[FRA:] critical theory syllabus reviewed

[stevedevos at krokodile.co.uk]

Ralph

all  of the suggestions made seem reasonable, but what is the nature of
the target audience ?

s
> A couple months ago I requested recommendations for texts for a local,
> informal, introductory reading group on critical theory.  We were thinking
> of beginning with these texts:
>
> Max Horkheimer's "Traditional and Critical Theory" (1937)
>
> and
>
> Herbert Marcuse, "Philosophy and Critical Theory," (1937).
>
> Since then, I received recommendations (and some disrecommendations) for
> these works:
>
> primary sources:
>
> Max Horkheimer, "The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks
> of an Institute for Social Research" (1931)
>
> Dialectic of Enlightenment, Chapter 1
>
> Adorno, Minima Moralia
>
> Adorno, "Aldous Huxley and Utopia"
>
> Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (first part)
>
> secondary sources:
>
> Martin Jay, _The Dialectical Imagination_
>
> Held's _Origins of Critical Theory_
>
> Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School
>
> Hullot-Kentor's "Right Listening and a New Type of Human Being" from "The
> Cambridge Companion to Adorno"
>
> other thinkers:
>
> Kant
> Hegel
> Marx
> Freud
>
> Also suggested were thematic approaches, e.g. technology.  On the
> socialization of professionals, I thought of Jeff Schmidt's DISCIPLINED
> MINDS.
>
> Since this initial round of inquiries I acquired two companion volumes
> from
> MIT Press:
>
> Between Philosophy and Social Science: Selected Early Writings
> Max Horkheimer; Translated by G.Frederick Hunter, Matthew S. Kramer and
> John Torpey
>
> On Max Horkheimer: New Perspectives
> ed. Seyla Benhabib, Wolfgang Bonss, John McCole
>
> I've been reading selections from these books over the past month (and
> from
> an entirely different perspective, the logical empiricist perspective
> according to Philipp Frank, whose essays I've been putting up on my web
> site).  I'll report on these books in more detail later.  I love some of
> Horkheimer's essays from the 1930s.  I'd like to add a couple of them to
> my
> "syllabus," esp. "The Rationalism Debate in Contemporary Philosophy" from
> the former volume.  This, together with essays in _Critical Theory:
> Selected Essays_, comprise Horkheimer's best work, from the 1930s.   The
> ECLIPSE OF REASON doesn't compare.
>
> I also find this material by and about Horkheimer to be very dense,
> requiring careful exegesis.  This also reminds me of the problem of
> prerequisites.  How to approach this material without a prior grounding in
> Kant, Hegel, and Marx at the very least, plus perhaps Freud.
> Schopenhauer,
> Nietzsche?
>
> I'll have more to say about Horkheimer, but in the meantime, I'm open to
> further recommendations.
>
>
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