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For a long time, the term 'ideology' was in disrepute, having
become associated with such unfashionable notions as fundamental
truth and the eternal verities. The tide has turned, and recent
years have seen a revival of interest in the questions that
ideology poses to social and cultural theory, and to political
practice. Mapping Ideology is a comprehensive reader covering the
most important contemporary writing on the subject. Including
Slavoj Zizek's study of the development of the concept from Marx to
the present, assessments of the contributions of Lukacs and the
Frankfurt School by Terry Eagleton, Peter Dews and Seyla Benhabib,
and essays by Adorno, Lacan and Althusser, Mapping Ideology is an
invaluable guide to the most dynamic field in cultural theory.
In this book Peter Dews explores some of the most urgent problems
confronting contemporary European thought: the status of the
subject after postmodernism, the ethical and existential dimensions
of critical theory, the encounter between psychoanalysis and
philosophy, and the possibilities of a non-foundational
metaphysical thinking. His approach cuts across the hostile
boundaries which that usually separate different theoretical
traditions. Lacan and the Frankfurt School are brought into
dialogue, as are deconstruction and Ricoeur's hermeneutics. Current
questions of language, communication and critique are located in a
broader context, as the author ranges back over the history of
modern philosophy, from poststructuralism-via Nietzsche-to German
romanticism and idealism. A wide variety of issues is discussed in
the book, including Habermas's views on the ethics of nature,
Lacan's theory of Oedipal crisis, the relation between writing and
the lifeworld in Derrida, and Schelling's philosophy of the "Ages
of the World." The volume is also enlivened by forceful critiques
of a range of currently influential thinkers, including Michel
Foucault, Richard Rorty, Rodolphe Gasche and Slavoj Zizek.
Over the last half decade or so, Jurgen Habermas has increasingly
employed the interview format, both as a means of presenting his
changing views on philosophical topics in an accessible way, and as
a means of debating current social and political issues. This new,
expanded edition of Autonomy and Solidarity includes an additional
five interviews in which Habermas discusses such themes as the
history and significance of the Frankfurt School, the social and
political development of post-war Germany, the moral status of
civil disobedience, the implications of the "Historians' Dispute,"
and the function of national identity in the modern world. Never
before published autobiographical material covering Habermas' early
years at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research is followed by
an extended philosophical interrogation of his latest thinking on
the relations between ethics, morality and law. With an extended
introduction by Peter Dews, exploring the status and prospects of
Critical Theory in the light of the recent revolutionary
transformations in Europe, Autonomy and Solidarity should be of
interest and value both to newcomers and those already familiar
with Habermas' thought.
Recent decades have seen a remarkable upsurge of interest in German
Idealism in the English-speaking world. However, out of the three
leading thinkers of the period directly after Kant-Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel-Schelling has received relatively little
attention. In particular, the distinctive philosophical project of
Schelling's late period, beginning in the 1820s, has been almost
completely ignored. This omission has impaired the overall
understanding of German Idealism. For it is during the late phase
of his work that Schelling develops his influential critique of
Hegel and his definitive response to the central problems
post-Kantian thought as a whole. This book is the first in English
to survey the whole of Schelling's late system, and to explore in
detail the rationale for its division into a "negative philosophy"
and a "positive philosophy." It begins by tracing Schelling's
intellectual development from his early work of the 1790s up to the
threshold of his final phase. It then examines Schelling's mature
conception of the scope of pure thinking, the basis of negative
philosophy, and the nature of the transition to positive
philosophy. In this second, historically oriented enterprise
Schelling explores the deep structure of mythological worldviews
and seeks to explain the epochal shift to the modern universe of
"revelation." Simultaneously, the book offers a sustained
comparison of Hegel's and Schelling's treatment of a range of
central topics in post-Kantian thought: the relation between a
priori thinking and being; the role of religion in human existence;
the inner dynamics of history; and the paradoxical structure of
freedom.
Over the last two decades, contemporary French philosophy has
exercised a powerful influence on intellectual life, across both
Europe and America. Post-structuralist strategies and concepts have
played an important role in many forms of social, cultural and
aesthetic analysis, particularly on the Left. Despite the
widespread reception, however, there has still been comparatively
little analysis of the basic philosophical assumptions of
post-structuralism, or of the compatibility of many of its central
tenets with the progressive political orientations with which it is
frequently associated. In this book, Peter Dews seeks to remedy
this situation by setting post-structuralist thought in relation to
another, more explicitly critical, tradition in the philosophical
analysis of modernity - that of the Frankfurt School, from Adorno
to Habermas. Logics of Disintegration will be of interest to
readers across a wide range of disciplines, from literary criticism
to social theory, which have felt the impact of post-structuralism
- and to anyone who wishes to reach a balanced assessment of one of
the most influential intellectual currents of our time.
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