Reynolds, Alexander
(1995)
Subjectivity and critique: A study of the paradigm shift in critical theory.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
The German social-philosophical tradition of Critical Theory has recently undergone what its current practitioners have themselves described as a "paradigm shift". Writers like Jurgen Habermas and Kari-Otto Apel are today attempting to reformulate the socially-critical insights of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in new terms. Where Horkheimer and Adorno had tried to articulate their critique of existing social relations in a language of "subjectivity" and "objectivity" drawn largely from the classical German philosophical tradition, Habermas and Apel are trying to formulate an - ostensibly - similar critique in a language of "a priori intersubjectivity" drawn from the "ordinary language" and "speech-act" theory which has emerged since the Second World War in the Anglo-American philosophical sphere. This thesis examines the key structural features of the "paradigm shift" carried out by Habermas and his generation and weighs up what has been philosophically and politically gained and lost for Critical Theory with this development.
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