Critical theory and social pathology: The Frankfurt School beyond recognition (Critical Theory and Contemporary Society)

In the neoliberal world of the twenty-first century, the progressive academy urgently needs a vehicle for normative social research. Critical theory once answered this call, but today its programme is in crisis. The ‘pathologies of recognition’ approach, popular among contemporary critical theorists, aids neoliberalism rather than challenging it, in part because it is unable to grasp the structural nature of power. To offer an alternative, this book returns to the work of Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, using it as the basis for a revivified social theoretical foundation. As the first generation of critical theorists knew, thought itself can be reified, our imaginations debased, and our desires artificially induced. We need to think beyond recognition and embrace a more potent and aggressive form of social critique, true to the founding spirit of the Frankfurt School. Critical theory andsocial pathology Contents Preface Introduction: on the battle for critical theory Social pathology and the crisis of critical theory Social pathology: the ‘explosive charge’ of critical theory Distorted by recognition Pathologies of recognition Foundations of pathology diagnosing critique Rousseau and the foundations of pathology diagnosing social criticism Hegelian-Marxism: pathologies of reason, pathologies of production A Fromm-Marcuse synthesis Erich Fromm and pathological normalcy The pathological normalcy of what? Towards a Fromm-Marcuse synthesis References Index Axel Honneth’s critical theory of recognition has failed the Frankfurt School. A new social-theoretical foundation is urgently needed. As this book argues, Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm are crucial allies in this task. -- .