[FRA:] Dubiel, Helmut. Theory and Politics (1)
steve.devos at krokodile.co.uk
steve.devos at krokodile.co.uk
Tue Feb 28 20:22:13 GMT 2006
not the question i asked... was it ?
Doug Kellner wrote:
> 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).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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