Bücher der Reihe Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought

This text is part of a three-volume critical history of the utopian vision and an exploration of the possible reality of utopia. This first volume lays the foundations of the philosophy of process and introduces the idea of the "not-yet-conscious."

In this major work, Blumenberg takes issue with Karl Lowith's well-known thesis that the idea of progress is a secularized version of Christian eschatology, which promises a dramatic intervention that will consummate the history of the world from outside.

This important study of the relationship between historical developments and the work of the scholars associated with the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research yields fascinating insights into the actual workings of the Institute and the relationships among its members.

Bringing together the best critical essays on one of the most fascinating literary figures of our time, this book immediately takes its place as a major source for Benjamin scholarship.

This critique of French philosophy and the history of German philosophy is a tour de force that has the immediacy and accessibility of the lecture form and the excitement of an encounter across national cultural boundaries as Habermas takes up the challenge posed by the radical critique of reason in contemporary French postmodernism.

Reflecting upon the internal contradictions of the notions of "tradition" and "finiteness," Dennis Schmidt offers novel insights into how philosophy must relate to its traditions if it is to retain a vital sense of the plurality of "edges" that constitute its finiteness.

In this rich interpretation of the history of critical theory, Axel Hormeth clarifies critical theory's central problems and emphasizes the social factors that should provide it with a normative and practical orientation.

A provocatively argued call for shifting the emphasis of critical theory from Habermasian "critique," restricted to normative clarification, to "disclosure," a possibility-enhancing approach that draws on and reinterprets ideas of Heidegger.

The essays are organized around the twin themes of semblance and subjectivity. Whereas the concept of semblance, or illusion, points to Adorno's links with Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, the concept of subjectivity recalls his lifelong struggle with a philosophy ofconsciousness stemming from Kant, Hegel, and Lukacs.

Bohman develops a realistic model of deliberation by gradually introducing and analyzing the major tests facing deliberative democracy: cultural pluralism, social inequalities, social complexity, and community-wide biases and ideologies.

An analysis of how Adorno's "pure" philosophy can be seen to provide a justification of the rationality required by critical theory.

This is the first book to put Aesthetic Theory into context and outline the main ideas and relevant debates, offering readers a valuable guide through this huge, difficult, but revelatory work.