense of the object domain of Habermas's reconstruction of Critical Theory. Was Habermas's understanding in the first phase of his reconstructive project (_Knowledge & Human Interests) that he was simultaneously reconstucting historical materialism? In other words where was Habermas writing from? It appears to me that he is writing from within C.T within the tradition of western Marxism. This complicates his claims of aporia to a degree though. The broader tradition of western Marxism did not substantively appear to be interrupted by H. & A.s critique of instrumental reason. So two and a half options. JH's claims re-aporetic interruption are mainly rhetorical. JH's claims refer mainly to C.T, and Habermas contends that the broader tradition of western Marxism was also vulnerable on a metatheoretical level to H. & A's. critique. Partly what this suggests is that JH conceives of late-C.T discourse over the normative conditions of possibility for a critical theory of society as a type of metadiscourse concerning critical-emancipatory reason to apply directly to the broader Marxist tradition. In other words, the focus of H. & A's discourse was the primordial discourse of enlightenment out of which Marx's work developed. In this way JH's engagement with late-Critical Theory is expected to apply to western Marxism. Although the health of western Marxism post-dialectic of enlightenment stands in substantive contradiction to Habermas's claims of aporia. This all makes sense if Habermas's claims in the _TCA_ (Polity Press, 1995,1.386) are mainly directed at the Frankfurt School. That there was an unwillingness to renew a *critical* theory of society within the Institute. Or was JH talking to himself? :-). Regards, MattP. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp ------=_NextPart_000_2d15_5d3b_634a Content-Type: message/rfc822 X-Message-Info: EoYTbT2lH2MsQxQLKd6QGpQxvU17UYmU Received: from mail.virginia.edu ([128.143.2.9]) by mc5-f38.law1.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Sat, 3 May 2003 07:19:00 -0700 Received: from lists.village.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa16782; 3 May 2003 10:16 EDT Received: (from domo@localhost) by lists.village.Virginia.EDU (8.9.3p2/8.9.0) id KAA08749 for frankfurt-school-outgoing; Sat, 3 May 2003 10:16:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.Virginia.EDU: domo set sender to owner-frankfurt-school@localhost using -f Received: from pfepc.post.tele.dk (pfepc.post.tele.dk [193.162.153.4]) by lists.village.Virginia.EDU (8.9.3p2/8.9.0) with ESMTP id KAA08745 for ; Sat, 3 May 2003 10:16:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: from diamond.tdcspace.dk (0x50a16872.abnxx4.adsl-dhcp.tele.dk [80.161.104.114]) by pfepc.post.tele.dk (Postfix) with ESMTP id A4AA9262A01 for ; Sat, 3 May 2003 16:16:18 +0200 (CEST) Message-Id: <5.1.1.6.0.20030503154752.00a39990@pop3.mail.dk> X-Sender: 120101960059@pop3.mail.dk X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1.1 Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 16:16:29 +0200 To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu From: Claus Hansen Subject: Re: FS & Marxism In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: owner-frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu Return-Path: owner-frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu X-OriginalArrivalTime: 03 May 2003 14:19:00.0504 (UTC) FILETIME=[F1198980:01C3117E] Hello Matt and others,

now I am certainly no expert on this issue but I might as well give me behalf to this
quite interesting question. I would tend to agree with both Ralph and James that the
label Western Marxism is quite suspect. In any case I don't believe Habermas (and
certainly not Adorno & Horkheimer) were ever trying to fit in a tradition that included
figures like Gramsci, Sartre, Althusser and others. However, Georg Lukacs, Ernst
Bloch and Karl Korsch have all been influential at least for A & H.

A wild guess on articles etc to read about this would be the following:

        'The Topography of Western Marxism' in Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality
        in this introduction he refers to the following books/articles that deal with
        the term Western Marxism:
         =        
         =        'Considerations on Western Marxism' by Perry Anderson
         =        reviews of this book in Socialist Revolution 7, 5 (1977) by J. Herf,
         =        Monthly Review 30, 4 (1978) by R. D. Wolff, Telos 30 (1976-77)
        &n= bsp;       by P. Piccone
         =        
        'The Frankfurt School Revisited: A Critique of Martin Jay's The Dialectical
        Imagination'<= /i>  by D. Kellner in New German Critique, no. 4 (1973). Which
        as far as I can see gives an elaboration of the early critical theorists at
        the Institute (Felix Weil, Pollock, Horkheimer) commitment to marxism.

Now I have only very hastily flicked these articles through so I cannot guarentee
anything at all but as always please keep posting if anyone know anything - it is
such a good way to learn some more.

Best regards,

Claus


At 12:49 03-05-03 +0000, you wrote:

James,

but Western Marxism is already part of the historical discourse of Critical Theory. So can the present discourse retrospectively decree its irrelevance? Maybe it's a good thing to dispense with history altogether. Partly my response to Habermas's essay on post-liberation Iraq is that we have to live in the moment of history. it's a scarey predicament. But then it has been a scarey couple of months. life is scarey. As a species we are so so scared of the present mainly because of its existential ramifications. This is mainly why past and future orientated delusions are so powerful, I suppose. Cultural/historical identity construction + Hire/purchase, mortgages and life in the hereafter loom large as pretty good delusions in the majority consciousness. damned majorities. Nietzsche &/or the mediocrity of democracy?

I tend to agree with Ralph that th= e category "western Marxism" may be too broad to be meaningful,
----------
Yes. I was hoping for further illumination along these lines. All this for me is to try and make certain/sense of Habermas's claims in the _TCA_ that H. & A's critique of instrumental reason had - in actual terms - interrupted the tradition of Critical theory

but I don't think your particular questions RE: H and A's Marxism vs. Habermas' Marxism are at all irrelevant.  Many writers I've seen contrast H and A's Marxism with the Marxism of the Internationals, or with Marxism as defined by other specific figures. It seems like specifically identifing the configuration of Marxism that H and A were in dialog with is the route to take.

This is in part an empirical question asked of the list. I am hoping there are subscribers to this List who may be able to shed light on this aspect of Critical Theory's history.

MattP.


_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to 
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp

_________________________________________________________________________= ___
"Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, n=E5r de siger 'jeg'" (T.W. Adorno) ------=_NextPart_000_2d15_5d3b_634a-- From clausdh at tdcspace.dk Sun May 4 12:10:53 2003 From: clausdh at tdcspace.dk (Claus Hansen) Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 13:10:53 +0200 Subject: FS & Marxism Just a couple of thoughts on this... At 22:07 03-05-03 +0000, you wrote: >Claus, Jim, > >Thanks for both your replies. I appreciate the reading list. You'll have >to excuse my lack of a broader knowledge of the relationship of the FS to >(western)Marxism. Given my focus of research I am adressing these issues >from Habermas's discourse over the viability of C.T post-_DoE_ & _Negative >Dialectics_ especially. > > From this generational distance it is (obviously) difficult to > reconstruct accurately the sense of the milieu in FDR in the late-1960s > and 1970s. I only travelled to the FDR in the early 1980s. Previous to > that most my awareness of the FDR cultural and intellectual scene came > via acquaintance with the artistic post-object avant-garde (Beuys & > Fluxus, Documentas etc). > >More specifically, my line of inquiry leads towards making sense of the >object domain of Habermas's reconstruction of Critical Theory. Was >Habermas's understanding in the first phase of his reconstructive project >(_Knowledge & Human Interests) that he was simultaneously reconstucting >historical materialism? In other words where was Habermas writing from? It >appears to me that he is writing from within C.T within the tradition of >western Marxism. I think you are on to something here. In my understanding Habermas makes some kind of break or tension between Knowledge & Human Interests and the Theory of Communicative Action, thus he writes the following in TCA: ' I do not conceive of my analysis of the general structures of action oriented to reaching understanding as a continuation of my analysis of the theory of knowledge with other means'. (TCA, xli). That there in fact is a tension in Habermas' thoughts here is also pointed out by Honneth in his reconstruction of critical theory: ' Habermas converts the insights from the theory of communication underlying his theory of knowledge into two competing conceptions of the organization of society. Although this tension is not obvious, the writings from the late 1960's in which he attempts to transform his epistemological considerations into a theory of society contain two tendencies: One the one hand, there is the model of a two-tiered reproduction of society within instrumental-rational and communicative spheres of action. This model arose in connection with his criticisms of the technocracy thesis. On the other hand, there is the model of a maintenance of the social order through institutionally mediated communicative relations between morally integrated groups, which arose in connection with his critique of Marx...But Habermas did not pursue further the basic idea of a social theory latent in the philosophical-historical idea of a moral 'dialectic of class conflict'. On the contrary, in the 1970s his social theory elaborates, in several steps, the approach formulated in his criticism of the technocracy thesis. This development culminates in the two-volume work The Theory of Communicative Action. Along the path toward it, the traces of an alternative model of society are gradually lost." (Honneth, The Critique of Power, pp. 278-9). Thus I believe it would be possible to claim that Habermas finds it necessary to drop the idea of reconsructing historical materialism because the pathologies of modern societies increasingly are what he terms class-unspecific - eg. that the reification of modern societies also reifies the consciousness of the bougeoisie. In TCA he claims more than once that he is trying to capture the reception of Marxism which is inspired by a Weberian reading that is - the Lukacsian/A & H reading of Marx and Weber combined. And in Towards a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism he contrasts his own effort to the structuralist reading of Marx by Althusser. In other words, I think he was only refering to the part of Western Marxism that was inspired by a Weberian reading of Marx. >This complicates his claims of aporia to a degree though. The broader >tradition of western Marxism did not substantively appear to be >interrupted by H. & A.s critique of instrumental reason. So two and a half >options. JH's claims re-aporetic interruption are mainly rhetorical. JH's >claims refer mainly to C.T, and Habermas contends that the broader >tradition of western Marxism was also vulnerable on a metatheoretical >level to H. & A's. critique. Then with that in mind and in connection with some of the thins he also states - what he thinks has been interrupted was the critical theory of society first sketched by Horkheimer in 1931 eg. the interdisciplinary research programme - and it is this task he sets himself as a goal of reconstruction (hence his final chapter in TCA of the Tasks of a Critical Theory of Society) and revitalisation. >Partly what this suggests is that JH conceives of late-C.T discourse over >the normative conditions of possibility for a critical theory of society >as a type of metadiscourse concerning critical-emancipatory reason to >apply directly to the broader Marxist tradition. In other words, the focus >of H. & A's discourse was the primordial discourse of enlightenment out of >which Marx's work developed. In this way JH's engagement with >late-Critical Theory is expected to apply to western Marxism. Although the >health of western Marxism post-dialectic of enlightenment stands in >substantive contradiction to Habermas's claims of aporia. > >This all makes sense if Habermas's claims in the _TCA_ (Polity Press, >1995,1.386) are mainly directed at the Frankfurt School. That there was an >unwillingness to renew a *critical* theory of society within the >Institute. Or was JH talking to himself? :-). I think one should bear in mind that the institute was increasingly being financed by external projects for instance ordered by State institutions and firms. I believe it was for this reason that Habermas decided to leave behind the Institute in the late 1960's because the research climate at the Max Planck Institute was better. It was also this fact that lead Adorno to refrain from participating as actively in the empirical research programmes from the end of the 1950's to his death in 1969. This is anyway what I vaguely remember reading in Wiggershaus history of the Frankfurt School. Please correct if I'm wrong. >Regards, > >MattP. > > > >_________________________________________________________________ >MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.Go to >http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp > > >X-Message-Info: EoYTbT2lH2MsQxQLKd6QGpQxvU17UYmU >Received: from mail.virginia.edu ([128.143.2.9]) by >mc5-f38.law1.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); > Sat, 3 May 2003 07:19:00 -0700 >Received: from lists.village.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa16782; > 3 May 2003 10:16 EDT >Received: (from domo@localhost) > by lists.village.Virginia.EDU (8.9.3p2/8.9.0) id KAA08749 > for frankfurt-school-outgoing; Sat, 3 May 2003 10:16:25 -0400 (EDT) >X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.Virginia.EDU: domo set sender to >owner-frankfurt-school@localhost using -f >Received: from pfepc.post.tele.dk (pfepc.post.tele.dk [193.162.153.4]) > by lists.village.Virginia.EDU (8.9.3p2/8.9.0) with ESMTP id KAA08745 > for ; Sat, 3 May > 2003 10:16:21 -0400 (EDT) >Received: from diamond.tdcspace.dk (0x50a16872.abnxx4.adsl-dhcp.tele.dk >[80.161.104.114]) > by pfepc.post.tele.dk (Postfix) with ESMTP id A4AA9262A01 > for ; Sat, 3 May > 2003 16:16:18 +0200 (CEST) >Message-Id: <5.1.1.6.0.20030503154752.00a39990@pop3.mail.dk> >X-Sender: 120101960059@pop3.mail.dk >X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1.1 >Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 16:16:29 +0200 >To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu >From: Claus Hansen >Subject: Re: FS & Marxism >In-Reply-To: >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" >Sender: owner-frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu >Precedence: bulk >Reply-To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu >Return-Path: owner-frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu >X-OriginalArrivalTime: 03 May 2003 14:19:00.0504 (UTC) >FILETIME=[F1198980:01C3117E] > >Hello Matt and others, > >now I am certainly no expert on this issue but I might as well give me >behalf to this >quite interesting question. I would tend to agree with both Ralph and >James that the >label Western Marxism is quite suspect. In any case I don't believe >Habermas (and >certainly not Adorno & Horkheimer) were ever trying to fit in a tradition >that included >figures like Gramsci, Sartre, Althusser and others. However, Georg Lukacs, >Ernst >Bloch and Karl Korsch have all been influential at least for A & H. > >A wild guess on articles etc to read about this would be the following: > > 'The Topography of Western Marxism' in Martin Jay, Marxism and > Totality > in this introduction he refers to the following books/articles > that deal with > the term Western Marxism: > > 'Considerations on Western Marxism' by Perry Anderson > reviews of this book in Socialist Revolution 7, 5 (1977) > by J. Herf, > Monthly Review 30, 4 (1978) by R. D. Wolff, Telos 30 > (1976-77) > by P. Piccone > > 'The Frankfurt School Revisited: A Critique of Martin Jay's The > Dialectical > Imagination' by D. Kellner in New German Critique, no. 4 (1973). > Which > as far as I can see gives an elaboration of the early critical > theorists at > the Institute (Felix Weil, Pollock, Horkheimer) commitment to > marxism. > >Now I have only very hastily flicked these articles through so I cannot >guarentee >anything at all but as always please keep posting if anyone know anything >- it is >such a good way to learn some more. > >Best regards, > >Claus > > >At 12:49 03-05-03 +0000, you wrote: >>James, >> >>but Western Marxism is already part of the historical discourse of >>Critical Theory. So can the present discourse retrospectively decree its >>irrelevance? Maybe it's a good thing to dispense with history altogether. >>Partly my response to Habermas's essay on post-liberation Iraq is that we >>have to live in the moment of history. it's a scarey predicament. But >>then it has been a scarey couple of months. life is scarey. As a species >>we are so so scared of the present mainly because of its existential >>ramifications. This is mainly why past and future orientated delusions >>are so powerful, I suppose. Cultural/historical identity construction + >>Hire/purchase, mortgages and life in the hereafter loom large as pretty >>good delusions in the majority consciousness. damned majorities. >>Nietzsche &/or the mediocrity of democracy? >> >>>I tend to agree with Ralph that the category "western Marxism" may be >>>too broad to be meaningful, >>---------- >>Yes. I was hoping for further illumination along these lines. All this >>for me is to try and make certain/sense of Habermas's claims in the _TCA_ >>that H. & A's critique of instrumental reason had - in actual terms - >>interrupted the tradition of Critical theory >> >>>but I don't think your particular questions RE: H and A's Marxism vs. >>>Habermas' Marxism are at all irrelevant. Many writers I've seen >>>contrast H and A's Marxism with the Marxism of the Internationals, or >>>with Marxism as defined by other specific figures. It seems like >>>specifically identifing the configuration of Marxism that H and A were >>>in dialog with is the route to take. >> >>This is in part an empirical question asked of the list. I am hoping >>there are subscribers to this List who may be able to shed light on this >>aspect of Critical Theory's history. >> >>MattP. >> >> >>_________________________________________________________________ >>Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to >>http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp > >____________________________________________________________________________ >"Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, når de siger >'jeg'" (T.W. Adorno) ____________________________________________________________________________ "Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, når de siger 'jeg'" (T.W. Adorno) From mpiscioneri at hotmail.com Tue May 6 11:55:33 2003 From: mpiscioneri at hotmail.com (matthew piscioneri) Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 10:55:33 +0000 Subject: FS & Marxism Dear Claus, Thanks for your comments. These issues comprise a large part of my thesis so I am VERY grateful for engagement of any sort. >I think you are on to something here. In my understanding Habermas makes >some kind of break or tension >between Knowledge & Human Interests and the Theory of Communicative Action, >thus he writes the following in TCA: > >' I do not conceive of my analysis of the general structures of action >oriented to reaching understanding as >a continuation of my analysis of the theory of knowledge with other means'. >(TCA, xli). > >That there in fact is a tension in Habermas' thoughts here is also pointed >out by Honneth in his reconstruction >of critical theory: > >' Habermas converts the insights from the theory of communication >underlying his theory of knowledge into >two competing conceptions of the organization of society. Although this >tension is not obvious, the writings >from the late 1960's in which he attempts to transform his epistemological >considerations into a theory of >society contain two tendencies: One the one hand, there is the model of a >two-tiered reproduction of society >within instrumental-rational and communicative spheres of action. This >model arose in connection with his >criticisms of the technocracy thesis. On the other hand, there is the model >of a maintenance of the social >order through institutionally mediated communicative relations between >morally integrated groups, which arose >in connection with his critique of Marx...But Habermas did not pursue >further the basic idea of a social theory >latent in the philosophical-historical idea of a moral 'dialectic of class >conflict'. On the contrary, in the 1970s >his social theory elaborates, in several steps, the approach formulated in >his criticism of the technocracy >thesis. This development culminates in the two-volume work The Theory of >Communicative Action. Along the >path toward it, the traces of an alternative model of society are gradually >lost." (Honneth, The Critique of Power, >pp. 278-9). > >Thus I believe it would be possible to claim that Habermas finds it >necessary to drop the idea of reconsructing >historical materialism because the pathologies of modern societies >increasingly are what he terms >class-unspecific - eg. that the reification of modern societies also >reifies the consciousness of the bougeoisie. > >In TCA he claims more than once that he is trying to capture the reception >of Marxism which is inspired >by a Weberian reading that is - the Lukacsian/A & H reading of Marx and >Weber combined. And in Towards >a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism he contrasts his own effort to >the structuralist reading of Marx >by Althusser. In other words, I think he was only refering to the part of >Western Marxism that was inspired >by a Weberian reading of Marx. >I think one should bear in mind that the institute was increasingly being >financed by external projects for instance >ordered by State institutions and firms. I believe it was for this reason >that Habermas decided to leave behind the >Institute in the late 1960's because the research climate at the Max Planck >Institute was better. It was also this fact >that lead Adorno to refrain from participating as actively in the empirical >research programmes from the end of the >1950's to his death in 1969. This is anyway what I vaguely remember reading >in Wiggershaus history of the Frankfurt >School. Please correct if I'm wrong. I don't at all think you are wrong! In fact what you have just written adds greatly to my understanding of the socio-historical milieu surrounding Habermas's move to the Max Planck Insitute. I have read this in terms of Habermas becoming *his own man* as it were free of the patronage/responsibilities owed to the FS. Thus his technocracy critiques with Claus Offe. However, is there a later RETURN to C.T???? I think there is and this invigorates the second phase of Habermas's reconstructive project starting with the _TCA_ & continuing especially with _PDM_. The crisis situation moves from the Positivist Dispute, moves from the engagement with technocratic theories in the early 1970s to a forthright confrontation with post-structuralism and neo-Nietzscheanism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mind you these issues have been well charted by Hohendahl and Holub. My focus is on evaluating Habermas's reconstruction of C.T with due regard paid to these socio-historical and cultural factors specifically in the FDR in the 1970s taken into account. To take up the issue of western Marxism. It is clear that in the _TCA_ Habermas sees his theory of communicative action as a replacement for Marx's theory of value. In the end Habermas's relationship to marxism defies my limited analytical expertise. I don't even know how to frame the questions to be honest with you. One thing reasonates, that is for sure, Habermas was dedicated to revising certain marxist dogmas re the paradigm of production. Surely Habermas's critique here remains worthwhile. More controversial for the furtherance of the critical-emancipatory project is Habermas's critique of holistic or revolutionary aspirations for praxis. It is as if we are IN the totally administered society trying to make the best of it :-). Yet as Honneth's essay "Communication and Reconciliation" (Telos,1979) reveals even Adorno accepted that categories had a lifetime of semantic relevance. It hurts to consider that the category of emancipation has well and truly reached its use by date. I was thinking about this last night. What is overlooked is the affective/nostalgic force of such a category. On one level at least these types of Idealistic categories remain *useful* (sic) in beating the drums of war. Best regards, MattP. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp From JBCM2 at aol.com Tue May 6 16:38:17 2003 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2@aol.com) Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 11:38:17 EDT Subject: The Financial Big Bang In the Yin/Yang of Terrorism and Security --part1_15d.1f0b97d4.2be930e9_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Click here: The Assassinated Press The Financial Big Bang In the Yin/Yang of Terrorism and Security: Assrift and G8 Meet To Insure al-Qaida Threat Remains Serious By JOHN LIESCENTS The Assassinated Press They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe. companions to liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson "America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. This is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know." Gore Vidal --part1_15d.1f0b97d4.2be930e9_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Click here: The Assassinated Press


The Financial Big Bang In= the Yin/Yang of Terrorism and
Security:
    Assrift and G8 Meet To Insure al-Qaida Threat
Remains Serious

  By JOHN LIESCENTS<= /FONT>
The Assassinated Press




They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency
to render the head too large for the body.  A standing military
force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe.
companions to liberty.  -- Thomas Jefferson


"America is a quarter of= a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. T= his is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just b= eyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know."

Gore Vidal


--part1_15d.1f0b97d4.2be930e9_boundary-- From rscheetz at cboss.com Tue May 6 05:10:26 2003 From: rscheetz at cboss.com (bob scheetz) Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 00:10:26 -0400 Subject: F & S This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0026_01C31363.E56075E0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable test ------=_NextPart_000_0026_01C31363.E56075E0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

test
------=_NextPart_000_0026_01C31363.E56075E0-- From sangild at hum.ku.dk Thu May 8 17:50:20 2003 From: sangild at hum.ku.dk (Torben Sangild) Date: Thu, 8 May 2003 18:50:20 +0200 Subject: SV: F & S This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. ------_=_NextPart_001_01C31581.E97D18C0 Content-Type: text/plain Congratulations Bob, this is by far the clearest and most interesting posting I have seen from you... ;-) -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- Fra: bob scheetz [mailto:rscheetz@cboss.com] Sendt: 6. maj 2003 06:10 Til: frankfurt school Emne: F & S test ------_=_NextPart_001_01C31581.E97D18C0 Content-Type: text/html

Congratulations Bob, this is by far the clearest and most interesting posting I have seen from you...

 

;-)

 

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: bob scheetz [mailto:rscheetz@cboss.com]
Sendt: 6. maj 2003 06:10
Til: frankfurt school
Emne: F & S

 

test

------_=_NextPart_001_01C31581.E97D18C0-- From aperrin at email.unc.edu Wed May 7 19:49:18 2003 From: aperrin at email.unc.edu (Andrew Perrin) Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 14:49:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Adorno: "Kabinettspolitik" I'm in the process of completing a translation of Adorno's essay "Meinungsforschung und Oeffentlichkeit" (1964). At one point, Adorno uses the term "Kabinettspolitik" (literally: "cabinet politics") as a practice of which public opinion provides a valid critique. The original sentence is: Nur in dieser Relation ist der Begriff zu verstehen, als Kritik der absolutischen Kabinettspolitik, so wie umgekehrt aristokratische Ordnungen der Geheimhaltung beduerfen und bis zu gegenwaertigen Elitetheorien das Geheimnis verherrlichen. Can anyone shed some light on what Kabinettspolitik refers to? From context, we have inferred that it refers to politics-by-polls, e.g., the tendency on the part of politicians to simply follow "public opinion"; but I've not run across the term before and wonder if anyone else has and can provide some context. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin@unc.edu - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 269 Hamilton Hall, CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA From rdumain at igc.org Sat May 10 04:26:43 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 23:26:43 -0400 Subject: Jeffrey Herf on reactionary modernism & Dialectic of Quotes from: Herf, Jeffrey. Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich. London: Cambridge University Press, 1986 [1984]. More than any other modern social theorists, Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno placed the intertwining of myth and rationalization at the center of attention in their classic work, Dialectic Of Enlightenment. They opened their book with the now well-known assertion that the "fully enlightened world" radiated "disaster triumphant." If this was the case, understanding the relation between nazism and modernity was crucial. Part of their argument merely repeated standard Marxist views: "Bourgeois anti-Semitism has a specific economic reason: the concealment of domination in production." Right-wing anticapitalists identified the Jews with the "unproductive" circulation sphere of banking, finance, and commerce and praised the sphere of production and technology as an integral part of the nation. German anticapitalism was anti-Semitic but not antitechnological. But it was a second, and more sweeping, analysis of the Enlightenment that made Horkheimer and Adorno's work truly distinctive. They argued that the German disaster was the outcome of a link between reason, myth, and domination implicit in Enlightenment thought since Kant and Hegel. The Enlightenment's true face of calculation and domination was evident in de Sade's highly organized tortures and orgies. In Germany the Jews suffered from being identified with both abstract rationality and with backwardness and reluctance to conform to national community." National Socialism telescoped in a particular place and time the awful potentialities of the Western domination of nature. Horkheimer and Adorno were right to point out that reason and myth were intertwined in the German dictatorship. No doubt, the cultural paradoxes of reactionary modernism were less perplexing for these dialectical thinkers than for those more accustomed to dichotomous modes of thought. But if their perceptions were accurate, their theory of the Enlightenment and their view of modern German history were woefully mistaken. What proved so disastrous for Germany was the separation of the Enlightenment from German nationalism. German society remained partially never "fully" enlightened. Horkheimer and Adorno's analysis overlooked this national context and generalized Germany's miseries into dilemmas of modernity per se. Consequently they blamed the Enlightenment for what was really the result of its weakness. Although technology exerted a fascination for fascist intellectuals all over Europe, it was only in Germany that it became part of the national identity. The unique combination of industrial development and a weak liberal tradition was the social background for reactionary modernism. The thesis of the dialectic of enlightenment obscured this historical uniqueness. As a "critical theory," it is strangely apologetic in regard to modern Germany history. It is one of the ironies of modern social theory that the critical theorists, who thought they were defending the unique against the general, contributed to obscuring the uniqueness of Germany's illiberal path toward modernity. This said, it is better to have been perceptive for the wrong reasons than to have neglected an important problem altogether. It would be less than generous of me not to acknowledge the role concepts such as reification, the aestheticization of politics, and the dialectic of enlightenment have had in directing my attention to the existence of a reactionary modernist tradition in Germany. Although some of the literature on National Socialism inspired by the critical theorists suffers from sloganeering about fascism and capitalism, some very fine reconsiderations of the interaction of modernist and antimodernist currents in National Socialism have also appeared. [pp. 9-10] * * * * To be sure, there were similarities between the modernist vanguard in Germany, especially Junger, and right-wing modernism in Europe generally. Some observers have interpreted these parallels as lending support to Adorno and Horkheimer's thesis of the dialectic of enlightenment according to which enlightenment rationality contains within itself a return to myth regardless of national histories and traditions. In my view, however, the urge to compare has obscured German uniqueness. Nowhere else in Europe did technological modernity and romantic protest clash with such force as in Germany. Nowhere else had industrialization developed so quickly in the absence of a successful bourgeois revolution. And nowhere else was protest against the Enlightenment a constitutive element in the formation of national identity as it had been in Germany from the early nineteenth century up through Weimar. Although Italian, French, and British intellectuals presented similar themes, none of these societies witnessed anything comparable to the Streit um die Technik that filled the political clubs of the literati and the lecture halls of the technical universities in Weimar. Nor did they produce a cultural tradition spanning three-quarters of a century. The reason for the depth and pervasiveness of the reactionary modernist tradition in Germany had less to do with capitalism or modernity in general than with the form they took in Germany. The conservative revolution must be understood in light of the German problem in general, that is, the weakness of democracy and the liberal principle in a society that became highly industrialized very quickly. Neither anti-Western resentments nor technological proficiency were monopolies of the Germans. But nowhere else did the two coexist in such thorough forms. This is why reactionary modernism became part of German nationalism while elsewhere in Europe it remained one of the fads and fashions of the avant-garde. It was the weakness of the Enlightenment in Germany, not its strength, that encouraged the confusions concerning technology I have called reactionary modernism. And it was also Germany's unique (at that time) path to modernity that made possible the ultimate political impact of reactionary modernist ideology. [pp. 47-48] * * * * Before examining Sombart's views on technology in more detail, it will be useful to introduce the following brief comments on explanations of anti-Semitism in Germany. In particular, I want to comment on Horkheimer and Adorno's analyses in The Dialectic of Enlightenment. The least convincing aspect of Horkheimer and Adorno's theory was their assertion that modern anti-Semitism was connected to the transition from competitive to monopoly capitalism. They argued that power had shifted to the corporations, yet the economic power of the Jews remained in finance. As the circulation sphere declined in power and influence, the attacks on it as the source of Germany's problems grew. "Bourgeois anti-Semitism has a specific economic reason," they wrote, namely, "the concealment of domination in production." According to Horkheimer and Adorno, although the capitalists called themselves productive, "everyone knew the truth." The truth was that this was an ideological mystification obscuring the realities of exploitation in the labor process. Attacks on the merchant, middleman, and banker are "socially necessary pretenses" directed at the circulation sphere to obscure the real source of exploitation.' Proudhonian anarchism and German volkisch traditions, though differing in many ways, were similar in redirecting the resentment of peasants, artisans, and later the urban lower middle classes against capitalism into rage at the Jews. By the time they wrote Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno had distanced themselves from this restatement of conventional Marxist accounts to incorporate a more Weberian and, in the last years of the war, more pessimistic and more interesting perspective. This second account was part of their view of the disastrous consequences of the Enlightenment. Anti-Semitism, they claimed, represented a distorted "appeal to idiosyncrasy" in the face of civilizational reason and abstraction. By viewing the Jews as the cause of the destruction of particular, idiosyncratic individuals and their national identity and culture, the anti-Semite turned anticivilizational moods into racism. In Helmut Plessner's phrase, antimodernism in Germany ends in the "hour of authoritarian biology." Rather than conceptualize the origins of social problems, anti-Semitism served to rally nationalist sentiment against conceptual thinking per se. Scientific and technical progress seemed to arouse hatred of the intellect because the conceptualization associated with it always "absorbed the different by the same," thus eclipsing a mimetic world of religious myth and imagery with one in which all experience would be subject to quantification. What was peculiar about modern anti-Semitism was that it presented the Jews as both the primary agents of this rationalization process and the remnants of tabooed elements of life that civilization was trying to repress. The Jews both lagged behind and were too far ahead of civilization. As Horkheimer and Adorno put it, "They are both clever and stupid, similar and dissimilar ... Because they invented the concept of kosher meat, they are persecuted as swine." The Jews were the demiurge of rationalization as well as representatives of backward remnants, both members of German-Jewish assimilated cosmopolitanism and the East European ghetto. Moishe Postone has recently analyzed these paradoxes in terms taken from Marx. Modern anti-Semitism translated a revolt against commodity fetishism into biological terms. The Jews stood for abstract labor and the Germans for concrete labor. Anticapitalist revolution was thus redefined into its subsequent murderous paths. A powerful German revolution was necessary to destroy the all-pervasive power of the Jews. These authors' efforts are interesting from our perspective not because they succeed in presenting a general theory of modern antiSemitism. Such success is, in my view, both impossible and not worth the effort. Rather, their interest lies in grasping German, and subsequently National Socialist, anti-Semitism as possessed of equal parts of modernist and antimodernist components. This is what Horkheimer meant when he described National Socialism as a system of rule that used bureaucratic organization and modern propaganda to organize this "revolt of nature" against abstraction. If the Jews were simultaneously agents of abstract rationality and symbols of backwardness, then attacking them both placed one firmly within the traditions of the national insiders and signified adaptation to the spirit of modern times. Anti-Semites attacked the Jews for being both soulless and overintellectualized, and oversexed and money hungry. It was a form of racial hatred that attacked the mind yet did not call industrial advance into question. Instead of attacking machines or the capitalists, anti-Semites dreamed of a world without Jews. [pp. 130-133] * * * * However critical the Frankfurt theorists were of developing Soviet orthodoxy, their analysis of National Socialism, even after World War II, was imprisoned in the limits of Marxist theory. Probably the most peculiar and bizarre analysis of nazism was Marcuse's view that liberalism and fascism were intertwined. He mistook the weakness of German liberalism, its failure to have effectively confronted the authoritarian forces in German society, for the essence of liberalism. Benjamin's analysis of fascist aesthetics was particularly insightful in grasping the appeal of fascism for the intellectuals in France and Italy as well as in Germany. But again, Benjamin generalized a phenomenon that was most widespread and pervasive in Germany into the problem of fascism as a European phenomenon. Franz Neumann's Behemoth was embarrassingly wrong about the Holocaust because he could not believe that the Nazis would do something so irrational as to kill the scapegoats that allegedly held their rule together. He, too, interpreted National Socialism as a German variant of a crisis generally inherent in advanced monopoly capitalism. But the most important work on National Socialism written by the critical theorists was the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Let us recall its first sentence: "The fully enlightened world radiates disaster triumphant." Adorno and Horkheimer went on to argue that implicit in the beginnings of the Enlightenment, in Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel, was the synthesis of reason, domination, and myth that was revealed in all its truth in de Sade's orgies and Nietzsche's aphorisms, and then put into practice in Auschwitz. Auschwitz was the Enlightenment's truth: reason as total domination. What is striking in rereading this now-classic work is how little, if any, space is allotted to the Enlightenment as a contributor to the liberal political tradition political pluralism, parliaments, public discussion, the defense of individual liberty against the state and how much the book focuses on scientific reason undermining universal normative claims to the good life. The book is also striking in how little it has to say about the fate of the Enlightenment in Germany, discussing it instead as if it were a uniform development throughout Europe and America. Its authors' clear intention was to suggest that Auschwitz presented the possible fate of the modern world as a whole. Modernity in general, not only German modernity, combined myth and reason. Enchantment and disenchantment exist side by side. Auschwitz, not the proletariat, is the specter that haunts the modern world. Because they viewed modernity through the prism of Auschwitz and because they were accustomed to laying bare the antinomies and inner tensions within bourgeois thought and society, Horkheimer and Adorno saw paradoxes the Marxists and modernization theorists missed. But they mistakenly attributed to the Enlightenment what was in fact the product of Germany's particular misery. Germany did not suffer from too much reason, too much liberalism, too much Enlightenment, but rather from not enough of any of them. De Sade's orgies and Nietzsche's aphorisms were warnings of the possibilities of rationalized domination in the absence of liberal freedoms. Horkheimer and Adorno misinterpreted modern German history so badly because they remained too loyal to a version of Marxist orthodoxy that failed to reflect enough on the weakness of liberalism in the German national context. It is ironic that two theorists so devoted to salvaging the particular and unique should have attempted to interpret National Socialism in the context of an overgeneral theory of modernity. It was not the "fully enlightened world" that radiated disaster. Hitler's Germany was never more than partly and woefully inadequately enlightened. Auschwitz remains a monument to the deficit and not the excess of reason in Hitler's Reich. [pp. 233-234] From jrovira at drew.edu Sat May 10 04:44:23 2003 From: jrovira at drew.edu (Jim Rovira) Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 23:44:23 -0400 Subject: Summary of Jargon of Authenticity Any comments would be appreciated as I come to grips with this text... Jim ***** Adorno’s principle critique of Heidegger is found in his Jargon of Authenticity (1964, English translation 1973)), a dense, difficult work characterized by wry, sometimes pointedly dismissive rhetoric. Adorno’s commitment to a dialectic does not extend to the ideas expressed by early to mid 20th century German existentialism (“existentialism” here will always refer to German existentialism, especially as developed by Heidegger and Jaspers) as his critique of existentialism is unrelenting and unqualified, ultimately seeking to characterize existentialism as intellectual fraudulence. Adorno loosely organizes his critique of existentialism around its use of key words such “statement,” “authentic,” “inauthentic,” “commission,” “shelter,” and “commitment” (7-8). He asserts that the use of this language implies more meaning than is actually conveyed, suggesting an aura associated with these words in a Benjaminian sense, but an aura in decay, hence, a jargon. More will be said about the aura below; Adorno’s description of the intellectual milieu (I’m sick of this word) out of which existentialism grew is the beginning point of his critique of existentialism. Adorno begins his critique of existentialism by arguing that it arose from a movement in very early 20th century Germany that, inspired by Kierkegaard, was less interested in specific doctrine and more interested in conviction. Their new religion, or “spirituality,” would arise from the autonomous intellect. “Authenticity” was its primary value, so intellectualism was sacrificed for “the concrete.” An unnamed individual, presumably Heidegger, held back from this movement, according to Adorno, not wanting to fall back into religion. In order to avoid falling back into religion Heidegger developed an existential ontology, a theoreticization of the work and goals of the “authentics.” This theoreticization served as a means of holding on to a consciousness similar to religion without affiliation with doctrine or denomination. As a result the language of authenticity, according to Adorno, though not Christian in content, resembles Christian language and effectively attempts to produce Christian character without Christian belief. Religion becomes an end in itself, valued simply because it is held and not because it is true. According to Adorno, “one needs only to be a believer – no matter what he believes in” (21). The jargon usurps religion in the process of legitimizing it as religion’s real content becomes a matter of indifference (so long as it employs the jargon). Belief is fine, so long as the believer is sincere and tolerant. The ideal inner state of the “authentic” person is one of “trustful alliance” (24). What is left are religious customs and habits of thought without religious content. Naive positivity is adhered to at the expense of the negative. Since content doesn’t matter, affirmation is valued for itself regardless of content, and negativity, negation, or critique are impolitic, distasteful. Adorno’s key observation seems to be that through the jargon, the “authority of the absolute is overthrown by absolutized authority” (5). At this point, as at many others, it is unclear if Adorno is really developing an argument or simply making assertions. Immediately after making this observation, however, Adorno describes fascism’s development in a powerful social context supported by language, presumably the jargon. Since “absolutized authority” in this sentence clearly refers to fascism, Adorno’s critique of existentialism ultimately seeks to demonstrate how its jargon of authenticity actually creates an atmosphere conducive to and supportive of fascism. “The authority of the absolute” in Adorno’s key sentence consists of the theological resonances in the jargon of authenticity, which in themselves make the speakers accomodating to subordination or submission. This occurs as the jargon molds thought before being applied to any particular content. Because the existentialist’s state of submission is devoid of any specific object, dogma, or God, users of existentialist jargon are predisposed to submission without having an object to submit to. A totalitarian state, demanding submission, presumably fills this void by meeting a felt, though undefined, need in an audience predisposed to accept its claims. Some sense of the “aura” communicated by the jargon of authenticity may also contribute to understanding how it supports the fascist state. The aura is partially communicated by the fact that the words employed by the jargon don’t have any specific conceptual content, but create the impression that something meaningful is being said just because these words are being used. The “aura” created by the use of this language is specifically the impression that something of the speaker’s very “essence” or “being,” something of the speaker’s very self, is conveyed through his or her words. Once this impression has been conveyed, that is sufficient to satisfy credibility demands regardless of the actual conceptual content of the speech. But it is the very lack of specific conceptual content that causes the aura of an authentic self associated with these words to submit to decay. The individual is robbed of his or her individuality by the jargon. The speaking subject is virtually eradicated since the language used to convey the speaker’s “self” is itself empty of specific content (15-16). Adorno begins his direct attack on Heidegger from this point. Heidegger’s speech about existence (the Da) in terms of immanence and the immediacy of life, with its theological undertones, essentially “whisks away” the boundary between the natural and the supernatural. Transcendence is tamed and brought into close reach for everyone. This bringing of transcendence close to home via a widely disseminated form of speech imposes a generic “person” upon everyone using the speech, a mass-consumption person not unlike the “interchangeable persons” posited in Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. The jargon itself disseminates the very “they-self” that Heidegger condemned in Being and Time. The jargon’s political and economic functions consist in the fact that by it the “formal gesture of autonomy replaces the content of autonomy” (18). Adherence to a mass, socially imposed self creates the illusion of participation in a homogenous middle class by the lower and working classes. The language implies a social contract without actually providing one, and masks the fact that it has done this by the very act of forbidding specific content to be attached to the notion of the self. Doing so, according to Adorno’s account of Heidegger, would reduce existentialism to “anthropology, sociology, psychology” (28). Another result of the jargon’s refusal to attach specific content to the self is that salvation now consists in people becoming what they already are anyway, since “meaning” is defined as that which something is “authentically,” as that which is hidden in it. This definition causes questioning of the thing itself to be avoided. Proceeding from the assumption that language naturally functions by describing the world as it is understood by the society using the language. Reflection upon language and the world resists this trend, but the jargon both exploits and flows along with this tendency, gaining the authority of absolute speech by reinforcing what people already think of the world. The jargon functions much the same way as advertising in this respect, expressing the irrational need of the bourgeois to maintain the world as it is. Adorno asserts that “in happy agreement with its consumers, the jargon fills the breach created by the societally necessary disintingration of language (47). Adorno asserts that this tendency expresses itself through Heidegger’s anti-intellectual stance, associating “true philosophy” with provincialism (understood in a positive sense) and with agrarianism. According to Adorno, Heidegger adopts past divisions of labor or past forms of labor as if they were eternal (59). These are “primary” social categories in which the individual is idealized as being immediately present with others. Heidegger, according to Adorno, is oblivious of history. Within this context, Adorno critiques how human beings are conceived within Heidegger’s existentialism. Again, the jargon’s association with Christianity brings over Christian character traits – in this case, humility – without a specific object before which the authentic is to be humble. As a result, powerlessness and nothingness are essential characteristics of the authentic person, robbing the authentic of the ability to criticize a state of affairs precluded by the “divine rights of the soul” (65). This innate sense of insufficiency also predisposes people to submit to an external, competent authority in the form of the fascist state, as the individual becomes nothing more than the sum of his or her social functions. At the very moment that society is believed to be irrelevant to individual psychology, individual psychology is determined by society. The concept of “inwardness” also reinforces the determination of individual psychology as the individual disregards society. The individual ego is held to be above the world rather than a part of it; the individual retreats from an empirically determined subjectivity but in its place a generic inwardness is provided by the jargon. On the level of mind, the jargon reproduces the social functions of bureaucracy, working hand in hand with mass administration of society and with fascism. The word “commission” accomplishes this goal, acheiving the confluence of authority and sentiment. That which is “commissioned” is legitimate by virtue of the commission itself, “valid without reference to the people or organizations that issued the commissions,” allowing the commissioned to act with unquestioned authority (88). Again, the jargon works by being empty of specific content, and as a result supports authority structures by removing them from questioning. Obedience is spoken of as a completed fact, so that the subject isn’t confronted with the reality of a command issued from a specific authority, valid or not, that it must obey or disobey. Overall, Heidegger removes himself from criticism by employing a jargon empty of specific content – there is nothing to disagree with. Since Adorno sees the self as a construct of social and biological forces, and Heidegger sees the self as an immutable entity that exists beyond the reach of these forces, Adorno accuses Heidegger’s philosophy of “transforming a bad experiential reality into transcendence” (116). Adorno also applies Kant’s critique of the ontological argument for God’s existence to Heidegger’s notion of being, claiming that Heidegger makes the subject a predicate in his conceptualization of Dasein. The ontological, however, should be that which is prior to all traits, not a trait that something has. Heidegger’s distinction of the ontic from the ontological “expels Dasein from itself” (121) since the ontological has no existence apart from the ontic. The claim that “mere being” is something important in itself externalizes being, makes it a quality. But all this occurs in the midst of a firmly held refusal to define the self in relationship to anything external to it, robbing the individual self of any specific characteristics and, as a result, creating a generic self. “Authenticity,” Adorno observes, is a word that tends to shift definition depending upon context. In Heidegger, the subject is authentic to itself, the very definition of authenticity, so one’s own subjectivity is the judge of what is authentic. Reason is discarded as a judge at this point (126) and Heidegger’s existentialism becomes associated with irrationality. The only external agent that serves as a check upon Dasein is death, because in Heidegger death is the only point at which the self recognizes itself as a distinct self apart from the They. Death takes the place of God in Heidegger’s existentialism, serving as the external judge and validating standard of authenticity as well as the catalyst by which it is discovered. Death is the ontological foundation of totality, the ultimate leveling factor that both makes everyone alone and everyone identical. The jargon, ultimately, creates a generic self via its use of generic language, a malleable and submissive self in the face of external authority validated by the very language that created the self to begin with, the interior arm of an external totalitarianism and its origin as well. From rdumain at igc.org Sat May 10 05:42:55 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 00:42:55 -0400 Subject: Summary of Jargon of Authenticity I've read so much other stuff since reading this book not long ago, I couldn't comment without consulting my notes, but your description pretty much jibes with the text as I remember it. Coincidentally, I've come across critiques of Heidegger with special reference to his jargon in my recent reading on American philosophy, of such authors as Roy Wood Sellars and Marvin Farber. Farber was very critical of Husserl's subjective idealism but took his usable techniques seriously. Farber, however, had nothing but contempt for Heidegger. One of Farber's essays starts out thus: T0 MANY readers of philosophical literature, Martin Heidegger appears to have made great contributions to philosophy. But to those who have taken the trouble to read his writings with logical standards in mind, he has very little to offer, and he rates primarily as a pretentious verbal philosopher. He has taken care to create severe linguistic barriers between himself and his readers, which serve to make plausible the claim to untold profundity and novelty. It will be instructive and quite disillusioning to some to examine a piece of Heidegger's more audacious writing carefully. Nothing could be better for this purpose than his essay on "The Essence of Truth." The reader has the right to expect something definite from any discussion of the concept of truth. He is not likely to be deceived, or impressed, by anything else. Once he has departed from the murky intricacies of the language dealing with "being" and "existence," Heidegger becomes quite a different kind of figure. The change is, roughly, from tragedy (a linguistic tragedy, at least) to comedy or the commonplace. . . . SOURCE: Farber, Marvin. "Heidegger on the Essence of Truth", in: Radical Currents in Contemporary Philosophy, ed. David H. DeGrood, Dale Riepe, John Somerville (St. Louis, MO: Warren H. Green, Inc., 1971), pp. 79-89. Reprinted from Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Vol. XVIII, #4, June, 1958, pp. 523532. This essay looks very similar to a chapter in Farber's NATURALISM AND SUBJECTIVISM, published in the subsequent year. I've been corresponding with people who knew Farber. While admiring of Husserl with strong qualifications, Farber may never have considered himself a phenomenologist. He is described as a methodological pluralist who was open to everybody and not just closed groups. Hence people like Carnap published freely in Farber's journal. However, Heidegger got his goat, and Farber went on the warpath. Again, let me remind you of Pierre Bourdieu's THE POLITICAL ONTOLOGY OF MARTIN HEIDEGGER, which also delves into Heidegger's insulation of his philosophy from profane interpretation. All of these approaches are different, but they all zero in on Heidegger's duplicity. And don't forget Stephen Eric Bronner's essay. BTW, Herf in a footnote brings Lukacs and Adorno together briefly, mentioning their common contempt for Heidegger whilst Adorno trashed Lukacs' THE DESTRUCTION OF REASON. The moral of the story, to head off those who take Heidegger's garbage seriously, is what a sewer idealist philosophy is, intellectually as well as morally. We need to remember that Adorno and Horkheimer were materialists, though strange materialists. BTW, I would like to know more about their relation to dialectical materialism if any in the 1930s. However, there were other anti-positivist materialists (e.g. a whole lineage in the USA) who developed independently of Marxism though were ultimately sympathetic, like Sellars and Farber. They criticized both positivism and reactionary lebensphilosophie. While they did not cover the same territory as the Frankfurters, they approached the issues from their interest in the philosophy of science. Depending again on the terrain, they would have been less sophisticated in some areas, but much more so in philosophy of science, and not rigid like the Stalinists. It's really important to understand this to overcome the provincialism of specialization which allows people to cover up the ideological determinants that govern their invisible colleges, or should I say circle jerks. Heidegger was a very small, small thinker, and it is only the bourgeois mentality that elevates his pseudo-profundities to serious consideration. Too bad critical theory in certain hands has just become another traditional theory and not critical at all. But yeah, your summary is pretty decent, so far. At 11:44 PM 5/9/2003 -0400, Jim Rovira wrote: >Any comments would be appreciated as I come to grips with this text... > >Jim From jlaari at cc.jyu.fi Sat May 10 12:45:45 2003 From: jlaari at cc.jyu.fi (j laari) Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 14:45:45 +0300 (EEST) Subject: Kabinettspolitik Greetings! I think the main point with Kabinettspolitik is this: it is politics performed (a) behind the closed doors (b) by a small (more or less elite) group. The group may consist of central figures of different elites (say, of economic life, some central powerful politicians, high-ranking civil servants, and in some countries even of high-ranking officers of the military). Kabinettspolitik is the very opposite of open, public, political discussion and parliamentary work. Those who are performing it do not care about the public opinion (except when it serves their interests). Sincerely, Jukka L On Wed, 7 May 2003, Andrew Perrin wrote: > Can anyone shed some light on what Kabinettspolitik refers to? From > context, we have inferred that it refers to politics-by-polls, e.g., the > tendency on the part of politicians to simply follow "public opinion"; but > I've not run across the term before and wonder if anyone else has and can > provide some context. From jlaari at cc.jyu.fi Sat May 10 13:18:24 2003 From: jlaari at cc.jyu.fi (j laari) Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 15:18:24 +0300 (EEST) Subject: Lebensphilosophie (was: Summary of Jargon...) Greetings! Ralph, few questions: > Farber was very > critical of Husserl's subjective idealism but took his usable techniques > seriously. Farber, however, had nothing but contempt for Heidegger. How Husserl and Heidegger belong together? Is it Farber's idea to think of them as representing same philosophical standpoint? > We need to remember that Adorno and Horkheimer were > materialists, though strange materialists (...) Where was the strangeness of their materialism (theoretically, I mean)? > However, there were other anti-positivist materialists (e.g. a > whole lineage in the USA) who developed independently of Marxism though > were ultimately sympathetic, like Sellars and Farber. They criticized both > positivism and reactionary lebensphilosophie. What was 'reactionary lebensphilosophie'? How do you understand 100 years old philosophy of life, "Lebensphilosophie"? I think the main reason for the contempt of Lebensphilosophie is Lukacs' stalinist pamphlet (you've been referring to during the recent years). The problem with such a mockery is that it gives a totally false presentation of Lebensphilosophie as philosophical standpoint. After all, what reactionary is with a view, that phenomenal and experiential "world" is grounded on (and comes up from) "life" that actually means a living human body? You should take a look at Rudolph Weingartner's "Experience and culture. The philosophy of Georg Simmel" (1962). Weingartner gives probably the best - the most advanced - interpretation of Simmel's philosophy that was the culmination of the Lebensphilosophie. Another example of strange materialism, I'd say. Today, of course, it's as outdated as any standpoint from previous centuries. However, 100 years ago it was progressive moment in philosophy. I think that Adorno despised Lukacs with a good reason; he wasn't only a pathetic political arriviste, but also a philosophical obscurantist. Sincerely, Jukka L From rdumain at igc.org Sat May 10 15:03:26 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 10:03:26 -0400 Subject: Fwd: [marxistphilosophy] Marvin Farber: Naturalism & >Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 14:26:18 -0400 >Subject: [marxistphilosophy] Marvin Farber: Naturalism & Subjectivism >Reply-To: marxistphilosophy@yahoogroups.com > >Marvin Farber was one of the greatest figures of phenomenology; he may have >even been largely responsible for introducing it to the United States. But >he was also one its most trenchant critics, as a materialist with strong >sympathies for Marxism. Farber eventually saw tow basic alternatives for >modern philosophy, as expressed in the title of his 1959 book, NATURALISM >AND SUBJECTIVISM. Farber attacks Husserl's subjective idealism >strenuously, though he is interested in utilizing whatever is >methodologically salvageable from Husserl's philosophy. > >Of particular interest is the late 19th-century context out of which >Husserl emerged. His twin enemies were naturalism and empiricism, >which evidently reigned at the time. As science and the philosophy >allegedly inspired by science encroached on the domain of consciousness, >the domain of thought, including logic itself, was in danger of absorption >by "psychologism." Husserl sought to reverse this encroachment with an >attack on the "natural attitude." Farber analyzes Husserl's framework to >determine its fundamental flaws and faulty suppositions. Of great interest >here would be to analyze the situation at the time of Husserl's emergence >more closely, and to ask the question: why did empiricism have to dominate >the philosophy of the sciences, with the elimination of the "ideal" (to use >a Soviet expression) as a consequence? Surely Engels could not have been >the sole alternative, though if he was, more power to him. As for >"naturalism", it is one of those weasel words that can mean all sorts of >things, which is why materialists should eschew it. Anyway, I can't stress >enough the dynamic apparently at work here: empiricism as the basis of >scientism, and the aggressive subjectivism of the philosophy of >consciousness as its antagonist. Husserl was certainly on a higher plane >than most subjectivists, and one might propose that phenomenology was the >most sophisticated and serious contender of our time. I'm sure Farber must >have appreciated this (see p. 269), though I don't yet see Farber exploring >the ideology of 19th century empiricism in great historical detail in this >book. > >Another weasel word that Farber attacks is "transcendence", which generates >undertones with vague emotional appeal as well as a range of technical >meanings (p. 263). Later, he states: "The term 'transcendental' is one of >the most objectionable terms derived from the speculative tradition." (p. >287) Husserl then gets a serious ass-kicking in a section titled "The >Transcendental Dimension and the Treatment of History" (p. 287-295). > >After analyzing Husserl for almost 300 pages, Farber then devotes a whole >chapter to the phenomenologist Max Scheler. Although he drew from Marx, >Scheler is seen as a precursor of Nazism. (p. 297-299) Scheler was a >leader in the anti-naturalistic movement, with connections to Catholicism >as well. Scheler particularly opposed naturalistic ethics and >psychological explanations (e.g. of love and marriage). > >After establishing that the phenomenological movement could attract such >diverse followers with such diverse perspectives and aims (p. 328), Farber >devotes his penultimate chapter to "the new irrationalism: the influence of >Husserl's subjectivism." Existentialist tendencies proved to be equally >pliable. The next major target is of course Heidegger. Husserl at least >had a considerable command of mathematics and the sciences, but Heidegger >had nothing to draw upon for his antiscientific propaganda, and amply >demonstrates his intelllectual inferiority. (p. 335-8) Heidegger's >superficial and confused notions of "nothing" and "truth" are analyzed, as >well as his devious and duplicitous manipulation of other >keywords. Heidegger bleongs more to the world of religion than to reason, >though he did not declare himself specifically in that realm. (p. >352) Husserl's marginalia on Heidegger reveal Husserl's dissatisfaction >with Heidegger's lack of clarity, for his "theological-ethical talk", and >for an affinity with Thomism. (See pp. 356-365. See also p. 353 for >Heidegger on Husserl.) > >Heidegger's innovative jargon culminates in the vapid work of Oskar Becker, >of "paratranscendence" fame. Jaspers and Marcel get theirs next. Finally, >there is a section on Sartre's "avoidance of materialism>' (p. 373-376) In >conclusion: "... Sartre is a non-materialistic non-fideist; and he has >succeeded in bringing down an unusually large part of the ideological world >upon his subjectivistic (alias existentialistic) head." (p. 376) > >The final chapter, an epilogue, is on "Subjectivism on the >Defensive." Criticism of phenomenology came from diverse quarters, even >from Driesch (p. 378-9). Ironically, Farber comes in for criticism from >Soviet philosopher B.E. Bykovsky for attempting to "avoid the reactionary >consequences of phenomenology" and to "cultivate phenomenology without >raising its fruits." Farber defends himself by insisting that, while he >rejects phenomenology as a global philosophy, he accepts useful techniques >from it on a limited basis. (pp. 380-3). Farber winds up with his >philosophy of philosophy. His final word: "A lasting bulwark of defense >against all falsifiers and traducers of reason is guaranteed by the >well-founded prestige of the sciences, and the undeniable interests of >mankind." (p. 386) From rdumain at igc.org Sat May 10 15:24:27 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 10:24:27 -0400 Subject: Lebensphilosophie (was: Summary of Jargon...) A brief response on the fly: (1) No, Farber by no means lumps Heidegger and Husserl together, quite the opposite. However, the historical connection is obvious. I wrote a post on this for my marxistphilosophy list which I can forward to this one. (2) Strangeness of F.S. materialism: it seems that Horkheimer and Adorno and several others went down the "Continental" philosophy road: i.e. they absorbed the heritage of German idealism and then rebelled against it by way of Marxism and materialism. But ontologically, it's not the sort of materialism positively constructed, as say dialectical materialism, Sellars' critical realism, or other variants of ontological materialism. Positive materialism is also very much engaged with the sciences or the philosophical issues arising therefrom. You will notice H & A dancing around these issues: they try to be pro-science but are uncomfortable venturing into this area; rather, they focus on a critique of positivism. I've been suggesting all along that this is a very important nuance that we must be very conscious of now, especially with a view to overcoming the artificial academic divisions of knowledge, which also express themselves in the bogus categories of "western" and "orthodox" Marxism. (3) Reactionary lebensphilosophie: where do I begin? (4) Lukacs: I'm flabbergasted here. Lukacs' "stalinist pamphlet" is his thickest book, several hundred pages and very expensive in English. Lukacs was hardly an obscurantist; he opposed obscurantism root and branch. The influence of Stalinism needs to be looked at closely. Three areas to investigate: (1) Lukacs' repudiation of his early work; (2) his style and polemics in his later period, taking into account that he was risking his life even to write the material he did in spite of his concessions to Stalinist rhetoric; (3) his conservative literary tastes and opposition to literary modernism. I would say that (3) is what matters most, i.e. that is intellectually compromising. However, a few qualifications: Lukacs preferred 19th century literature to the modern stuff even without Stalinism. Lukacs also raises a legitimate issue via the opposition of abstract vs. concrete potentiality. As for the living human body, this is what fascist intellectuals love to remind us of as they grovel before naked power. Here's what Lukacs has to say about this: "The abandonment of the old downright idealism had been anticipated even in the middle of the last century by petty-bourgeois asceticism. Ever since Nietzsche, the body (Leib) has played a leading role in bourgeois philosophy. The new philosophy needs formulae which recognize the primary reality of the body and the joys and dangers of bodily existence, without, however, making any concessions to materialism. For at the same time materialism was becoming the world view of the revolutionary proletariat. That made a position such as Gassendi and Hobbes look impossible for bourgeois thinkers. Although the method of idealism had been discredited by the realities of the time, its conclusions were held indispensable. This explains the need for the "third way" in the bourgeois world of the imperialist period." See Lukacs' essay "Existentialism', published, incidentally, in Sellars, Fraber, & McGill's pioneering PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FUTURE (1949), which sank like a stone in the McCarthy era: http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/lukacsx1.html See also my Positivism vs Life Philosophy (Lebensphilosophie) Study Guide: http://www.autodidactproject.org/guidlebn.html At 03:18 PM 5/10/2003 +0300, j laari wrote: >Greetings! > >Ralph, few questions: > > > Farber was very > > critical of Husserl's subjective idealism but took his usable techniques > > seriously. Farber, however, had nothing but contempt for Heidegger. > >How Husserl and Heidegger belong together? Is it Farber's idea to >think of them as representing same philosophical standpoint? > > > We need to remember that Adorno and Horkheimer were > > materialists, though strange materialists (...) > >Where was the strangeness of their materialism (theoretically, I >mean)? > > > However, there were other anti-positivist materialists (e.g. a > > whole lineage in the USA) who developed independently of Marxism though > > were ultimately sympathetic, like Sellars and Farber. They criticized both > > positivism and reactionary lebensphilosophie. > >What was 'reactionary lebensphilosophie'? How do you understand 100 >years old philosophy of life, "Lebensphilosophie"? > >I think the main reason for the contempt of Lebensphilosophie is >Lukacs' stalinist pamphlet (you've been referring to during the recent >years). The problem with such a mockery is that it gives a totally >false presentation of Lebensphilosophie as philosophical standpoint. >After all, what reactionary is with a view, that phenomenal and >experiential "world" is grounded on (and comes up from) "life" that >actually means a living human body? You should take a look at Rudolph >Weingartner's "Experience and culture. The philosophy of Georg Simmel" >(1962). Weingartner gives probably the best - the most advanced - >interpretation of Simmel's philosophy that was the culmination of the >Lebensphilosophie. Another example of strange materialism, I'd say. >Today, of course, it's as outdated as any standpoint from previous >centuries. However, 100 years ago it was progressive moment in >philosophy. > >I think that Adorno despised Lukacs with a good reason; he wasn't only >a pathetic political arriviste, but also a philosophical obscurantist. > >Sincerely, Jukka L From rdumain at igc.org Sat May 10 16:07:38 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 11:07:38 -0400 Subject: Lebensphilosophie (was: Summary of Jargon...): POSTSCRIPT I wonder how Marcuse differs from Horkheimer and Adorno in these matters. I recall some quotations wherein Marcuse makes some bizarre statements about logic and science that go way beyond H & A. Also, Marcuse positiviely engaged Heidegger. I have his early book on Heidegger but couldn't bring myself to read it. Maybe someone could fill in the gaps here. At 10:24 AM 5/10/2003 -0400, Ralph Dumain wrote: >(2) Strangeness of F.S. materialism: it seems that Horkheimer and Adorno >and several others went down the "Continental" philosophy road: i.e. they >absorbed the heritage of German idealism and then rebelled against it by >way of Marxism and materialism. But ontologically, it's not the sort of >materialism positively constructed, as say dialectical materialism, >Sellars' critical realism, or other variants of ontological >materialism. Positive materialism is also very much engaged with the >sciences or the philosophical issues arising therefrom. You will notice H >& A dancing around these issues: they try to be pro-science but are >uncomfortable venturing into this area; rather, they focus on a critique >of positivism. I've been suggesting all along that this is a very >important nuance that we must be very conscious of now, especially with a >view to overcoming the artificial academic divisions of knowledge, which >also express themselves in the bogus categories of "western" and >"orthodox" Marxism. From jrovira at drew.edu Sat May 10 16:07:59 2003 From: jrovira at drew.edu (Jim Rovira) Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 11:07:59 -0400 Subject: Summary of Jargon of Authenticity Thanks much for your useful comments, Ralph. I think when I write a reply to my own summary I'll probably wind up defending Heidegger's _Being and Time_ (not everything he's written) a little bit. I don't think Adorno properly understood the They-self in that work, and sounded as if he thought Heidegger believed we could attain an authentic self independently of the They-self. Rather, it seems to me that Heidegger thought the They-self is a necessary stage though which the authentic self needs to pass, and the They-self is never completely abandoned even when we attain an authentic self. This isn't meant to invalidate Adorno's critique, but to point out flaws in it. Adorno should have seen some parallels between the transition from they-self to authentic self even within the framework of CT's view of the subject, created from social and biological forces but then establishing a difference of some sort between the self and others at some point. I think the debate between the two is unresolvable because one proceeds from materialist premises and one does not -- there's no common ground on a fundamental level from which to stage a debate. I also think the most useful way to handle Heidegger and CT is to put them in dialog since I think there are potentially unacknowledged parallels simply couched in different language. Thanks much for reading and for your comments. Glad to know my summary didn't read too far off at first glance. Jim Ralph Dumain wrote: > I've read so much other stuff since reading this book not long ago, I > couldn't comment without consulting my notes, but your description pretty > much jibes with the text as I remember it. > > Coincidentally, I've come across critiques of Heidegger with special > reference to his jargon in my recent reading on American philosophy, of > such authors as Roy Wood Sellars and Marvin Farber. Farber was very > critical of Husserl's subjective idealism but took his usable techniques > seriously. Farber, however, had nothing but contempt for Heidegger. One > of Farber's essays starts out thus: > > T0 MANY readers of philosophical literature, Martin Heidegger appears to > have made great contributions to philosophy. But to those who have taken > the trouble to read his writings with logical standards in mind, he has > very little to offer, and he rates primarily as a pretentious verbal > philosopher. He has taken care to create severe linguistic barriers between > himself and his readers, which serve to make plausible the claim to untold > profundity and novelty. It will be instructive and quite disillusioning to > some to examine a piece of Heidegger's more audacious writing carefully. > Nothing could be better for this purpose than his essay on "The Essence of > Truth." > > The reader has the right to expect something definite from any discussion > of the concept of truth. He is not likely to be deceived, or impressed, by > anything else. Once he has departed from the murky intricacies of the > language dealing with "being" and "existence," Heidegger becomes quite a > different kind of figure. The change is, roughly, from tragedy (a > linguistic tragedy, at least) to comedy or the commonplace. . . . > > SOURCE: Farber, Marvin. "Heidegger on the Essence of Truth", in: Radical > Currents in Contemporary Philosophy, ed. David H. DeGrood, Dale Riepe, John > Somerville (St. Louis, MO: Warren H. Green, Inc., 1971), pp. > 79-89. Reprinted from Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Vol. > XVIII, #4, June, 1958, pp. 523532. > > This essay looks very similar to a chapter in Farber's NATURALISM AND > SUBJECTIVISM, published in the subsequent year. I've been > corresponding with people who knew Farber. While admiring of Husserl with > strong qualifications, Farber may never have considered himself a > phenomenologist. He is described as a methodological pluralist who was open > to everybody and not just closed groups. Hence people like Carnap published > freely in Farber's journal. However, Heidegger got his goat, and Farber > went on the warpath. > > Again, let me remind you of Pierre Bourdieu's THE POLITICAL ONTOLOGY OF > MARTIN HEIDEGGER, which also delves into Heidegger's insulation of his > philosophy from profane interpretation. All of these approaches are > different, but they all zero in on Heidegger's duplicity. And don't forget > Stephen Eric Bronner's essay. > > BTW, Herf in a footnote brings Lukacs and Adorno together briefly, > mentioning their common contempt for Heidegger whilst Adorno trashed > Lukacs' THE DESTRUCTION OF REASON. > > The moral of the story, to head off those who take Heidegger's garbage > seriously, is what a sewer idealist philosophy is, intellectually as well > as morally. We need to remember that Adorno and Horkheimer were > materialists, though strange materialists. BTW, I would like to know more > about their relation to dialectical materialism if any in the > 1930s. However, there were other anti-positivist materialists (e.g. a > whole lineage in the USA) who developed independently of Marxism though > were ultimately sympathetic, like Sellars and Farber. They criticized both > positivism and reactionary lebensphilosophie. While they did not cover the > same territory as the Frankfurters, they approached the issues from their > interest in the philosophy of science. Depending again on the terrain, > they would have been less sophisticated in some areas, but much more so in > philosophy of science, and not rigid like the Stalinists. > > It's really important to understand this to overcome the provincialism of > specialization which allows people to cover up the ideological determinants > that govern their invisible colleges, or should I say circle > jerks. Heidegger was a very small, small thinker, and it is only the > bourgeois mentality that elevates his pseudo-profundities to serious > consideration. Too bad critical theory in certain hands has just become > another traditional theory and not critical at all. > > But yeah, your summary is pretty decent, so far. > > At 11:44 PM 5/9/2003 -0400, Jim Rovira wrote: > >Any comments would be appreciated as I come to grips with this text... > > > >Jim From rdumain at igc.org Sat May 10 16:44:13 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 11:44:13 -0400 Subject: Summary of Jargon of Authenticity I think the clarification most called for is the original one you demanded: >Adornos key observation seems to be that through the jargon, the authority of >the absolute is overthrown by absolutized authority (5). At this point, as at >many others, it is unclear if Adorno is really developing an argument or >simply >making assertions. Immediately after making this observation, however, Adorno >describes fascisms development in a powerful social context supported by >language, presumably the jargon. Since absolutized authority in this >sentence clearly refers to fascism, Adornos critique of existentialism >ultimately seeks to demonstrate how its jargon of authenticity actually >creates >an atmosphere conducive to and supportive of fascism. I think I know what Adorno is getting at here with respect to absolute authority, but the point should be clarified. It's important and therefore we should guard against misinterpretation. I take Adorno to contrast the new subjectivism with the old absolute idealism. The metaphysical assertions of yore are overthrown--i.e. the authority of the absolute--but what replaces them? A philosophy claiming to represent real being and experience over abstraction, but with indefinite reference and content. Adorno then wants to show how the Heideggerian template does not promote authentic experience at all, but rather an ideology of power against which there is no appeal because there is no determinate intellectual content to support or oppose. Hence there is no ideal order to confirm or oppose, but a mere subjective stance, which absolutizes authority as a power principle while destroying it as an intellectual principle. And this is just what Nazism did. The paradox is that Nazism was so opportunistic that, apart from its racial theory, it never established or accepted any official philosophy! Neither Heidegger nor his rivals succeeded in getting the Nazis to endorse their philosophies. If Adorno means anything like what I think he does, I would say his observation is very profound. As for Adorno's objection to the authentic self, let's hope this was not motivated by the same animus that set him against Fromm. Either way, Adorno is certainly correct to point out how the jargon of authenticity serves as an ideological mask, first of all for Heidegger himself, whose authenticity ended up as the fuhrerprinzip. Heidegger was a scumbag through and through, and the fact that people like Marcuse or Sartre could be taken in to the extent that they were screams volumes about the bankruptcy of bourgeois European civilization and its intellectuals. As for parallels between C.T. and Heidegger, I take it you've read LUKACS AND HEIDEGGER by Lucien Goldmann? At 11:07 AM 5/10/2003 -0400, Jim Rovira wrote: >Thanks much for your useful comments, Ralph. I think when I write a reply to >my own summary I'll probably wind up defending Heidegger's _Being and Time_ >(not everything he's written) a little bit. I don't think Adorno properly >understood the They-self in that work, and sounded as if he thought Heidegger >believed we could attain an authentic self independently of the They-self. >Rather, it seems to me that Heidegger thought the They-self is a necessary >stage though which the authentic self needs to pass, and the They-self is >never >completely abandoned even when we attain an authentic self. > >This isn't meant to invalidate Adorno's critique, but to point out flaws in >it. Adorno should have seen some parallels between the transition from >they-self to authentic self even within the framework of CT's view of the >subject, created from social and biological forces but then establishing a >difference of some sort between the self and others at some point. > >I think the debate between the two is unresolvable because one proceeds from >materialist premises and one does not -- there's no common ground on a >fundamental level from which to stage a debate. I also think the most useful >way to handle Heidegger and CT is to put them in dialog since I think >there are >potentially unacknowledged parallels simply couched in different language. > >Thanks much for reading and for your comments. Glad to know my summary didn't >read too far off at first glance. > >Jim From jrovira at drew.edu Sat May 10 23:49:01 2003 From: jrovira at drew.edu (Jim Rovira) Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 18:49:01 -0400 Subject: Summary of Jargon of Authenticity That's very useful, thanks. And pretty convincing -- it fits the argument of the book well. I haven't read Goldmann, not yet. Jim Ralph Dumain wrote: > I think the clarification most called for is the original one you demanded: > > >Adornos key observation seems to be that through the jargon, the authority of > >the absolute is overthrown by absolutized authority (5). At this point, as at > >many others, it is unclear if Adorno is really developing an argument or > >simply > >making assertions. Immediately after making this observation, however, Adorno > >describes fascisms development in a powerful social context supported by > >language, presumably the jargon. Since absolutized authority in this > >sentence clearly refers to fascism, Adornos critique of existentialism > >ultimately seeks to demonstrate how its jargon of authenticity actually > >creates > >an atmosphere conducive to and supportive of fascism. > > I think I know what Adorno is getting at here with respect to absolute > authority, but the point should be clarified. It's important and therefore > we should guard against misinterpretation. I take Adorno to contrast the > new subjectivism with the old absolute idealism. The metaphysical > assertions of yore are overthrown--i.e. the authority of the absolute--but > what replaces them? A philosophy claiming to represent real being and > experience over abstraction, but with indefinite reference and > content. Adorno then wants to show how the Heideggerian template does not > promote authentic experience at all, but rather an ideology of power > against which there is no appeal because there is no determinate > intellectual content to support or oppose. Hence there is no ideal order > to confirm or oppose, but a mere subjective stance, which absolutizes > authority as a power principle while destroying it as an intellectual > principle. And this is just what Nazism did. The paradox is that Nazism > was so opportunistic that, apart from its racial theory, it never > established or accepted any official philosophy! Neither Heidegger nor his > rivals succeeded in getting the Nazis to endorse their philosophies. If > Adorno means anything like what I think he does, I would say his > observation is very profound. > > As for Adorno's objection to the authentic self, let's hope this was not > motivated by the same animus that set him against Fromm. Either way, > Adorno is certainly correct to point out how the jargon of authenticity > serves as an ideological mask, first of all for Heidegger himself, whose > authenticity ended up as the fuhrerprinzip. Heidegger was a scumbag > through and through, and the fact that people like Marcuse or Sartre could > be taken in to the extent that they were screams volumes about the > bankruptcy of bourgeois European civilization and its intellectuals. > > As for parallels between C.T. and Heidegger, I take it you've read LUKACS > AND HEIDEGGER by Lucien Goldmann? From grok at sprint.ca Sun May 11 19:10:45 2003 From: grok at sprint.ca (grok) Date: 11 May 2003 14:10:45 -0400 Subject: Kabinettspolitik On Sat, 2003-05-10 at 07:45, j laari wrote: > Greetings! > > I think the main point with Kabinettspolitik is this: it is politics > performed (a) behind the closed doors (b) by a small (more or less > elite) group. The group may consist of central figures of different > elites (say, of economic life, some central powerful politicians, > high-ranking civil servants, and in some countries even of > high-ranking officers of the military). Kabinettspolitik is the very > opposite of open, public, political discussion and parliamentary work. > Those who are performing it do not care about the public opinion > (except when it serves their interests). > > Sincerely, Jukka L > > On Wed, 7 May 2003, Andrew Perrin wrote: > > > Can anyone shed some light on what Kabinettspolitik refers to? From > > context, we have inferred that it refers to politics-by-polls, e.g., the > > tendency on the part of politicians to simply follow "public opinion"; but > > I've not run across the term before and wonder if anyone else has and can > > provide some context. This is very concrete and real, useful work here above; not (in itself) the sort of intellectually relativist, evasive, PoMo -- frankly petit-bourgeois -- verbal diarrhea some of us abhor on academic Lists like frankfurt-school (I make allowances for excess verbiage on account of lack of clarity...) In the interests of bridging the yawning maw between IMO the interests of workers in their Frankfurt School 'heritage' (especially as expressed in the initial aspirations of its 1920's founding -- and perhaps even during its rightward-drift, Postwar to the late 1960's), and the career-minded baffle-gab of those who probably consider frankfurt-school-talk and 'academese' their private, personal turf (i.e. no marxists wanted around), or as mere intellectual play (i.e. irrelevant to world-historical events of the present time), let me simply state that: 'discourse' on *this* level above is PERFECTLY non-controversial and IMO useful (though, of course, rather pedestrian and 'non-sexy'...) And let me point out that it is the DUTY of working-class (and supporting) intellectuals to try and solve the intellectual problems which beset the world working-class, here and now, in their own time (as Marx so famously pointed-out). Of course, Academia has, for far too long, amply proven that it is full of loquacious sell-outs -- not a few of whom have latched-onto 'Critical' (and other) Theory. Let me put this another way: to say that marxism is 'passe'' is simply to be in the camp of the enemy -- never more-so than today. And to hold to this within 'Critical' Theory is DOUBLY offensive. Also, let me point out that because an email like this is about 'cutting to the chase' rather than 'getting along', or 'showing off one's erudition', etc., of *course* it will rub some people the wrong way! But that would be its intent now, wouldn't it? Feel free to TOTALLY studiously ignore this message. Feel free to analyze it to death too, if that's what gets you off... -- grok. -- *** FULL-SPECTRUM FIGHTBACK! ********************************* * U.N. General Assembly Censure of U.S. Regime's Aggressions * * World-Wide General & Rotating National Strikes * * Rotating Student & Worker Walkouts * * Your Ideas Here! * From rdumain at igc.org Sun May 11 20:40:30 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 15:40:30 -0400 Subject: Kabinettspolitik: critical theory applied to now You'll get no argument from me here. This also reminds me of some unfinished business, i.e. my account of the Frankfurt School session at the Socialist Scholars Conference. As I summarized a while back, one of the speakers relayed her experiences in teaching the conceptions of the culture industry to working class students. I had something more to say about this rather than accept it at face value, and more about the application of critical theory (in aesthetics and other matters) to American culture. My mind is a blank now, so I will have to review this material. However, in general, here's the task as I see it, beginning with this truism: the theory developed in connection with the pre-reflective cultural experience of the Frankfurters, based in Europe though later slightly modified by their sojourn in the USA. This means, for example, that when we study their work (excepting Adorno's crap on jazz), we are importing their cultural context in making sense of their ideas. The speaker who had some interesting things to say about Adorno on aesthetic experience himself only used examples from European classical music. This is instructive, of course, but the transplantation of these ideas to our own context must be more thorough, and this has not happened. The "culture industry" is an obvious concept to explore and exploit and obviously has direct resonance to the American scene. But this cannot be done effectively without serious exploration of the aesthetic issues involved given our cultural experience of the past six decades (at least) and the discriminating aesthetic judgments some of us have been able to develop which may assist in analyzing with greater precision both aesthetic creativity and corruption. What applies to aesthetics and the culture industry applies across the board. Mere footnote-whoring cannot get to the bottom of the assumptions behind the meaning of the ideas and their application. One must get to the bottom of them and then re-create them from the ground up to apply to another social context. The "footnoting"--i.e. retrospective--aspect of this is to get down to the fundamental parameters governing the ideological context of the origination of these ideas and then to see how to get beyond them. My commentaries on the Frankfurters, science, and materialism are part of this enterprise. I believe it was Neil McLaughlin who suggested that we need to move beyond the old positivism debate. He suggested a contemporary author I'm not familiar with as a source for the understanding of the internal functioning of the scientific enterprise. This may not be exactly the direction my interest in this problem takes, as I'm limiting myself to the philosophical landscape for the moment. But why was the intellectual sphere so rigid, not only confined by national/linguistic boundaries but by other rigidifications hardening the various spheres of German idealism, Soviet diamat, logical positivism, critical realism, etc., with inevitable effects on the territory the Frankfurt School could stake out for itself given what it inherited and what it had to struggle against? My point is, it is only our lack of imagination that need confine us, although our minds are terrorized and limited by our social milieu, and here academia is no exception. But potentially we can overcome the inescapable provincialism of times past; we don't have to remain locked in the artificial divisions of knowledge, even within philosophy, even within "Marxism", let alone within the intellectual universe as a whole. My examples drawn from a neglected area of American philosophy (which BTW suffered under McCarthyism) are meant to illustrate the restrictions arbitrarily placed upon the universe of knowledge. There is an added fortuitous lesson to be drawn from my own experience: why couldn't I take advantage of the resources that were sitting right there in the philosophy dept. where I was living in Buffalo instead of wasting a decade hanging around with air-headed artists? I'm being facetious, but many a jest hides a truth. It illustrates the nature of the gap to be overcome. Finally, on the question of ideology today, I believe much of it hangs analytically on the concept of cynical reason, but grounded in historical materialism. Peter Sloterdijk started the ball rolling on this, but he couldn't follow through, instead ending up as a typical European intellectual wanker. But the nature of the impasse we are in today in the USA has roots going back at least to the mid-'70s and so must our analysis. As I keep telling people: it's the '70s, stupid. At 02:10 PM 5/11/2003 -0400, grok wrote: >This is very concrete and real, useful work here above; not (in itself) >the sort of intellectually relativist, evasive, PoMo -- frankly >petit-bourgeois -- verbal diarrhea some of us abhor on academic Lists >like frankfurt-school (I make allowances for excess verbiage on account >of lack of clarity...) > >In the interests of bridging the yawning maw between IMO the interests >of workers in their Frankfurt School 'heritage' (especially as expressed >in the initial aspirations of its 1920's founding -- and perhaps even >during its rightward-drift, Postwar to the late 1960's), and the >career-minded baffle-gab of those who probably consider >frankfurt-school-talk and 'academese' their private, personal turf (i.e. >no marxists wanted around), or as mere intellectual play (i.e. >irrelevant to world-historical events of the present time), let me >simply state that: 'discourse' on *this* level above is PERFECTLY >non-controversial and IMO useful (though, of course, rather pedestrian >and 'non-sexy'...) > >And let me point out that it is the DUTY of working-class (and >supporting) intellectuals to try and solve the intellectual problems >which beset the world working-class, here and now, in their own time (as >Marx so famously pointed-out). Of course, Academia has, for far too >long, amply proven that it is full of loquacious sell-outs -- not a few >of whom have latched-onto 'Critical' (and other) Theory. > >Let me put this another way: to say that marxism is 'passe'' is simply >to be in the camp of the enemy -- never more-so than today. And to hold >to this within 'Critical' Theory is DOUBLY offensive. > >Also, let me point out that because an email like this is about 'cutting >to the chase' rather than 'getting along', or 'showing off one's >erudition', etc., of *course* it will rub some people the wrong way! But >that would be its intent now, wouldn't it? > >Feel free to TOTALLY studiously ignore this message. >Feel free to analyze it to death too, if that's what gets you off... > >-- grok. From rvaranka at cc.helsinki.fi Tue May 13 14:14:39 2003 From: rvaranka at cc.helsinki.fi (Risto S Varanka) Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 16:14:39 +0300 (EEST) Subject: Body as condition of knowledge (was: Lebensphilosophie) ----- Forwarded message from j laari ----- >What was 'reactionary lebensphilosophie'? How do you understand 100 >years old philosophy of life, "Lebensphilosophie"? > >I think the main reason for the contempt of Lebensphilosophie is >Lukacs' stalinist pamphlet (you've been referring to during the recent >years). The problem with such a mockery is that it gives a totally >false presentation of Lebensphilosophie as philosophical standpoint. >After all, what reactionary is with a view, that phenomenal and >experiential "world" is grounded on (and comes up from) "life" that >actually means a living human body? Is this perhaps reflected in Habermas's notion of the lifeworld, which is in danger of being "colonized by the system"? I'm also trying research what kind of a role the human body has for knowledge. One could view the human body as a physical entity (material substance), a field of experience (lived body with spatial extension etc) or an acting entity (operating body). I think many Phenomenologists - from Heidegger to Merleau-Ponty and Dreyfus - emphasize that the experienced human body is a necessary precondition of knowledge, while I tend to think that the connection to bodily action is a necessary precondition of meaning and understanding. I am slightly dissatisfied with a Habermasian view of knowledge, which views knowledge as propositional content, the validity of which is determined in a discourse removed from action. Habermas recognizes some real-world factors which can influence knowledge, though, and now I'm starting to think that maybe it's possible to dig up some passages from Habermas which give a role to the human body in the formation of knowledge. Do any Frankfurt School writers bring up the relation of knowledge and the human body - explicitly or implicitly? -- Risto Varanka | http://www.helsinki.fi/~rvaranka/ risto varanka at no spam please helsinki fi From jlaari at cc.jyu.fi Tue May 13 16:22:08 2003 From: jlaari at cc.jyu.fi (j laari) Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 18:22:08 +0300 (EEST) Subject: Body as condition of knowledge (was: Lebensphilosophie) Greetings! I guess it is so. However, Habermas is quite straightforward naturalist and therefore he misses the transcendental-philosophical dimension of Lebenswelt. I.e. for him 'Lebenswelt' is simply that 'empirical', or perhaps 'phenomenal', social action of the humans. But then again, I'm not a Habermas expert. > Is this perhaps reflected in Habermas's notion of the lifeworld, > which is in danger of being "colonized by the system"? Despite being theoretically at odds with transcendental phenomenology, Habermas' conception of Lebenswelt as sociological theory probably really can be seen reflecting (in rather peculiar ways) Husserl's (and perhaps Simmel's) views. It's quite difficult to think of, say, thinking, meaningfulness and sense without realising and remembering the role and significance of the body. I think the major contribution of 20th century philosophy has been in clarifying problems that rise from this awareness of us being living, self-consciouss beings. (There are some interesting anecdotes concerning the beginnings of these developments at the turn of the century, but I won't waste bandwidth now. I may pass them to you sometime later.) Basically, one could say that it's all about trying to make of sense of what it is to be a corporeal being. Marx expressed it quite beautifully in thesis on Feuerbach. > I'm also trying research what kind of a role the human body has > for knowledge. (...) I think many Phenomenologists - from > Heidegger to Merleau-Ponty and Dreyfus - emphasize that the > experienced human body is a necessary precondition of knowledge, > while I tend to think that the connection to bodily action is a > necessary precondition of meaning and understanding. However, would you clarify the difference between you and phenom. tradition? (E.g. can't it be both ways; precondition both of knowledge and understanding & meaning?) > I am slightly dissatisfied with a Habermasian view of knowledge, > which views knowledge as propositional content, the validity of > which is determined in a discourse removed from action. (...) I'm > starting to think that maybe it's possible to dig up some passages > from Habermas which give a role to the human body in the formation > of knowledge. So you mean by 'knowledge' something else than a proposition that is true? - By the way, have you checked what Lauri Routila has said on these issues? I'm asking this because he critisized Habermas' interest theory of knowledge from phenomenological standpoint (by asking e.g. where H. left the theoretical interest; on what interest H's theory is based except on theoretical one etc. - here the relation of the question of knowledge to that of body can be easily opened). Sincerely, Jukka L PS. For the rest of the humankind: Lauri Routila is the central figure of the early Finnish phenomenology, former student of Heildegger. The latter was so fond of L.R. that accepted him as guest to his Schwarzwald cottage. There they had a competition. They competed who chopped more wood. Good old physical activity that only living bodies can do. Routila was younger, son of a truck driver and was accustomed to physical exercises, but Heidegger won, according to L.R. From Rakahu at yfi.jyu.fi Mon May 12 08:32:45 2003 From: Rakahu at yfi.jyu.fi (Rauno Huttunen) Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 10:32:45 +0300 Subject: Vs: Re: Kabinettspolitik Hyvä vastaus. Hämmästyttävää, että amerikkalainen politiikan professori ei tiennyt, mitä kabinettipolitiikka tarkoittaa. Jenkkilässä ei varmaan ole vastaavaa käsitettä, vaikka vastaavaa politiikkaa harjoitetaan koko ajan. Rauno >>> jlaari@cc.jyu.fi 05/10 2:45 >>> Greetings! I think the main point with Kabinettspolitik is this: it is politics performed (a) behind the closed doors (b) by a small (more or less elite) group. The group may consist of central figures of different elites (say, of economic life, some central powerful politicians, high-ranking civil servants, and in some countries even of high-ranking officers of the military). Kabinettspolitik is the very opposite of open, public, political discussion and parliamentary work. Those who are performing it do not care about the public opinion (except when it serves their interests). Sincerely, Jukka L On Wed, 7 May 2003, Andrew Perrin wrote: > Can anyone shed some light on what Kabinettspolitik refers to? From > context, we have inferred that it refers to politics-by-polls, e.g., the > tendency on the part of politicians to simply follow "public opinion"; but > I've not run across the term before and wonder if anyone else has and can > provide some context. From JBCM2 at aol.com Mon May 12 20:50:41 2003 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2@aol.com) Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 15:50:41 EDT Subject: Fwd: John Ashcroft & Tom Ridge Reading in Seattle --part1_65.10dca5b0.2bf15511_boundary Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_65.10dca5b0.2bf15511_alt_boundary" --part1_65.10dca5b0.2bf15511_alt_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit f.y.i. They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe. companions to liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson "America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. This is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know." Gore Vidal --part1_65.10dca5b0.2bf15511_alt_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
f.y.i.


They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency
to render the head too large for the body.  A standing military
force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe.
companions to liberty.  -- Thomas Jefferson


"America is a quarter of= a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. T= his is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just b= eyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know."

Gore Vidal


--part1_65.10dca5b0.2bf15511_alt_boundary-- --part1_65.10dca5b0.2bf15511_boundary Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from str-d05.mail.aol.com (str-d05.mail.aol.com [172.18.149.5]) by air-yc03.mail.aol.com (v93.12) with ESMTP id MAILINYC31-39003ebfe877149; Mon, 12 May 2003 14:31:22 -0400 Received: from rly-xa01.mx.aol.com (rly-xa01.mail.aol.com [172.20.105.70]) by str-d05.mail.aol.com (v92.16) with ESMTP id RELAYIN2-33ebfdb8f10a; Mon, 12 May 2003 13:36:18 -0400 Received: from cherry.ease.lsoft.com (cherry.ease.lsoft.com [209.119.0.109]) by rly-xa01.mx.aol.com (v93.12) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXA18-4e3ebfdb6f15b; Mon, 12 May 2003 13:35:44 -0400 Received: from PEAR.EASE.LSOFT.COM (209.119.0.19) by cherry.ease.lsoft.com (LSMTP for Digital Unix v1.1b) with SMTP id <14.009BBB54@cherry.ease.lsoft.com>; Mon, 12 May 2003 13:35:42 -0400 Received: from LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8e) with spool id 40630250 for POETICS@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Mon, 12 May 2003 13:35:38 -0400 Received: (qmail 10786 invoked from network); 12 May 2003 17:35:38 -0000 Received: from smtp.paconline.net (HELO paconline.net) (66.51.160.60) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 12 May 2003 17:35:38 -0000 Received: from [24.80.75.63] (account ) by paconline.net (CommuniGate Pro WebUser 4.0.5) with HTTP id 26055531 for ; Mon, 12 May 2003 10:35:37 -0700 X-Mailer: CommuniGate Pro Web Mailer v.4.0.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 10:35:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Subject: John Ashcroft & Tom Ridge Reading in Seattle To: POETICS@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list A CALL TO ACTION: PLEASE DISSEMINATE WIDELY Fight the Consolidation of Police Terrorism in the US: A call to Action in Seattle, June 2 to 6th, 2003 We, the committee to form a Northwest Federation of Anarchist Communists, call for a convergence in Seattle, Washington, home of the WTO protests, to strike at the heart of the forces whose goals are to undermine all human rights, criminalize dissent, jail, harass and torture activists, and even commit legal murder of people of color and dissidents alike, in the name of "Homeland Security", "Fighting Terrorism" and "Criminal Intelligence". We call for all that have been victimized, or feel that they will become victimized, by this unprecedented consolidation of police power to join in solidarity and return to Seattle. The Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU) is holding its annual conference in Seattle, on June 2,3,4,5 and 6th. (see http://www.leiu2003seattle.org/) The organizers of this conference have invited Attorney General John Ashcroft, Director of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge (who conspired to imprison and murder journalist Mumia Abu- Jamal), Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force member John Cooney; FBI Assistant Director John Pistole, New York City Police Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence, and Former CIA agent David Cohen will attend. The purpose of this conference is for law enforcement, from local police to the FBI to the CIA and military, to further consolidate their power and organization, and to improve "the current state of intelligence sharing/processing among local and federal law enforcement agencies; and [to discuss] specifics as to what local law enforcement can do to better support the war on terrorism". We all know that the war on terrorism is a pretext for the war of the State against the population: people of color, immigrants, and political activists inside as well as outside the United States. The topic of their conference include such things as "Criminal Protest Groups" and "left wing" terrorism. We all know that people committing such acts as stepping off of the curb at a demonstration, organizing against the war, organizing against the rape of our planet, occupying buildings and workplaces, and destroying capitalism are considered terrorists by our government. When the government loses its legitimacy with the people the response has been to build a system to monitor, criminalize, imprison, and murder its subjects, and to remove the line between the military and the domestic police. We have seen the massive consolidation of police power after the rise of the anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movements, the resurgence in anarchist organization, and the call of the government to seize Iraqi oil under the pretext of avenging the horrible tragedy of 9-11. We have seen the steady rise of the abuse of the police, from the tear gassing and beatings at WTO, to the murder of an activist in Genoa. The history is merely being repeated, since the organization of slave patrols in New York in 1830's and the centuries of genocide against native people; J. Edgar Hoover's repression of Wobblies, anarchists and socialists during World War 1; the Palmer raids of the 20's; persecution of communists in the 1930's and 1950's; the murder of Sacco and Vanzetti; The destruction of the Black Panther Party and the murder of its leaders in the 1960's; the repression of the American Indian Movement and frame up of Leonard Peltier; the disruption of the anti-apartied movement of the 1980's; and now, the criminalization of Muslims, immigrants, people of color, native peoples, and activists in the 1990's and to date. Our resistance to the police state in the US is the uniting of all people of all color, of all struggles for self determination, of all defenses against the rape of Mother Earth, and the struggle against the employing class. We call upon all to converge upon Seattle, using whatever tactics they feel are necessary and prudent to carry out the goals of their respective organizations and constituencies; we call all upon all to organize in affinity groups and coalitions as necessary to resist the legalized planning for the criminalization of dissent; and we leave up to individuals and groups to choose whatever tactics they deem appropriate to their cause, and that such tactics be carried out independent of one another when necessary. We call upon the defense of non-violent activists against the likely abuse by the police who will likely rise to the occasion; and we call for this to be the first action of many to dismantle the institution of Police Terrorism, disguised as Homeland Security and its regional manifestations of FBI/law enforcement partnerships. We must expose this legal crime network to the people of this country, and destroy any and all legitimacy they made have. Corporate America is funding this conference. Starbucks, 7-11 stores, and Microsoft are listed as sponsors. Microsoft develops the computer infrastructure for citizen data collection (see http://jps.directtaps.net/) Corporate America has declared us the enemy, and they are raising their army of soldiers and intelligence alike to defeat our resistance to their tyranny. This already happened last year on the docks on the West Coast of the US, where the White House called the leadership of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) to warn then against striking against the waterfront employers (the PMA) to protect "national security", while the employers in an allinace with the Bush White House and corporate retailers used Taft-Hartley to fight the union. This will likely happen with the ILA on the east coast when their contract expires. Corporate America wants the cops and military involved in our workplace disputes, so that they can make us their unquestioning servants paralyzed by fear. Our struggle against the proponents of "Homeland Security" and the emerging police state is our struggle for our survival, and for the survival of our planet. In Revolutionary Struggle and Solidarity, Coordinating Committee for the formation of a Northwest Federation of Anarchist Communists. --part1_65.10dca5b0.2bf15511_boundary-- From JBCM2 at aol.com Tue May 13 19:10:27 2003 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2@aol.com) Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 14:10:27 EDT Subject: U.S. Stipulates Broader Control Of Iraqi Oil On Behalf Of U.S. Corporate Interes --part1_3b.380d416d.2bf28f13_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Click here: The Assassinated Press U.S. Stipulates Broader Control Of Iraqi Oil On Behalf Of U.S. Corporate Interests: Stolen Iraqi Oil, No Links To WMD, No Links to 9/11, Iraq No Threat To U.S.---Americans Duped!---What A Surprise!: Is The Chicken Shit U.S. Citizenry Too Terrified At The Power Of The Cheney/Bush Criminal Conspiracy To Hold Them To Account?: After Going AWOL On the Real Thing, Bush Dons Military Garb And The Little Man Looks Just Like Dukakis By COLUMNBONE LYNCHMOB Assassinated Press Staff Writer Friday, May 9, 2003; 11:50 AM --part1_3b.380d416d.2bf28f13_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Click here: The Assassinated Press


U.S. Stipulates Broader C= ontrol Of Iraqi Oil On Behalf Of U.S. Corporate Interests:
Stolen Iraqi Oil, No Links To WMD, No Links to 9/11, Iraq No Threat To U.S.-= --Americans Duped!---What A Surprise!:
Is The Chicken Shit U.S. Citizenry Too Terrified At The Power Of The Cheney/= Bush Criminal Conspiracy To Hold Them To Account?:
After Going AWOL On the Real Thing, Bush Dons Military Garb And The Little M= an Looks Just Like Dukakis <= /B>

By COLUMNBONE LYNCHMOB
Assassinated Press Staff Writer
Friday, May 9, 2003; 11:50 AM


 --part1_3b.380d416d.2bf28f13_boundary-- From HeyJoeT at t-online.de Tue May 13 21:19:00 2003 From: HeyJoeT at t-online.de (Joachim Teipel) Date: 13 May 2003 20:19 GMT Subject: New books Hi, the following books have recently been published in Germany (all by Suhrkamp, Frankfurt).Perhaps they are of interst for you. Adorno/Horkheimer: Briefwechsel.Vol. 1: 1927 - 1937. Adorno: Ontologie und Dialektik. Nachgelassene Schriften IV/7. Adorno: Vorlesung ueber Negative Dialektik. Nachgelassene Schriften IV/16. Bernard/Raulff: "Minima Moralia" neu gelesen. Not having read these books yet I cannot give you further informations at present. Perhaps later. Best wishes Joachim From jlaari at cc.jyu.fi Wed May 14 09:58:55 2003 From: jlaari at cc.jyu.fi (j laari) Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 11:58:55 +0300 (EEST) Subject: Lebensphilosophie (was: Summary...) Greetings Ralph, I've tried to answer your post a little snappier, but there's so much stuff in your posts that it takes time to ruminate over it. The April discussion (on science and method & al.) is still at a standstill because of the Easter time and of my slow responses. Perhaps it could be integrated into these issues... 1. I think I've managed to grasp the standpoint of Farber, and I won't get into it. That would require studying him. Let's say I'm a bit doubtful when someone says he accepts, say, Husserl's method but not his philosophy. Husserl was a mathematician by training, not a philosopher (though he surely have studied it like all intellectuals in those days in German speaking central Europe). In several issues he wasn't very up-to-date, though quite clearly he was willing to learn. What is called 'phenomenological philosophy' in reference to Husserl isn't anything new - there wasn't any revolution or somesuch with it. It was just his understanding and interpretation of what philosophy was and about what it was. This all is very serious. Because it's only after realising how Husserl fits into bigger picture of turn of the century philosophy dominated many-sided neokantianism, but coloured also by efforts to get rid of it - like Lebensphilosophie - and certain kind of positivism. 'Naturalism' isn't a weasel word, me thinks. It has strict philosophical uses in demarcating between different kinds of emphasis in thinking. (The most uncompromising view is, I guess, that naturalist thinking isn't philosophical at all because of certain prejudices it makes. That applies at least to reductive materialism, I believe.) 100 years ago positivism was the naturalist alternative to transcendental philosophy in which 'husserlian method' was already in use before Husserl 'invented' it. I wouldn't state phenomenology as the most sophisticated form of philosophy of that time (early 20th century). Neokantians usually pointed the problems of it as soon as Husserl published a book or paper... Main reason for me to appreciate him is in his theory of Lebenswelt. For some reason the philosophical significance of the social world for philosophical thinking (and for standpoint of it) 'grew dimmer' at that time, but in Husserl's thinking it just became clearer. it was as if 100 years of work on the self-understanding of philosophy itself somehow crystallized in his work on 'Lebenswelt' - all the way from Kant and Hegel to Feuerbach and Marx down to Dilthey, Nietzsche and Simmel... 2. I refuse to take the different 'schools' or 'traditions' in the spirit of religious or political dogmatism (mine good, yours bad). The broader view must be kept in mind all the time. And that is: the development of human thinking. Different schools have developed concepts pertaining to different problems. That's my kind of sociology of knowledge. Calling Lebensphilosophie 'reactionary' means to subjugate philosophy to administrative machineries, to politics, or even to religion. My question was and is: what reactionary is in clarifying the problems 3. I don't care how thivk Lukacs' book was. His "Eigenart des Aesthetisches" surely was thicker because it had to be splitted into two volumes. But that's not an argument concerning the intellectual value of it. I think I can appreciate the achievements of "young Lukacs" if there was any. Unfortunately, later he seemed to submit himself to the stalinist machinery. I don't mind if he was a conservative as an aesthetic. Lukacs' repudiation of his early work is understandable - is there anyone who dares to claim he had understood all the nuances and problems of science in his twenties? His style and polemics - well... I don't know. Honestly. Probably it is as you say, that is "what matters most, i.e. that is intellectually compromising." The long quotation you provided us - "The abandonment of the old downright idealism had been anticipated even in the middle of the last century by petty-bourgeois asceticism. Ever since Nietzsche, the body (Leib) has played a leading role in bourgeois philosophy. The new philosophy needs formulae which recognize the primary reality of the body and the joys and dangers of bodily existence, without, however, making any concessions to materialism. For at the same time materialism was becoming the world view of the revolutionary proletariat. That made a position such as Gassendi and Hobbes look impossible for bourgeois thinkers. Although the method of idealism had been discredited by the realities of the time, its conclusions were held indispensable. This explains the need for the "third way" in the bourgeois world of the imperialist period." - clearly shows the limitations of Lukacs' grasp of the problems of modern philosophy and the development of it. There is no philosophical content in that. Just empty stalinoid rhetorics. 4. "As for the living human body, this is what fascist intellectuals love to remind us of as they grovel before naked power." Well, Ralph, the point was philosophical. Sincerely, Jukka L From jlaari at cc.jyu.fi Wed May 14 13:25:16 2003 From: jlaari at cc.jyu.fi (j laari) Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 15:25:16 +0300 (EEST) Subject: sorry for previous post & continuation for Lebensphilosophie Greetings I realized that I had not made couple of points I intended to make in my previous post. However, while I was glancing the post I realized that I had written few very awful sentences in hurry. Sorry for that! The points I had in mind were these: (a) Terms 'transcendence' and 'transcendental' should not be confused: previous one refers to that what is opposite to 'immanence', i.e. it refers to the real, physical world outside my consciousness (so 'transcendent' is roughly Kant's 'Ding an sich' ('thing') as well as the world of naive understanding); the latter - 'transcendental' - concerns the conditions of phenomena and meaningful experiences et al. And that question is not a question of empirical study but of philosophical reflection. (b) Efforts to reach the 'thing'- whether a god or a stone - are in a certain sense metaphysical, but transcendental (or transcendental-constitutional) analysis is not. It doesn't try to reach anything. It only tries to clarify how I (any 'I' or 'ego') experience this or that, on what condition this phenomenon is possible - conditions in question, it should be repeated, aren't empirical but transcendental. They are neither metaphysical nor empirical, but transcendental. (c) What kicked Husserl onwards in the early days (at the turn of the century)? Psychologism - and that's one form of naturalism. Psychologism in question was psychologism in relation to the basics of logic and mathematics (formal reasoning). I'm not an expert on this, so it's better not to elaborate that. One way of explaining psychologism could be this: it was an effort to explain 'the formal' by the capabilities of mind/psyche. But that is a problem of its own! More important: psychologistic answer to the problem concerning 'the formal' accepts several presumptions or presuppositions. Instead, the constitution of phenomenon must be explained only by reference to something evident (i.e. evident in philosophical sense, as something I can't dispute or suspect in cartesian sense). So the philosophical-constitutional analysis is immanent whole of the time, there should be no naturalistic transgressions. You don't tell that the possibility of mathematics is in the fact that there are "a lot of things in the world" or that "our minds are constituted so that they can combine and compare things". The philosophical answer to the question concerning the formal cannot be found out in the (transcendent) world. Roughly so. (Therefore I'm a bit suspicious of young Adorno's criticisms of the thinking of his days, esp. Husserl. He was insensitive to the problems - partly because he seemed not to understand them all in their philosophical significance - and offered simplistic, dogmatic answers. It's quite different with older Adorno of Negative Dialectic. Marcuse was better on the track in the thirties - that's why Horkheimer originally hired him as "the Institute philosopher", I believe.) Confused? Don't worry - more in June in the next episode of... "Soap". Sincerely, Jukka L From JBCM2 at aol.com Wed May 14 14:42:18 2003 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2@aol.com) Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 09:42:18 EDT Subject: WARS YET TO COME --part1_7a.3fb9d352.2bf3a1ba_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Click here: The Assassinated Press WARS YET TO COME By AIJAZ AHMAD Frontline (Special to The Assassinated Press) They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe. companions to liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson "America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. This is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know." Gore Vidal --part1_7a.3fb9d352.2bf3a1ba_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Click here: The Assassinated Press


WARS YET TO COME By AIJAZ AHMAD
Frontline
(Special to The Assassinated Press)


They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency
to render the head too large for the body.  A standing military
force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe.
companions to liberty.  -- Thomas Jefferson


"America is a quarter of= a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. T= his is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just b= eyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know."

Gore Vidal


--part1_7a.3fb9d352.2bf3a1ba_boundary-- From JBCM2 at aol.com Fri May 16 13:51:51 2003 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2@aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 08:51:51 EDT Subject: Iranian Group Paid By Fanatic Neo-Cons To Say Tehran Has Bioweapons: --part1_1cd.9a64a90.2bf638e7_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Click here: The Assassinated Press Iranian Group Paid By Fanatic Neo-Cons To Say Tehran Has Bioweapons: Bombing In Saudi Arabia Doesn't Distract Cheney/Bush Corp. From Iraq U.N. Oil Extraction/Export Proposal: Saudi Bombing Directed At U.S. Vinnell Corporation Mercenaries And Torturers In The Hire Of The Saudi Monarchy: Bush Reminds Crowd That Jed Clampitt Shot His Way Into the Oil Business Too By YASO ADIODI The Assassinated Press May 15, 2003, 4:42 PM EDT --part1_1cd.9a64a90.2bf638e7_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Click here: The Assassinated Press

Iranian Group Paid By Fanati= c Neo-Cons To Say Tehran Has Bioweapons:
Bombing In Saudi Arabia Doesn't Distract Cheney/Bush Corp. From Iraq U.N. Oi= l Extraction/Export Proposal:
Saudi Bombing Directed At U.S. Vinnell Corporation Mercenaries And Torturers= In The Hire Of The Saudi Monarchy:
Bush Reminds Crowd That Jed Clampitt Shot His Way Into the Oil Business Too=20=

By YASO ADIODI
The Assassinated Press
May 15, 2003, 4:42 PM EDT


--part1_1cd.9a64a90.2bf638e7_boundary-- From mpiscioneri at hotmail.com Sun May 18 06:40:07 2003 From: mpiscioneri at hotmail.com (matthew piscioneri) Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 05:40:07 +0000 Subject: Reception/Influence of Habermas's C.T List, Another request: other than early Honneth, perhaps Wellmer also, Bohman, early Benhabib...who else could be pointed to as directly influenced by Habermas's reconstructed Critical Theory (i.e. his linguistic turn)? In general JH's version of C.T-as-critical communication theoretic has been *negatively* received in circles sympathetic to Critical Theory's approach. Would List members agree? Stefan Breuer writes of C.T's *de-potentiation* with JH's linguistic turn, Agnes Heller writes of Habermas's critical theory being without a flesh and blood audience/target group etc. I can point to plenty of dissenters. Looking for evidence of a positive reception within C.T circles of JH's work. Thanks, MattP. _________________________________________________________________ ninemsn Extra Storage is now available. Get five times more storage - 10MB in your Hotmail account. Go to http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/home&pgmarket=en-au From rvaranka at cc.helsinki.fi Mon May 19 18:06:41 2003 From: rvaranka at cc.helsinki.fi (Risto S Varanka) Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 20:06:41 +0300 (EEST) Subject: Body as condition of knowledge (was: Lebensphilosophie) Sorry for the late response, but hopefully this clears things up... ----- Forwarded message from j laari ----- >It's quite difficult to think of, say, thinking, meaningfulness and >sense without realising and remembering the role and significance of >the body. Is that obvious? Language and meaning could be the second ontological dimension besides physical reality. If one operates with entities of this ontological category (eg. concepts, meanings, words, propositions) then the physical reality seems to fade into the background. >you sometime later.) Basically, one could say that it's all about >trying to make of sense of what it is to be a corporeal being. Marx >expressed it quite beautifully in thesis on Feuerbach. I'd think some thinkers influenced by Marx could be good reading when one is trying to develop some kind of a praxis theory - a view on practical human action (eg. work) and how that is relevant for knowledge. Too bad I'm not very detailed on Marxist philosophers :-. >> I'm also trying research what kind of a role the human body has >> for knowledge. (...) I think many Phenomenologists - from >> Heidegger to Merleau-Ponty and Dreyfus - emphasize that the >> experienced human body is a necessary precondition of knowledge, >> while I tend to think that the connection to bodily action is a >> necessary precondition of meaning and understanding. > >However, would you clarify the difference between you and phenom. >tradition? (E.g. can't it be both ways; precondition both of knowledge >and understanding & meaning?) Maybe I am in agreement with the Phenomenological tradition, I just lack knowledge on these writers :-) I was trying to stress that the bodily aspect could be fundamental to all human consciousness, not only to a high-level complex like knowledge. Meaning and understanding seem more fundamental than knowledge: for example if you think of knowledge as propositions, you can think of understanding as something that makes the constituents of propositions meaningful, so that humans are capable of applying the contents of propositions. Where I sense a difference is my Pragmatist or Practicist orientation. A phenomenologist analyses experience, for example how spatiality is a necessary feature in human orientation in the world, an ingredient in concept formation etc. My view is in a way reverse - from consciousness to physical reality. In my view our knowledge and understanding forms a system that directs our action. Humans certainly experience the colour and spatial extension of bananas, and form conceptions about long yellow fruit. However, the really interesting thing is how humans can leverage these conceptions to get bananas whenever they need them - in other words, practical effectiveness. Getting bananas is in many ways obviously a physical activity, so here we get the thesis that any concept about bananas is meaningful only if it can produce practical prescriptions - ie. that we are to physically behave in a way A rather than B if we want to get the banana (or to achieve some other practical effect with a banana). >> I am slightly dissatisfied with a Habermasian view of knowledge, >> which views knowledge as propositional content, the validity of >> which is determined in a discourse removed from action. (...) I'm >> starting to think that maybe it's possible to dig up some passages >> from Habermas which give a role to the human body in the formation >> of knowledge. > >So you mean by 'knowledge' something else than a proposition that is >true? I see the human world view as a "framework of action": a hierarchy of prescriptions which eventually stipulate our bodily action. Knowledge is a secondary concept which we also can use to analyze this framework. At a lower level there is different kinds of complex and "soft" stuff going on, to which I refer with concepts such as meaning and understanding. I don't think these are essentially propositional in nature. Another vision is connected with the concept of "tacit knowledge", which has become quite popular within the field of knowledge management. The idea is that competent workers in an organization often have very valuable knowledge which can be hard to articulate (eg. how to make bread that tastes good) and some writers such as Nonaka and Takeuchi even stress that this knowledge is not intellectual but has some kind of a connection to bodily activity. I think tacit knowledge is often procedural, not propositional. >By the way, have you checked what Lauri Routila has said on >these issues? I'm asking this because he critisized Habermas' interest >theory of knowledge from phenomenological standpoint (by asking e.g. >where H. left the theoretical interest; on what interest H's theory >is based except on theoretical one etc. - here the relation of the >question of knowledge to that of body can be easily opened). I am not familiar with Routila, and I fail to see how this is connected to the body - can you please fill in? I have viewed a notion of a "theoretical interest" mostly as an attempt from Scientific Realism to water down the theory of Habermas. I'd like to emphasize that scientific knowledge is necessarily connected to practical action somehow, while a notion of a theoretical interest seems to mean that it's just natural for science and knowledge to be detached from the praxis. >Sincerely, Jukka L Yours, -- Risto Varanka | http://www.helsinki.fi/~rvaranka/ risto varanka at no spam please helsinki fi From JBCM2 at aol.com Sun May 18 01:40:47 2003 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2@aol.com) Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 20:40:47 EDT Subject: No Political Fallout For Cheney/Bush On WMD Lies --part1_1cd.9bff9a0.2bf8308f_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Click here: The Assassinated Press No Political Fallout For Cheney/Bush On WMD Lies: 96% Don't Know Who Is In Iraqi Mass Graves, 100% Don't Care As Long As They Feel It Mitigates Their Guilt For Invasion Murders; John Q. Public: "It's Just A Justification For Doing Nothing After Being Lied Too By The Administration. I Really Don't Give a Fuck." In 100,000 Years Dead Iraqis Will Turn Into Oil, Bush Declares Daschle Insists: "WE'RE NOT THE PARTY OF FREDO!" By DOWNA SHITBANK AND DAEMON CORPSEFUCKER Assassinated Press Staff Writers Saturday, May 17, 2003 They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe. companions to liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson "America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. This is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know." Gore Vidal --part1_1cd.9bff9a0.2bf8308f_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Click here: The Assassinated Press

No Political Fallout For Che= ney/Bush On WMD Lies:
96% Don't Know Who Is In Iraqi Mass Graves, 100% Don't Care As Long As They=20= Feel It Mitigates Their Guilt For Invasion Murders;
John Q. Public: "It's Just A Justification For Doing Nothing After Being Lie= d Too By The Administration. I Really Don't Give a Fuck."
In 100,000 Years Dead Iraqis Will Turn Into Oil, Bush Declares
Daschle Insists: "WE'RE NOT THE PARTY OF FREDO!"

By DOWNA SHITBANK AND DAE= MON CORPSEFUCKER
Assassinated Press Staff Writers
Saturday, May 17, 2003



They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency
to render the head too large for the body.  A standing military
force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe.
companions to liberty.  -- Thomas Jefferson


"America is a quarter of= a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. T= his is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just b= eyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know."

Gore Vidal


--part1_1cd.9bff9a0.2bf8308f_boundary-- From thiago_oppermann at bigpond.com Mon May 19 02:33:29 2003 From: thiago_oppermann at bigpond.com (Thiago Oppermann) Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 11:33:29 +1000 Subject: Koreans, Russia's Mexicans New York Times May 18, 2003 Russia Turns to a Poor Neighbor for Cheap Labor By JAMES BROOKE VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- Amid the construction dust of a faux Southern California shopping mall, where cream walls, marble floors and luxury boutiques were taking shape, a construction worker resolutely pushed his wheelbarrow, ignoring a poster of a lingerie model, dressed in little more than a black cowboy hat. "The North Koreans are great, they don't smoke, they don't drink," said Grigoryi T. Akhoyan, the Armenian developer of the new downtown mall here. "I have friends in California who employ Mexicans. I think North Koreans work just as hard." On May Day, Russians here were enjoying their holiday with a parade and concert by the docks of this Pacific port. But across an avenue, two North Korean stonemasons were working, tapping bricks with mallets to complete a sidewalk. "Koreitsi," Russian for Korean, announced 14 classified advertisements listing the availability of North Korean workers in a recent issue of the Dalpress newspaper. The advertisements included words like "fast," "cheap" and "quality." With their numbers rising here, North Korean construction workers are now so ubiquitous that one recent morning an American diplomat noticed a North Korean crew at work plastering the bomb-barrier flower boxes in front of the United States Consulate here. They were replaced with Russian workers. In an inheritance from Soviet days, as many as 10,000 North Koreans work in the Russian Far East under a contract worker system. North Korea provides cheap labor under tight controls to the Russian Far East, which is short of labor, but fears Asian immigration. By contrast, China gives no legal security to North Korean economic migrants. In a yearlong crackdown, China has forcibly sent back tens of thousands of North Koreans, often to harsh punishment at home. With North Korea now the poorest nation in Northeast Asia, all of its neighbors â^À^Ô China, South Korea, Russia and Japan â^À^Ô have adopted contingency plans to block a sudden outflow of migrants in the event of a collapse of the Communist government. But while Japan, South Korea and Russia lack workers willing to do dirty and dangerous jobs, only Russia has been willing to accept North Koreans as guest workers. "It is good the North Korean workers are here," Yuri M. Kopylov, Vladivostok's mayor, said in an impromptu interview on the edge of a children's folk concert. "They work all day long. There is no competition between North Koreans and Russians. There is work for everybody." The arrangement allows the North Korean government to milk the maximum money from the workers, who generally come here on three-year contracts. Most of their wages are retained or collected by the North Korean state companies that bring them here, workers and employers interviewed here said. Two North Koreans interviewed at an apartment renovation project here said their unit leader told them they must earn a minimum of $400 a month (close to the local minimum wage), which for most means moonlighting at private jobs. They are allowed to keep $100. This money, the men said, they either send home to their families or carry back on their yearly vacations. Although they often work 16-hour days, sleeping in apartments they are renovating, they said they considered themselves lucky to be working in Russia and hoped to renew their contracts. The men asked not be identified in any way, saying that they could be harshly punished for talking about North Korea to foreigners. One man drew his fingers across his throat in a universal sign of execution. "The men coming here realize they are prisoners of the system," Mr. Akhoyan said, referring to North Korea's hold over workers here. "But all the workers come here willingly. And when the contract is over, they seem to regret going." The Armenian developer said he paid "about the same amount of money" to his 60 North Korean workers as to Russians with the same skills. The advantage to him, he explained, "is that the Koreans do a greater volume of work." His North Korean foreman said in broken Russian that when his contract expired, he would "go home." Uneasy about talking with a foreigner, he said only that in North Korea he had a wife, son and daughter whom he only saw once a year during a monthlong vacation. One North Korean dormitory here is on the third floor of an old merchant marine training academy in an industrial suburb. On a recent morning, about 12 North Korean men were fishing for dinner off a pier. In a hallway leading to the dormitory's sleeping quarters, a red-and-gold banner brightened the drab interior. "Our great leader, Comrade Kim Il Sung, will be with us forever! Hurrah for Gen. Kim Jong Il, the son of the 21st century!" read the slogans, referring to North Korea's late leader and his son and successor. In the Russian Far East, North Korea's tightly controlled migrant worker system is welcomed by local authorities worried that uncontrolled Asian migration could end 150 years of European dominance here. On a visit to the region two summers ago, Kim Jong Il told an aide to President Vladimir V. Putin that the Russian authorities had his permission to shoot any North Koreans found dealing in drugs. North Korea's worker control system is especially harsh in remote Siberian logging camps which, according to Amnesty International, are directly run by North Korea's ruthless Public Security Service. Escapees interviewed in Moscow in recent years have told human rights researchers that the North Korean camp authorities maintain private prisons and prevent escapes by rationing food and punishing would-be escapees with torture and sometimes execution. During the Soviet era, most logging in Siberia was done by prisoners in forced labor camps. Viktor Ishayev, governor of Khabarovsk since 1991, has said in interviews with Russian reporters over the last year that the Russian authorities have regained control over the camps and have reduced the number of North Koreans loggers. There used to be 15,000 North Koreans in labor camps," he said in a news conference in January. "Now 600 is the quota, mostly in logging." On May 3, Ben Christie and Nicholas Wrathall, two documentary filmmakers, visited the Alonka camp, a 16-hour train ride and a 3-hour jeep ride from Khabarovsk, a regional capital. Even though the team had filming permits from Khabarovsk officials, Mr. Christie said, North Korean authority was made clear by a North Korean flag on a crane emblazoned with Korean slogans. Mr. Christie recalled in a interview what happened when the workers spotted the team filming. "The chief came running up to the car," he said. "He tried to pull the aerial off. Then, he tried to pull the door off. Then he reached inside the car for the camera." After the driver turned around, Mr. Christie said, "they threw a huge rock at the car." On their return train ride from the town of Chegdomyn, Mr. Christie and his crew found and interviewed a North Korean Communist Party secretary, in full uniform, who had been attending a meeting for camp overseers in Chegdomyn. _________________________________________ ------ End of Forwarded Message From rdumain at igc.org Tue May 20 01:25:34 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 20:25:34 -0400 Subject: Goldmann vs Adorno Following our recent discussion I decided to re-read Lucien Goldmann's LUKACS AND HEIDEGGER: TOWARDS A NEW PHILOSOPHY (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979). I may have more to say about the book as a whole later, but now I am concerned with a section towards the end where Goldmann criticizes Adorno (pp. 91-97). Goldmann points out that young Lukacs and the Frankfurt School were allied in the latter's early years. But Adorno has different ideas now: quote: Adorno revealed his new conceptions at a recent congress on the sociology of literature, as, moreover, had Agnes Heller (one of Lukacs's closest collaborators) on behalf of Lukacs. According to Adorno, the creator situates himself outside reality, not at this necessary distance from the group whose world vision he expresses, but outside of reality, and his attitude toward it is extremely critical: a minimal acceptance and a maximal rejection. That leads Adorno to the idea of a purely negative dialectic, to rejection, and to the requirement of the impoverishment of content, an impoverishment and rejection for which the ideal would be Beckett. In almost Heideggerian tones --whom he criticizes sharply, moreover-- Adorno now rejects everything which is popular, and any concession to the popular, and thus arrives, through criticism, at rather conservative positions. He conceives of the work as a sort of objective reality, a nearly Platonic reality or form which the creator should attain. To defend the idea of this constraint by form, Adorno recalls that, however great a genius he may be, the creator could only produce everything he wants to at the risk of succumbing to mediocrity. This is incontestable at the psychological level of the individual, but in no way does it explain to us the existence of its objective realities, nor their origin. As we have seen, this objective reality -- in other words coherence, significant structure, aesthetic form, which goes beyond the subjective consciousness of the individual creator -- is not in the least a Platonic reality, but rather the possible consciousness of a plural object, its world vision. This objectivity, this form, exists for the individual who must attain it not as an evident reality, but as a non-conscious norm; it is here that the individual is differentiated from the collective subject, because, in the historical praxis of a plural subject, the forms are neither given nor are they preexistent. It is by starting from this collective praxis that the forms become intelligible and that their genesis can be grasped. Moreover, Adorno is little interested in these significant structures. What makes a work important for him, what interests him, is what he calls its 'truth content'. This truth content, according to his pronouncements on it at the congress, is difficult to define and always goes beyond the purely intellectual. Consequently, the work must not be approached in its totality and by following its genesis, but in relation to criticism, to the philosopher, who knows this truth content today. Literature no longer appears interesting or valid except to the extent that the critical philosopher speaks about it in order to extract certain elements from it which he judges in relation to something which is not the work itself. Thus, the truth content is beyond the work, in the consciousness of the critical philosopher who chooses this content in accordance with the critical consciousness, and the work is no longer considered except outside itself. This truth content, then, is situated outside history or in the history of philosophy. As a result, aesthetics is subordinated to philosophy, to truth, to the theoretically valid content. And, since this truth content is not a significant structure inherent to the work, it becomes a sort of evidence, of which the cultured man, the thinker, the philosopher may have a sort of intuitive knowledge. Their knowledge is shared by other cultured men, without the existence of any foundation other than culture for this community. With much finesse and subtlety Adorno comes back to this Neo-Kantian thought and to the dualism of the subject and the object which Lukacs and Heidegger had transcended, thus taking up the position of Bruno Bauer's and Max Stirner's Critical Consciousness. end quote I don't know what to make of this, but as we shall see, the argument hangs on Goldmann's conception of subject-object identity with a collective subject. There is something fishy about this. Goldmann continues: quote: This Critical Consciousness found an explanation in the young Marx and the young Lukacs on the basis of its historical genesis, and this can also clarify Adorno's new position. Following Marx's directions, Lukacs was the first to overturn the old customary scheme of the development of Neo-Hegelian philosophy. He discusses the Neo-Hegelians in History and Class Consciousness and in articles on Lassalle and Moses Hess of the same period. These ideas of Lukacs continued by A. Cornu in his books on M. Hess and Marx, are now very widespread and - as in the case of other Lukacsian ideas - their origin has been forgotten. The earlier history of Neo-Hegelianism was different. It constituted a chain which went from Hegel to the Neo-Hegelians, to those of the right, the centre, and the left, to reach Marx, as the most radical among the Hegelians of the left, who developed dialectical materialism. But Lukacs has shown that those who are called 'Hegelians of the Left' are in fact closer to Fichte -- as the Neo-Kantians were later on -- than to Hegel. They had moved away from the Hegelian position, according to Lukacs because they had abandoned the fundamental categories of totality and the identity of the subject and the object, in order to return to the subject-object opposition in the form of the opposition between 'critical consciousness' and the world. In The Holy Family and The German Ideology Marx had already accused the Hegelians of the left -- Feuerbach, Bauer, Stirner, etc., -- of having retained Hegel's language and his categories, but also for having returned to this side of Hegel, who tried to imagine himself in the world. in fact, the Hegelians of the left thought they were situated above the world and spoke from outside it, whereas according to Marx and he ardently insists upon it in The German Ideology when someone speaks, he should ask who is speaking and from where. The Hegelians of the left are in opposition to the reality of ideas which have no real basis: Bauer with his critical self-consciousness and Stirner with his egoistic individual which, Marx has shown, is not real and, in short, comes from a philosophical construction, just like Bauer's 'critical consciousness'. To know what one is speaking about, Marx very justifiably requires that one know who is speaking and from where: it is necessary to know that one always speaks from within a world from which comes the structure of consciousness of the one who is speaking and who, in order to know what he is saying, must know this world and this structuration at the risk of otherwise remaining within an ideology. end quote I understand the argument against the Left Hegelians, but there is something not quote kosher here. The problem begins with subject-object identity. I don't think this is a quite accurate characterization of the deficiencies of the Left Hegelians. I'll skip the next paragraph for the time being and move on: quote: According to Lukacs the Hegelians of the left are the expression of a small, radical group oriented since the beginning of the 1840s toward the revolution of 1848, without being sufficiently strong to succeed in the revolution, or capable of thinking about itself and the situation clearly. Moreover, after the failure of the revolution of 1848, the group altered and its thinkers (who had been very well-known) lost all importance. Beforehand, in the struggle against the Prussian State, which created all sorts of difficulties for them, the Hegelians of the left could not continue Hegel's compromise, nor find in Germany a real force which they could have relied on. And so they criticized the world as bad and negative without knowing where, in what place, and in what perspective or praxis, to situate their criticism. They placed it in an imaginary entity, a 'critical consciousness', or in the egoistic individual, Stirner's 'Unique Man' who is another version of this who opposes the world and judges it. end quote True, but the problem is that their criticism lacks concreteness in its treatment of the objective world and their relation to it. Hence their judgement becomes abstract. There is something Stalinist about the "collective subject", and Goldmann's sympathy here for the notions of the YOUNG Lukacs as well as a limited sympathy for Heidegger, and this obsession with situatedness that doesn't smell right. Who farted? quote: In History and Class Consciousness, where Lukacs offers this explanation concerning the Hegelianism of the left, there is another important observation - likewise derived from Marx - on Hegel's philosophical limits and his proximity to Kant and Fichte. It is these limits of Hegel which have permitted the Hegelians of the left, and the Neo-Hegelians in general, to use him as their authority and to continue to use his language in order to uphold a Fichtean outlook. Lukacs recalls that Hegel rejects any possibility of judgment coming from the outside because he develops a philosophy of immanence and totality. Yet, according to the Hegelian conception, history is the work of the Absolute Spirit which, although intervening through its agents, remains outside reality and has a dualist relationship with it. Thus, despite the monism of a system which denies dualism, a dualism of the subject and the object virtually exists in Hegel between the Absolute Spirit and concrete history, according to Lukacs. This opposition of the subject and the object was able to be accentuated and placed at the centre of their preoccupations by the Hegelians of the left, for whom the Absolute Spirit simply became the subjective consciousness of the critique, the 'subject' of history. According to Lukacs it is not because the young Marx had been the most radical of the Hegelians of the left, i.e. in reality a Fichtean, that he developed dialectical materialism. Quite the contrary, it was because he was the only consistent Hegelian among them that he eliminated all of the Fichtean and Kantian residues from the thought of Hegel and that he turned toward rigorously monist thought. And he only attained this thought, and was only able to elaborate it completely, after his exile in France and his discovery of the proletariat as the new social force and as the basis of identical theory and praxis. end quote I understand the logic of the argument, but I don't believe it. quote: Since Marx's time, and even since History and Class Consciousness, the development of the forces of production and economic relations has again rendered problematic the relation between thought and reality. Even Lukacs abandoned the identity of the subject of praxis and the subject of the work, and no longer relates the work to the group, but to the relation of its creator to global history. Thus, the old theory of the revolutionary proletariat as the historical basis, by its action, of dialectical thought must be modified and can no longer be maintained or asserted as before. The Frankfurt School, which no longer admits this old conception, has the impression that the ground has been pulled away from under its feet. But this disappearance of the collective subject has not led it to join the structuralists who, on the basis of the technocratic structures of organizational capitalism, deny the existence of the subject. The Frankfurt School has kept its critical positions; nevertheless, it finds itself in the situation of the Hegelians of the left in the Germany of the 1840s. It has come back to the dualism between the subject and the object, and criticizes the world on the basis of ideas which it is far from being able to justify. Bauer came from Hegel. Today, Adorno comes from an earlier Adorno, close to the positions of History and Class Consciousness, who would not easily have accepted this radical rejection and this 'critical consciousness' which he upholds today, while continuing, on other points, his refined and intelligent dialectical analyses. The need to know worldly reality, the collective subject on the basis of which one thinks, obviously only exists for the dialectical thinker. Descartes - to take the famous example of a non-dialectical thinker - does not have such a problem and almost ignores its possibilities. The relation between the dialectical thinker and the worldly reality from which he begins, is a dialectical, circular, relation. The collective subject produces the mental structures which the thinker expresses and elaborates, and he must be able to account for their real origin in his thought. end quote I get it, but I don't believe in any collective subject even as a concept. Smacks of objective idealism. Finally: quote: If one does not accept Adorno's 'critical consciousness', which judges and scans reality from on high, or the individual relation to global history as Lukacs currently conceives it, if one wishes to maintain, no longer the idea of the revolutionary proletariat, but the requirements of Marx's dialectical thought (which always demands that one know who is speaking and from where), of the subject-object totality, then the basic question arises of knowing who is, now, the subject of speech and action. It is necessary to know in the name of what and from where we are speaking today, if we believe that there are only valid works and actions to the extent that they are placed within a universe created by men and are attached to specific groups. There are situations in which one cannot give an answer because the group, from which speech and action comes, is not yet manifest. In these situations, on the basis of a modified tradition, individuals speak by formulating perspectives and positions for which the group, the true subject, if it is not yet there, is in gestation or waiting to be elaborated. And very probably, these positions will be modified when the group becomes manifest. end quote I find this inadequate. This cannot be as banal as it looks, can it? From mpiscioneri at hotmail.com Tue May 20 10:10:16 2003 From: mpiscioneri at hotmail.com (matthew piscioneri) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 09:10:16 +0000 Subject: Goldmann vs Adorno Ralph, thanks for this extraordinary post. To be honest with you I find the discussion you have reported *banal* (as you characterize it) because it is all too difficult to understand - in a real visceral (sic) - sense. In other words, aren't the concepts here so laden with the consciousness of german Idealism to lack any sort of substantive rhetorical power? I was thinking about this recently. Did Marx stir the proletariat on the basis of revealing the new material categories of being/history? if he did then the proles then were a lot smarter than I am now. Did revolutionary agents generate philosophy as a material force with which to move the masses by explicating the theory of value? I am in admiration if they did. >I find this inadequate. This cannot be as banal as it looks, can it? My suspicion is that elements of the Frankfurt school's deviation from Marxist dogma was an advance. But I consider their greatest advantage lay in the development of the ir dialectic of enlightenment thesis. again, I consider engagement with this thesis to be the starting point of any critical theory of society. It is - pertinently - Habermas's starting point. Anyway I know you have read Habermas's _Theory and Practice_ so you are au fait with Habermas's position on the relationship between theory and practice which I would go far to say permeates the entire development of his critical theory. so much so that Habermas's programme of discourse ethics IMO is intended as an alternative vehicle for realizing the normative justification for some sort of critical social programme. I may be way off here. Because in _MCCA_ JH clearlydistinguishes between philosophy (morality/ethics) and the production of critical social theory. This division of labour is frustrating I believe. Anyway, thanks for the rich post. MattP. _________________________________________________________________ ninemsn Extra Storage is now available. Get larger attachments - send/receive up to 2MB attachments (up to 100 percent more per e-mail). Go to http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/home&pgmarket=en-au From thiago_oppermann at bigpond.com Tue May 20 01:18:46 2003 From: thiago_oppermann at bigpond.com (Thiago Oppermann) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 10:18:46 +1000 Subject: Koreans, Russia's Mexicans I am terribly sorry, this wasn't meant to go to this list. Thiago On 19/5/2003 11:33 AM, "Thiago Oppermann" wrote: > > New York Times > May 18, 2003 > Russia Turns to a Poor Neighbor for Cheap Labor > By JAMES BROOKE > > VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- Amid the construction dust of a faux Southern > From Rakahu at yfi.jyu.fi Tue May 20 07:53:51 2003 From: Rakahu at yfi.jyu.fi (Rauno Huttunen) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 09:53:51 +0300 Subject: Vs: Goldmann vs Adorno Goldmann's book is very interesting. Interesting connection between Lukacs and Heidegger but in very general level. We need more profound work on that subject. She knows very well Lukacs, but her knowledge on Hegel, Marx, Heidegger and Adorno are very limited. To speak Marx "dialectical thought (which always demands that one know who is speaking and from where" without references does mean nothing. I very much argreed Goldmann's Adrono critique, but not on those premises. Rauno Huttunen >>> rdumain@igc.org 05/20 3:25 >>> Following our recent discussion I decided to re-read Lucien Goldmann's LUKACS AND HEIDEGGER: TOWARDS A NEW PHILOSOPHY (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979). I may have more to say about the book as a whole later, but now I am concerned with a section towards the end where Goldmann criticizes Adorno (pp. 91-97). Finally: quote: If one does not accept Adorno's 'critical consciousness', which judges and scans reality from on high, or the individual relation to global history as Lukacs currently conceives it, if one wishes to maintain, no longer the idea of the revolutionary proletariat, but the requirements of Marx's dialectical thought (which always demands that one know who is speaking and from where), of the subject-object totality, then the basic question arises of knowing who is, now, the subject of speech and action. It is necessary to know in the name of what and from where we are speaking today, if we believe that there are only valid works and actions to the extent that they are placed within a universe created by men and are attached to specific groups. There are situations in which one cannot give an answer because the group, from which speech and action comes, is not yet manifest. In these situations, on the basis of a modified tradition, individuals speak by formulating perspectives and positions for which the group, the true subject, if it is not yet there, is in gestation or waiting to be elaborated. And very probably, these positions will be modified when the group becomes manifest. end quote I find this inadequate. This cannot be as banal as it looks, can it? From rdumain at igc.org Tue May 20 14:43:44 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 09:43:44 -0400 Subject: Goldmann on Lukacs & Heidegger On Lucien Goldmann's LUKACS AND HEIDEGGER: TOWARDS A NEW PHILOSOPHY (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979): I know a bit about Goldmann's literary theory, but I still don't have enough overall context to place his attitude towards this subject matter, which is mostly about basic philosophical issues, except for a brief excursion into Goldmann's literary terrain. The biggest unknown as far as this book is concerned is Goldmann's attitude toward the later Lukacs and by extension towards Lukacs' view of the younger Lukacs. This book concentrated exclusively on the Young Lukacs up to the historical moment of HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS. The early Lukacs is the basis of the comparison with Heidegger. Goldmann has obviously infused his views with some brand of Hegelianism. He sees Lukacs and Heidegger both outgrowths of this tradition; it's what they share even in their mutual opposition. For Heidegger the historical subject is the individual. For Lukacs it is social classes, which Goldmann also suspiciously names the "transindividual subject." [p. 8] Lukacs adopts the Hegelian notion that history of the realization of the idea of freedom. For Heidegger there is only authenticity and inauthenticity and a Romantic view of history. For Lukacs there is no difference between the human sciences and philosophy. Heidegger's strict separation of the two is correlated to his interest in elites alone as positive historical actors. Both are antipositivists, but for Lukacs the dividing line is between the natural and human sciences. [pp. 8-9] I'm skipping over Goldmann's remarks on language and the rest of this introductory chapter. There is another important point made, however. There is an analogous relationship between the two thinkers and the dictatorships to which they rallied, Stalin's and Hitler's, which failed to live up to the principles their would-be philosophers set down for them. [pp. 16-17] The next chapter is on reification, zuhandenheit, and praxis. Goldmann begins with the controversial claim that Heidegger alludes to Lukacs in BEING AND TIME and is concerned with refuting him. [p. 27] The following chapter is on totality, being, and history. Lukacs' notion of collective praxis is not to be found in Heidegger, who is still mired in various dualisms, including science vs. philosophy and the ontological vs. the ontic. Heidegger has no real explanation for the social world of inauthenticity. Goldmann gives priority to Lukacs in formulating the basic ideas of modern existentialism in THE SOUL AND THE FORMS. [p. 45] Already Lukacs breaks with Kierkegaard, and questions western individualism while criticizing inauthentic life. [pp. 46ff] Both Lukacs and Heidegger see meaning in relation to the collective subject or the individual dasein, but Lukacs sees mediation between the immediate given and the totality. Without this, there are only the formalist historical classifications or irrationalist views of history. [p. 50] The following chapter is about objective possibility and possible consciousness. In striving for its maximum possible consciousness, the petit bourgeoisie, unable to grasp the totality, ends up joining the class with the strongest position. This is revealed in the uneasy relationship of writers to political orders. Ilya Ehrenburg rallies behind or criticizes Stalinism; Kastner has a parallel relationship with Nazism. [p. 57] This latter point is interesting but I find it very fishy. To me all this idealist talk about collective subjects is suspect. And while it's true that the petit bourgeoisie has trouble grasping the whole, the marginalized position of deracinated intellectuals has its advantages. It's interesting that Richard Wright (in his still unpublished writings of the 1930s), who came from the bottom rung of society, thought that this marginalized intermediate position could give one a privileged vantage point. For some reason I marked a discussion of Rosa Luxemburg viz. Lenin on class alliances, spontaneity and the party, and the possible consciousness of social classes. [p. 65] Lukacs' HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS is seen as essentially Luxemburgian. [p. 58] The theme of the next chapter is subject-object and function. Here we get a precis of Goldmann's famous analysis of Pascal and the Jansenists. It seems to me this analysis stands on its own regardless of what thinks about the basic philosophical postulates of collective subjects and the like. Goldmann ends up addressing the general question of meaning and the dilemmas involved, for example, in Althusser, who poses the alternative of Spinoza vs. Feuerbach, interpreted in dubious ways. This somehow ends up as a choice between mechanism and idealism, a dichotomy which plagues the history of Marxism as well as social science in general. [pp. 76-77] Both Hegel and Marx reject this dichotomy. Then there is a return to the discussion of Jansenism, and eventually of contradiction and coherence in world views. [p. 83] The fifth chapter of this section of the book is on the topicality of the question of the subject. This is where the discussion of Adorno, already summarized, takes place. This is preceded by an analysis of the social genesis of Althusserianism and the rebellion against existentialism, which also correlates to the post-war stabilization of capitalism. [p. 89] The book's final chapter, being and dialectics, sums up everything I find obnoxious in it. The collective subject, totality, and subject-object identity do not in my opinion provide an adequate ontological foundation, though this framework makes sense up to a point. Goldmann concerns himself with the problem of adequation of scientific knowledge, but his bearing toward the subject-object relation obviates a standard materialist/realist view. Goldmann is quite willing to criticize Stalinism, admit the difficulties of revolutionary prospects in the current situation (1960s), and so forth. And of course he is not shy about linking Heidegger to Hitler. Goldmann is pretty much silent about the late Lukacs and Lukacs' repudiation of the young Lukacs. And I think this is the major symptom of my puzzlement over this book. Goldmann criticizes both Lukacs and Heidegger, but is also sympathetic to both on some level. But ultimately on what basis? The basis looks suspicious to me. Furthermore, while it is a standard cliche of the artificial construct known as "Western Marxism" to excoriate dialectical materialism and link it to Stalinist orthodoxy, my own opinion is that idealism is just as or more congenial to Stalinism. Early Lukacs with his collective subject and subject-object identity seems to be _more_ conducive to Stalinism in some respects than something like THE DESTRUCTION OF REASON, which comes into being with Stalin's gun pointed to Lukacs' head. Hence Goldmann's ontological foundation, the basis for his sympathy to these two figures, and his silence about the later Lukacs, all place a question mark over this book. From rdumain at igc.org Tue May 20 15:39:04 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 10:39:04 -0400 Subject: Goldmann vs Adorno My newest post on Goldmann's book gets more into what I find troubling about Goldmann's argument. I suppose everyone's viscera reacts differently. My problem here is not with the alleged bloodlessness of epistemological and ontological foundations, but the reverse: hosw they can tangibly muck up our understanding of the world. Goldmann, piggybacking on Hegel and early Lukacs, finds his way out of the dichotomy various characterized as mechanist-idealist, Kantian, dualist, via the fundamental notions of totality, subject-object identity, and the collective subject. It's a neat package, I admit, but I think it's inadequate. Pending a detailed study, I contest the notion that the essence of what the Frankfurters have to offer is the dialectic of enlightenment. I suspect that just the reverse is true, that maybe this work should be put at the bottom and not at the top. The fact that it is most influential arouses my greatest suspicions. But time will tell. If it is Habermas' starting point, so much the better for Habermas to want to contradict it. But what are the implications of being held hostage to the way one was raised even while rebelling against it? At 09:10 AM 5/20/2003 +0000, matthew piscioneri wrote: >Ralph, > >thanks for this extraordinary post. To be honest with you I find the >discussion you have reported *banal* (as you characterize it) because it >is all too difficult to understand - in a real visceral (sic) - sense. In >other words, aren't the concepts here so laden with the consciousness of >german Idealism to lack any sort of substantive rhetorical power? > >I was thinking about this recently. Did Marx stir the proletariat on the >basis of revealing the new material categories of being/history? if he did >then the proles then were a lot smarter than I am now. Did revolutionary >agents generate philosophy as a material force with which to move the >masses by explicating the theory of value? I am in admiration if they did. > >>I find this inadequate. This cannot be as banal as it looks, can it? > >My suspicion is that elements of the Frankfurt school's deviation from >Marxist dogma was an advance. But I consider their greatest advantage lay >in the development of the ir dialectic of enlightenment thesis. again, I >consider engagement with this thesis to be the starting point of any >critical theory of society. It is - pertinently - Habermas's starting >point. Anyway I know you have read Habermas's _Theory and Practice_ so you >are au fait with Habermas's position on the relationship between theory >and practice which I would go far to say permeates the entire development >of his critical theory. so much so that Habermas's programme of discourse >ethics IMO is intended as an alternative vehicle for realizing the >normative justification for some sort of critical social programme. I may >be way off here. Because in _MCCA_ JH clearlydistinguishes between >philosophy (morality/ethics) and the production of critical social theory. >This division of labour is frustrating I believe. > >Anyway, thanks for the rich post. > >MattP. From rdumain at igc.org Tue May 20 15:43:25 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 10:43:25 -0400 Subject: Vs: Goldmann vs Adorno I see these same weaknesses in this book (of lectures) of Goldmann. He may be on to something in criticizing Adorno, but I also have doubts about Goldmann's premises. Do you have any further thoughts on this subject? At 09:53 AM 5/20/2003 +0300, Rauno Huttunen wrote: >Goldmann's book is very interesting. Interesting connection between Lukacs >and Heidegger but in very general level. We need more profound work on >that subject. She knows very well Lukacs, but her knowledge on Hegel, >Marx, Heidegger and Adorno are very limited. To speak Marx "dialectical >thought (which always demands that one know who is speaking and from >where" without references does mean nothing. I very much argreed >Goldmann's Adrono critique, but not on those premises. > >Rauno Huttunen > > > >>> rdumain@igc.org 05/20 3:25 >>> > >Following our recent discussion I decided to re-read Lucien Goldmann's >LUKACS AND HEIDEGGER: TOWARDS A NEW PHILOSOPHY (London: Routledge & Kegan >Paul, 1979). I may have more to say about the book as a whole later, but >now I am concerned with a section towards the end where Goldmann criticizes >Adorno (pp. 91-97). > >Finally: > >quote: > >If one does not accept Adorno's 'critical consciousness', which judges and >scans reality from on high, or the individual relation to global history as >Lukacs currently conceives it, if one wishes to maintain, no longer the >idea of the revolutionary proletariat, but the requirements of Marx's >dialectical thought (which always demands that one know who is speaking and >from where), of the subject-object totality, then the basic question arises >of knowing who is, now, the subject of speech and action. It is necessary >to know in the name of what and from where we are speaking today, if we >believe that there are only valid works and actions to the extent that they >are placed within a universe created by men and are attached to specific >groups. > >There are situations in which one cannot give an answer because the group, >from which speech and action comes, is not yet manifest. In these >situations, on the basis of a modified tradition, individuals speak by >formulating perspectives and positions for which the group, the true >subject, if it is not yet there, is in gestation or waiting to be >elaborated. And very probably, these positions will be modified when the >group becomes manifest. > >end quote > >I find this inadequate. This cannot be as banal as it looks, can it? From mpiscioneri at hotmail.com Tue May 20 17:38:43 2003 From: mpiscioneri at hotmail.com (matthew piscioneri) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 16:38:43 +0000 Subject: Goldmann vs Adorno Ralph, >Pending a detailed study, I contest the notion that the essence of what the >Frankfurters have to offer is the dialectic of enlightenment. I suspect >that just the reverse is true, that maybe this work should be put at the >bottom and not at the top. The fact that it is most influential arouses my >greatest suspicions. But time will tell. If it is Habermas' starting >point, so much the better for Habermas to want to contradict it. But what >are the implications of being held hostage to the way one was raised even >while rebelling against it? It's just what I take from H. & A. Anyway I am a new optimist (as compared to a post-structuralist). The liberation of Iraq has been a resounding success. Allah bless America. MattP. _________________________________________________________________ ninemsn Extra Storage is now available. Get larger attachments - send/receive up to 2MB attachments (up to 100 percent more per e-mail). Go to http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/home&pgmarket=en-au From jrovira at drew.edu Tue May 20 18:02:33 2003 From: jrovira at drew.edu (James Rovira) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 13:02:33 -0400 Subject: Goldmann vs Adorno I'm not too sure that Habermas is really "rebelling." In _Philosophical Discourse of Modernity_ he seems to identify H and A's argument in _Dialectic of Enlightenment_ with Nietzche's radical critique of reason. Rather than going all the way down Nietzche's road, however, he asserts that Adorno maintained that the "performative contradiction" inherent in questioning reason even while using it to question reason was the place the social critic was supposed to maintain. Habermas gets a little fuzzy to me from this point -- he seems to be saying that there is a "way back" out of the radical critique offered by the DE, and that H and A were mistaken in their pursuit of a purist notion of reason. He argues that instrumental reason isn't a ubiquitous thing anymore because the rise of specialized knowledge has brought with it the rise of discreet "logics" that don't all necessarily serve the same purpose, and that there's never any such thing as "pure" reason. It seems to me that these discreet logics still all serve the purposes of instrumental reason, and that the idea of "no pure reason" (which Habermas claimed Marx accepted uncritically) needs to be developed further. I tend toward the idea that nature reasons through humanity. Nature isn't then just conceptualized, but conceptualizes itself through reasoning agents -- as a result, we can reject the idea of a "pure reason." This may violate Adorno's principle of non-identity, but not necessarily. A conceptualization of a thing is still separate from the thing itself, even if the thing itself produces the conceptualization. Conceptualization/nature can be understood in terms of self-generating dialectic, then. Jim matthew piscioneri wrote: > Ralph, > >> Pending a detailed study, I contest the notion that the essence of >> what the Frankfurters have to offer is the dialectic of >> enlightenment. I suspect that just the reverse is true, that maybe >> this work should be put at the bottom and not at the top. The fact >> that it is most influential arouses my greatest suspicions. But time >> will tell. If it is Habermas' starting point, so much the better for >> Habermas to want to contradict it. But what are the implications of >> being held hostage to the way one was raised even while rebelling >> against it? > > > It's just what I take from H. & A. Anyway I am a new optimist (as > compared to a post-structuralist). The liberation of Iraq has been a > resounding success. Allah bless America. > > MattP. > > _________________________________________________________________ > ninemsn Extra Storage is now available. Get larger attachments - > send/receive up to 2MB attachments (up to 100 percent more per > e-mail). Go to http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/home&pgmarket=en-au > > From rdumain at igc.org Thu May 22 07:51:04 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 02:51:04 -0400 Subject: critical theory sites How are we doing on compiling our list of critical theory related web sites? Here's a page of links I just found: Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory and Postmodern Thought http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/postmodern.html From jrovira at drew.edu Thu May 22 15:51:32 2003 From: jrovira at drew.edu (James Rovira) Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 10:51:32 -0400 Subject: critical theory sites I've been collecting them as we go -- may have missed a few. Here's a link to the list I have: http://www.users.drew.edu/jrovira/frankfurtschoolRL.htm Jim PS the site below looks pretty good. Ralph Dumain wrote: > How are we doing on compiling our list of critical theory related web > sites? Here's a page of links I just found: > > Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory and Postmodern Thought > http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/postmodern.html > > > From HeyJoeT at t-online.de Sat May 24 09:29:00 2003 From: HeyJoeT at t-online.de (Joachim Teipel) Date: 24 May 2003 08:29 GMT Subject: Happy birthday, Teddy (New books on Adorno) Hi, quite a number of new books on Adorno are announced to be published in August, just in time for his 100th birthday on September 11th: Stefan Mueller-Doohm: Adorno. Eine Biographie. Suhrkamp. 950 pp. Reinhard Pabst: Adorno. Kindheit in Amorbach. Bilder und Erinnerungen. Insel. 250 pp. Lorenz Jaeger: Adorno. Eine politische Biographie. DVA. 160 pp. Detley Claussen: Theodor W. Adorno. Ein letztes Genie. Fischer. 300 pp. Wolfram Schuette: Adorno in Frankfurt. Suhrkamp. 250 pp. The german periodical "Literaturen" has dedicated its June edition to Adorno ("Luxus des Denkens"). See www.literaturen.de. Ciao, Joachim. From rdumain at igc.org Sat May 24 14:57:41 2003 From: rdumain at igc.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 09:57:41 -0400 Subject: Happy birthday, Teddy (New books on Adorno) Good to know. Now are there going to be any comparable commemorations in the English-speaking world? At 08:29 AM 5/24/2003 +0000, Joachim Teipel wrote: >Hi, > >quite a number of new books on Adorno are announced to be published in >August, just in time for his 100th birthday on September 11th: > >Stefan Mueller-Doohm: Adorno. Eine Biographie. Suhrkamp. 950 pp. > >Reinhard Pabst: Adorno. Kindheit in Amorbach. Bilder und Erinnerungen. >Insel. 250 pp. > >Lorenz Jaeger: Adorno. Eine politische Biographie. DVA. 160 pp. > >Detley Claussen: Theodor W. Adorno. Ein letztes Genie. Fischer. 300 pp. > >Wolfram Schuette: Adorno in Frankfurt. Suhrkamp. 250 pp. > >The german periodical "Literaturen" has dedicated its June edition to >Adorno ("Luxus des Denkens"). See www.literaturen.de. > >Ciao, Joachim. > From clausdh at tdcspace.dk Sat May 24 16:41:45 2003 From: clausdh at tdcspace.dk (Claus Hansen) Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 17:41:45 +0200 Subject: Happy birthday, Teddy (New books on Adorno) Hello Ralph, I vaguely remember to have read somewhere that the Biography by Mueller-Doohm is to be released by Polity Press in the UK in december 2003. Thanks to Joachim for the information! Best regards, Claus At 09:57 24-05-03 -0400, you wrote: >Good to know. Now are there going to be any comparable commemorations in >the English-speaking world? > >At 08:29 AM 5/24/2003 +0000, Joachim Teipel wrote: >>Hi, >> >>quite a number of new books on Adorno are announced to be published in >>August, just in time for his 100th birthday on September 11th: >> >>Stefan Mueller-Doohm: Adorno. Eine Biographie. Suhrkamp. 950 pp. >> >>Reinhard Pabst: Adorno. Kindheit in Amorbach. Bilder und Erinnerungen. >>Insel. 250 pp. >> >>Lorenz Jaeger: Adorno. Eine politische Biographie. DVA. 160 pp. >> >>Detley Claussen: Theodor W. Adorno. Ein letztes Genie. Fischer. 300 pp. >> >>Wolfram Schuette: Adorno in Frankfurt. Suhrkamp. 250 pp. >> >>The german periodical "Literaturen" has dedicated its June edition to >>Adorno ("Luxus des Denkens"). See www.literaturen.de. >> >>Ciao, Joachim. ____________________________________________________________________________ "Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, når de siger 'jeg'" (T.W. Adorno) From jlaari at cc.jyu.fi Wed May 28 08:38:01 2003 From: jlaari at cc.jyu.fi (j laari) Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 10:38:01 +0300 (EEST) Subject: Body as condition of knowledge Greetings No, it's not obvious. You're right. But remembering that has been one of the central features of modern philosophy since neokantian wave. > Is that obvious? Language and meaning could be the second > ontological dimension besides physical reality. If one operates > with entities of this ontological category (eg. concepts, > meanings, words, propositions) then the physical reality seems to > fade into the background. Secondly, I'd be careful not to collapse that all (language and words and propositions, concepts, and meanings) into one big "mill", so to speak. Think about alternative according to that conceptuality is one process - perhaps the thinking process proper - and then we just try to express the concepts and thoughts linguistically. It sort of muddles the things first but later it's different. After linguistic turn there has been certain trend to collapse thoughts and sign systems (that we use to express the former) into one. In human sciences culturalism, understood as study of signification (as it has been "defined" in cultural studies recently), has strengthened the trend. Quite unfortunate. > I was trying to stress that the bodily aspect could be fundamental > to all human consciousness, not only to a high-level complex like > knowledge. Yes. > Meaning and understanding seem more fundamental than knowledge: Yes. > Where I sense a difference is my Pragmatist or Practicist > orientation. A phenomenologist analyses experience, for example > how spatiality is a necessary feature in human orientation in the > world, an ingredient in concept formation etc. OK, we just ought to remember that we shouldn't take that difference of viewpoints as an opposition of contradicting doctrines (or whatever). In many ways it's fruitful to see them as complementary. At least I tend to forget that every now and then. > I see the human world view as a "framework of action": a hierarchy > of prescriptions which eventually stipulate our bodily action. > Knowledge is a secondary concept (...) At a lower level there is > different kinds of complex (...), to which I refer with concepts > such as meaning and understanding. I don't think these are > essentially propositional in nature. OK. > Another vision is connected with the concept of "tacit knowledge" > (...) Nonaka and Takeuchi even stress that this knowledge is not > intellectual but has some kind of a connection to bodily activity. > I think tacit knowledge is often procedural, not propositional. Yes, that's how it also has been characterised. Tacit knowledge has also been a theme in the sociology of knowledge in the last few decades. You might wan't to take a look at those discussions, too. > I am not familiar with Routila, and I fail to see how this is > connected to the body - can you please fill in? You're interested in the theme 'body and knowledge'. In one sense that is one of the central themes of phenomenology (though not always explicit one). Now, Routila as one of the central figures (in Finland) in discussions related to such themes might provide you with some easily accessible texts. Originally the central texts usually are in German and translations could be difficult to find. That's why I mentioned Routila. For him there's probably no problems whatsoever to say that "Dasein" (my 'being in the world') is or means basically one(self) being a corporeal living being that has a practical relation to the world, and that all our ideas, conceptions, ideologies and knowledges stem from that. Sincerely, Jukka L From david at dialoginternational.com Fri May 30 12:54:57 2003 From: david at dialoginternational.com (D. Vickrey) Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 07:54:57 -0400 Subject: critical theory sites For German readers, an interesting essay by Habermas and Derrida in today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (www.faz.net) about a new initiative to push a 'European' foreign policy as a counterbalance to US. ----- Original Message ----- From: Ralph Dumain To: Frankfurt School Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2003 2:51 AM Subject: critical theory sites > How are we doing on compiling our list of critical theory related web > sites? Here's a page of links I just found: > > Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory and Postmodern Thought > http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/postmodern.html > >