[FRA:] Dubiel, Helmut. Theory and Politics (1)
Doug Kellner
kellner at ucla.edu
Tue Feb 28 19:55:45 GMT 2006
It's always a question whether FS is a matter of nostalgia or contemporary
relevance depending on what people do with it; since posing the question in
the 1980s, and as this list attests, people are definitely making
constructive use and having interesting discussions about the FS so it
remains alive
Douglas Kellner
Philosophy of Education Chair
Social Sciences and Comparative Education
University of California-Los Angeles
Box 951521, 3022B Moore Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521
Fax 310 206 6293
Phone 310 825 0977
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellner.html
----- Original Message -----
From: <steve.devos at krokodile.co.uk>
To: "Discussion of Frankfurt School critical theory"
<theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 11:46 AM
Subject: Re: [FRA:] Dubiel, Helmut. Theory and Politics (1)
> So have you changed your opinion of the book in the last two decades ?
> Especially given the question at the end...
>
> Doug Kellner wrote:
>
>> Here's my review from mid-80s when the Dubiel book first came out=
>> b:dubiel.rev
>>
>>
>>
>> Helmut Dubiel, Theory and Politics. Studies in the Development of
>> Critical Theory, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London, England,
>> 1985), xiii and 207 pages; translated by Benjamin Gregg.
>>
>>
>>
>> Benjamin Gregg's translation of Helmut Dubiel's 1978 book
>> Wissenschaftsorganisation und politische Erfahrung: Studien zur fruhen
>> Kritischen Theorie) makes accessible to English-speaking readers one of
>> the most important books yet to appear on the theory and politics of the
>> so-called Frankfurt school. Dubiel provides the best available historical
>> and analytical account of the development of critical theory, of its
>> method of interdisciplinary social research, and of how it organized and
>> pursued its research projects during its years under Horkheimer's
>> directorship in Weimar Germany and in exile in the United States during
>> the era of fascism. In the first half of his book, Dubiel focuses on
>> "political experience and the process of theory construction in the
>> Frankfurt circle, 1930-1945." His study shows that, at least during this
>> period, the Institute for Social Research was extremely interested in
>> history, politics, and the relation of its work to its historical
>> situation and revolutionary politics. The texts, correspondence, and
>> other material cited provides a strong defense against criticisms that
>> critical theory is primarily apolitical, uninterested in history and
>> politics, idealistic, and hostile to science. Dubiel's research makes it
>> clear that the critical theorists took different positions during varying
>> historical periods toward their socio-historical situation, politics,
>> science, and theory.
>>
>> Dubiel divides the work of the Institute for Social Research during
>> the period under scrutiny into three distinct stages: 1) materialism,
>> 1930-1937; 2) critical theory, 1937-1940; 3) the critique of instrumental
>> reason, 1940-1945. He differentiates these stages according to the
>> general theoretical position maintained, the political position and
>> presentation of the theory-practice relation, and their specific
>> historical experience and positions toward the working class movement,
>> fascism, and the Soviet Union during the period under question. Dubiel
>> thus contributes both to a better understanding of the genesis of
>> critical theory and to its developments under specific
>> politico-historical and theoretical exigencies. In characterizing the
>> theory-praxis relation he distinguishes between the varying subjects and
>> addressees of the theory and their differing conceptions of the relation
>> between theory and practice in various historical contexts. In
>> particular, he shows how critical theory began by addressing itself to a
>> revolutionary proletariat as part of the revolutionary movement and ended
>> by addressing primarily other radical intellectuals in political
>> isolation.
>>
>> In characterizing the dominant theoretical position during each stage,
>> Dubiel analyzes the specific "self-understanding within the tradition of
>> historical and political theory," the relation to Marxism, the relation
>> of philosophy to science, and the concept of utopia operative. This sort
>> of careful, differentiated historical and theoretical analysis makes
>> possible appreciation of the heterogeneity of critical theory during its
>> "heroic," or "classical," period and the significant developments within
>> critical theory that have been generally overlooked by most historians or
>> followers of critical theory, especially within the English-speaking
>> world. Theory and Politics thus provides an indispensible source for
>> understanding both the history of critical theory and its fundamental
>> theoretical position(s).
>>
>>
>>
>> Dubiel argues that the, first, "materialism" phase of critical theory is
>> distinguished by commitment to a materialist social theory defined by the
>> unity of philosophy and science (11-38) and rooted in the marxian
>> critique of political economy. The distinctive contribution of this
>> stage was development of a marxian social psychology and the major
>> research project was a study of the social-psychological structure of
>> employees in the Weimar Republic--which was recently published for the
>> first time as @U(Arbeiter und Angestellte am Vorabend des Dritten
>> Reiches) (Stuttgart: Deutsche-Verlags Anstalt, 1980) and was translated
>> as The Working Class in Weimar Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
>> University Press, 1984)). Politically, there was "critical solidarity
>> with the 'revolutionary wing of the working-class movement'" which
>> characterized the political orientation of the group (17).
>>
>>
>>
>> Eschewing both the mechanistic metaphysical materialism already
>> criticized by Marx in The Holy Family, as well as the current
>> positivistic forms of materialism, Horkheimer and his colleagues defined
>> the objects of materialist theory in terms of existing social struggles,
>> problems, and experiences. Rejecting Hegel's identity theory (and thus
>> the forms of epistemological realism held to by many positivistic
>> materialists then and now), for the critical theorists there was a
>> non-identity between concept and object; their concepts and theories thus
>> provided but pictures of the socio-material world and not any absolute or
>> indubitable knowledge. As Horkheimer wrote, "'Materialist theory...is
>> not a metaphysics of history but a picture of the world that changes and
>> develops in the context of practical efforts to improve it'" (33).
>>
>>
>>
>> The materialist theory of society developed by Horkheimer and his
>> colleagues was closely related to Marxism at this stage: "'Materialism is
>> characterized by its content: the economic theory of society'" (34).
>> During this stage, the Institute saw its purpose as reformulating Marxian
>> theory "under the historically changed conditions of capitalism and the
>> labor movement" (34). This involved moving beyond crude marxian
>> conceptions of the relation between base and superstructure and
>> developing both a marxist social psychology and cultural theory to better
>> analyze the mediations between the economic base and the realms of the
>> superstructure.
>>
>>
>>
>> The Institute's social theory during this phase was a response both to
>> inadequacies within classical Marxism and the dominant forms of bourgeois
>> science. Orthodox Marxism had congealed into a dogmatic, reductionist,
>> objectivistic metaphysical materialism, and bourgeois social science was
>> characterized by a fragmentation of the sciences, each cut off from the
>> other and pursuing its investigations isolated from other disciplines.
>> To overcome this dual crisis of Marxism and bourgeois science, the
>> Institute attempted to develop an "interdisciplinary materialism" that
>> would be characterized by an integration of philosophy and science.
>> Accordingly, during the 1930s the Institute developed criticisms of both
>> the abstract, speculative and metaphysical philosophy dominant in Germany
>> at the time and the various specialized sciences. Thus, the project of
>> constructing an interdisciplinary "materialist superscience" was
>> conceived in opposition to both the specialized bourgeois sciences and
>> the socialist scientism of many orthodox social democrats like Kautsky or
>> communists like Stalin. As Horkheimer stated at the time:
>>
>>
>>
>> "'Materialism requires the unification of philosophy and science. Of
>> course, it recognizes technical differences between the more general
>> research of philosophy and the more specialized research in the sciences,
>> just as it recognizes differences in method between research and
>> presentation but not between science and philosophy as such'" (36).
>>
>>
>>
>> And in his inaugural address after taking over as Director of
>>
>> the Institute, Horkheimer argued:
>>
>>
>>
>> "'What matters today... is to organize investigations on the basis of
>> current philosophical problems that unite philosophers, sociologists,
>> economists, historians, and psychologists in an ongoing research
>> community that can do together what in other disciplines one individual
>> alone does in the laboratory, what genuine scientists have always done:
>> pursue those questions aimed at the view of the whole, using the most
>> refined scientific methods; reformulate the questions in the course of
>> work as demanded by the object; make more precise and develop new methods
>> without losing sight of general considerations'" (36).
>>
>>
>>
>> During its "interdisciplinary materialism" stage, the Institute members
>> saw themselves as part of the revolutionary labor movement, and supported
>> efforts for a planned economy and the construction of socialism in the
>> Soviet Union; they also saw fascism, in rather orthodox marxian terms, as
>> the product of capitalism in crisis. Dubiel's study is especially
>> valuable for the way that it assembles materials defining both the
>> Institute's theoretical and political positions at different stages of
>> development, and how its members conceived the relation between theory
>> and politics at different junctues. Dubiel's assembled quotations are
>> extremely well-chosen and illuminating and provide a useful compendium of
>> Institute positions on both theory and politics. In particular, he shows
>> that, contrary to some misimpressions, the Institute took rather
>> systematic and well-defined positions toward the political issues and
>> movements of the day--at least until the 1940s.
>>
>>
>>
>> During what Dubiel sees as the Insitute's second stage, they explicitly
>> adopted the term "critical theory" to characterize their work. This
>> stage (1937-1940) is marked by the defeat of the labor movement in
>> Germany, the triumph of fascism, and increasing doubts about the Soviet
>> Union as revelations of its trials, labor camps, and stalinist
>> deformations became wide-spread. This historical situation required new
>> reflections on the relation between politics and theory, the role of the
>> radical intellectual, and the nature of socialism. In essays published
>> during this stage both Horkheimer and Marcuse "expressly emphasize that a
>> change in property relations implies merely a negative precondition for
>> the building of a socialist society" (42). As Marcuse put it: "'Without
>> freedom and happiness in the social relations of human beings, even the
>> greatest increase in production, even the abolition of private property
>> in the means of production, remains infected with the old injustices'"
>> (42).
>>
>>
>>
>> At this time, the Institute adopted the term "critical theory" to define
>> their theoretical position in part because conditions of exile in the
>> United States forced them to adopt code words to describe their project
>> to cover over their commitments to Marxism in an environment that was
>> quite hostile to Marxism. The label stuck and many of its inner circle
>> utilized it to define themselves to the present, and the Institute's
>> theoretical labors as a whole are frequently subsumed under the blanket
>> concept of "critical theory," though as Dubiel shows, this term was first
>> coined in 1937 and henceforth was used to cover work in different
>> contexts that was often quite different.
>>
>>
>>
>> Theory and Politics documents the conditions and texts whereby the
>> Institute developed a radical, neo-Marxian social theory more
>> appropriate to a situation when radical intellectuals are segregated,
>> isolated, and marginalized. Dubiel derives the title of the first
>> section of his study from this situation: "the integration of the
>> proletariat and the loneliness of the intelligentsia." Critical theory
>> represents a stage in the development of neo-marxist social theories
>> during which radical intellectuals were separated from revolutionary
>> socialist movements and fascism steadily gained power throughout the
>> world. The Institute theorists were among the first to characterize this
>> situation and to make explicit the problems for the marxian theory of
>> revolution when the working class was defeated or integrated into
>> capitalist societies. This, of course, remains one of the defining
>> features of the trajectory of critical theory to this day and points to
>> why the Institute felt it was necessary to update and revise both the
>> marxian theory and critique of capitalism, as well as the marxian theory
>> of revolution and the transition from capitalism to socialism.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thus, as Dubiel puts it, "By 1937, the subject and addressee of
>> revolutionary theory are separated much more clearly in the Frankfurt
>> Circle's political self-interpretation. Horkheimer maintains repeatedly
>> that, for the sake of the adequacy of the theory, the critical
>> intellectual must be able to endure marginalization from the addressee of
>> his theoretical work" (53). During this period, Horkheimer and his
>> colleagues radicalized and developed their critiques of what they called
>> "traditional theory" and further developed their theoretical position.
>> The political impasse evidently inspired more sustained theoretical
>> labors. The critical theorists still advocated a synthesis of philosophy
>> and the sciences (63) but seemed more open to various empirical sciences
>> and more critical of classical marxism. During the 1930s and early 40s,
>> the critical theorists continued their work in developing
>> interdisciplinary social theory and intensified efforts to develop a
>> theory of fascism--projects that I shall shortly return to as they are
>> the subject of the second half of Dubiel's book.
>>
>>
>>
>> But probably the most significant development in the trajectory of the
>> Institute's development was abandonment of the project of
>> interdisciplinary social theory for production of the critique of
>> instrumental reason which found classical expression in Adorno's and
>> Horkheimer's @U(Dialectic of Enlightenment) (1947). Although Dubiel
>> describes the continued demise of the labor movement, spread of fascism,
>> and oppressive developments in the Soviet Union at this time, he does not
>> adequately explicate the conditions which led to the rather dramatic
>> departures from their earlier theoretical enterprises. While Dubiel
>> notes the impact of WW II (76) on the development of critical theory, he
>> does not analyze in any detail the breaking up of the Institute's
>> interdisciplinary group; this happened in part because Horkheimer was
>> forced to go to California on account of his health and because many of
>> the Institute inner circle and other colleagues joined the U.S.
>> government as part of their struggle against fascism. At this time,
>> Adorno and Horkheimer took over the development of critical theory and
>> this stage is particularly marked by the imprint of Adorno's particular
>> ideas and style of writing--a point not adequately explicated by Dubiel
>> who tends to present Horkheimer as the demiurge of critical theory.
>>
>>
>>
>> Adorno's and Horkheimer's work during this period is addressed to
>> "critical intellectuals" and the pretense that they were writing for a
>> temporarily defeated revolutionary movement is surrendered. Likewise, the
>> attempt to integrate philosophy and the social sciences is replaced by
>> more aggressive philosophical theorizing and speculation. Given that
>> both Adorno and Horkheimer were trained as philosophers, and in the
>> absence of the interdisciplinary research Institute, it is not surprising
>> that critical theory would turn more philosophical and radicalize its
>> critique of science. This development was also conditioned by the
>> instrumentalization of science and technology in the Nazi and other war
>> machines and by Adorno's and Horkheimer's growing aversion to the sort of
>> scientific philosophy and positivistic science dominant in the United
>> States. Consequently, the critique of instrumental reason and the
>> "dialectic of enlightenment" replaced the earlier marxian emphasis on
>> class struggle and materialist social analysis with a focus on the
>> primacy of the relation between humans and nature, in which marxism,
>> enlightenment rationality, science and technology, the culture
>> industries, and the trends of development of both capitalist and
>> socialist societies were interpreted under the rubric of the "dialectic
>> of enlightenment." In this theory, projects like Marxism and science,
>> intended to contribute to the domination of nature, turned into more
>> powerful instruments for the domination of human beings.
>>
>>
>>
>> On a theoretical and political level, Dubiel provides a fine analysis of
>> the changed political and theoretical position developed by Adorno and
>> Horkheimer during this period (67-97). Again, he chooses key passages to
>> express their political isolation, their pessimistic conclusion that
>> henceforth political radicalism could only survive in select critical
>> intellectuals, and their more apocalyptic and elusive style of writing.
>> Dubiel makes clear, against some of the devotees of critical theory, that
>> important discontinuities emerged within the trajectory of critical
>> theory and that the most significant discontinuities emerged in the 1940s
>> in the break between this stage and the two earlier stages of
>> development.
>>
>>
>>
>> I would, however, take issue with some of Dubiel's conclusions stated in
>> summary form after his historical, political, and theoretical analysis of
>> the key stages of development within the Institute. He claims that "The
>> labor movement's demise at the end of the Weimar Republic was the most
>> significant experience undergone by the Circle" (99). This judgement is
>> somewhat misleading, and I would argue instead that the experiences of
>> fascism and emigration were the crucial determinants of key features of
>> critical theory. The inner circle of the Institute was never
>> particularly interested in the vicissitudes of the labor movement and, in
>> any case, the triumph of fascism was the key factor in the demise (or
>> rather defeat) of the labor movement at the end of Weimar. Moreover,
>> none of the historians of the Frankfurt school, I believe, have
>> adequately analyzed the impact and conditions of emigration on Institute
>> work and positions. Critical theory bears typical marks of radical
>> emigrant thought in that it is especially critical, impassioned, and
>> contains novel insights into both the culture and society from which it
>> fled and into the culture to which it has emigrated, along with
>> corresponding blindspots in both directions. But it is also marked by
>> increasing isolation from a revolutionary movement or political struggles
>> to which it can relate. Thus, against Dubiel, I would argue that it was
>> the rise and triumph of fascism and the subsequent situation of exile
>> which increasingly influenced the style, mode of presentation, focus,
>> and substance of critical theory which became more apocalyptic, dramatic,
>> ultra-radical, increasingly cut off from practical politics, and
>> individualistic.
>>
>>
>>
>> To be fair to Dubiel, it should be noted that his interest is not to
>> provide a detailed historical analysis of the facts and factors behind
>> the Institute's development of critical theory, but rather to provide
>> analysis of the conditions, structure, and organization of the
>> Institute's interdisciplinary program of social research. This project,
>> mentioned in the Introduction, becomes the focus of the second part of
>> his book (119). Here Dubiel provides often fascinating insights into how
>> the Institute actually worked and interesting analyses of the general
>> structure and organization of interdisciplinary social science. This
>> section should therefore be of interest both to those interested in the
>> history and modus operandi of the Institute for Social Research and to
>> those interested in how interdisciplinary research might be organized.
>>
>>
>>
>> Dubiel admits that in his research into how the Institute actually
>> organized its investigations and publication projects several members
>> contested the key role which he and others ascribed to Max Horkheimer (a
>> point also contested by Herbert Marcuse in an interview with Jurgen
>> Habermas in @U(Telos) 38), and Dubiel admits that his interpretation of
>> Horkheimer's role is "somewhat forced." However, I would suggest that
>> the concept of the "dictatorship of the Director," which Horkheimer
>> openly proclaimed and which Dubiel makes a defining characteristic of
>> Institute work, is more problematic than Dubiel indicates. Whereas
>> Horkheimer may or may not have played the key organizational and
>> theoretical role in both the development and presentation of critical
>> theory, I would think that if the utopia of the Institute for Social
>> Research were reinvented that a more democratic and less "dictatorial"
>> structure might be preferable.
>>
>>
>>
>> In fact, as with most German and American followers of critical theory,
>> there are precious few critiques of Horkheimer or critical theory in
>> Dubiel's book. During the last couple of pages, Dubiel remarks that
>> Horkheimer had a rather "naive concept of the empirical" and did not
>> adequately perceive how "theoretical initiatives in the specialized
>> sciences no longer came--and for some time had not come--from philosophy
>> but rather from the various disciplines themselves; and that philosophy
>> which stood in close relationship to the specialized sciences, had
>> disintegrated into a loose ensemble of 'hyphenated' philosophies" (186).
>> But I would argue that the role of philosophy within social theory during
>> the materialism and critical theory stages was neither obtrusive or
>> excessive and that during these periods the Institute achieved a rather
>> nice balance between theoretical construction and empirical research and
>> that their training in and use of philosophy played a generally
>> constructive role.
>>
>>
>>
>> The problem with the trajectory of critical theory, as I see it, is that
>> with the breaking up of the interdisciplinary Institute during WW II,
>> and with Adorno and Horkheimer's transformation of critical theory from
>> an interdisciplinary theory of society to a philosophy of history,
>> critical theory, at least temporarily, cut itself off from both the
>> sciences and political struggle and developments. Consequently, the
>> critical theory developed by Adorno and Horkheimer in the 1940s and 50s
>> became more hermetic, literary and philosophical. But even this stage of
>> critical theory contains many valuable texts and insights, and I would
>> suggest that what Dubiel described as the first two stages of critical
>> theory still provides models of an interdisciplinary social theory with
>> practical intent that continues to be relevant today. The different sort
>> of radical philosophical discourse developed by Adorno and Horkheimer
>> during the 1940s--and more or less practiced by them in most of their
>> later work despite attempts to resurrect the Institute for Social
>> Research in Frankfurt during the 1950s--has its own special virtues and
>> attractions but seems to me quite different from the project of uniting
>> philosophy and the sciences which characterized critical theory in the
>> 1930s (and which also characterizes the last decade or so of Jurgen
>> Habermas' attempts to reestablish critical theory as a viable
>> contemporary social theory). Thus I believe that one of the contributions
>> of Dubiel's book is that he shows that critical theory contains various
>> projects, texts, and models which might be employed for varying purposes
>> in diverse historical circumstances.
>>
>>
>>
>> Moreover, I believe that Dubiel's book is of more than historical
>> interest in that it shows how interdisciplinary work might be organized
>> and shows how fruitful syntheses between philosophy, social science,
>> cultural critique, and radical politics might take place. One of the
>> enduring legacies of critical theory is therefore illuminated by Dubiel's
>> study: development of an interdisciplinary radical social theory with
>> practical intent. Whether this project remains a nostalgic utopia of a
>> bygone era or a viable model for future work is one of the major
>> questions posed by Dubiel's interesting and challenging study.
>>
>>
>>
>> @
>>
>> Douglas Kellner
>> Philosophy of Education Chair
>> Social Sciences and Comparative Education
>> University of California-Los Angeles
>> Box 951521, 3022B Moore Hall
>> Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521
>>
>> Fax 310 206 6293
>> Phone 310 825 0977
>> http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellner.html
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ralph Dumain" <rdumain at igc.org>
>> To: <theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org>
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 9:56 AM
>> Subject: [FRA:] Dubiel, Helmut. Theory and Politics (1)
>>
>>
>>> Got this book yesterday--a fascinating approach to the program of the
>>> Institute for Social Research:
>>>
>>> Dubiel, Helmut. Theory and Politics: Studies in the Development of
>>> Critical Theory, translated by Benjamin Gregg, with an introduction by
>>> Martin Jay. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985.
>>>
>>> Contents
>>>
>>> introduction by Martin Jay ix
>>>
>>> I. The Integration of the Proletariat and the Loneliness of the
>>> Intelligentsia: Political Experience and the Process of Theory
>>> Construction in the Frankfurt Circle, 1930-1945
>>>
>>> Methodological Procedure 3
>>>
>>> The First Phase: Materialism, 1930-1937 11
>>> Historical and Political Experience 11
>>> Theory of the Theory-Praxis Relation 23
>>> Theoretical Position 31
>>>
>>> The Second Phase: Critical Theory, 1937-1940 39
>>> Historical and Political Experience 39
>>> Theory of the Theory-Praxis Relation 49
>>> Theoretical Position 57
>>>
>>> The Third Phase: The Critique of Instrumental Reason, 1940-1945 69
>>> Historical and Political Experience 69
>>> Theory of the Theory-Praxis Relation 81
>>> Theoretical Position 88
>>>
>>> Summary 99
>>> Historical and Political Experience 99
>>> Theory of the Theory-Praxis Relation 100
>>> Theoretical Position 103
>>>
>>> Structural Change in Political and Historical Experience 109
>>>
>>> Notes to Part 1 113
>>>
>>>
>>> II. Dialectical Presentation and Interdisciplinary Research: Theory
>>> Construction and Research Organization in the Institute for Social
>>> Research after 1930
>>>
>>> Introduction: On the Methodology of Interdisciplinary 119
>>> Research
>>>
>>> The Program of the Institute for Social Research 129
>>>
>>> The Program in the Context of the History of Science 133
>>> The Philosophical Critique of Science and the Neopositivist
>>> Critique of Philosophy in the Weimar Republic 133
>>> The Relation of Theory to Empirical Research in Contemporary
>>> Sociology 136
>>>
>>> Theoretical and Historical Background 141
>>>
>>> The Theory of Dialectical Presentation and Research Organization 151
>>>
>>> The Cognitive Structure of the Organization of Research 155
>>> The Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschung 156
>>>
>>> Studies on Authority and the Family 164
>>> Analysis of the Circle's Cognitive Structure 168
>>>
>>> The Social Structure of the Organization of Research 173
>>> The Circle's Structure of Communication 173
>>> Role Differentiation within the Circle 177
>>> Conditions Determining the Institutional Framework 180
>>>
>>> Summary 183
>>>
>>> Notes to Part II 189
>>>
>>> Bibliography 191
>>>
>>> Index 205
>>>
>>> ------------------
>>>
>>> The methodological prelude includes a discussion of the conditions of a
>>> group's--in this case the Frankfurt School's--endeavors in the way of
>>> theoretical self-consciousness (reflection). Dubiel explains his
>>> approach to the subject matter, e.g.:
>>>
>>> ---begin quote---
>>> Our systematic representation of the early Frankfurt Circle is based on
>>> the following structure of points in inquiry:
>>>
>>> Historical and political experience
>>> The labor movement
>>> The Soviet Union
>>> Fascism
>>>
>>> Theory of the theory-praxis relation
>>> Subject and addressee
>>> Theory and praxis
>>>
>>> Theoretical Position
>>> Self-understanding within the tradition of historical and
>>> political theory
>>> Relation to Marxism
>>> Relation of philosophy to science
>>> Utopia
>>> ---end quote---
>>>
>>> Dubiel's review of the Frankfurt School's self-understanding involves
>>> its assessment of contemporary conditions. For example, in the first
>>> phase we see Horkheimer's critical assessment of the German Communist
>>> Party (KPD) in relation to its Stalinization and hence developments in
>>> the USSR, and an even more critical commentary on the Social Democrats
>>> (SPD).
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> theory-frankfurt-school mailing list
>>> theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org
>>> http://www.srcf.ucam.org/mailman/listinfo/theory-frankfurt-school
>>
>>
>>
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