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When we criticize social institutions and practices, what kinds of reasons can we offer for such criticism? Political philosophers often assume that we must rely on universal moral principles that are not necessarily connected to the particular social practices of our communities. Traditionally, continental critical theory has rejected this claim through its endorsement of the method of immanent critique. Immanent critique is a critique of social practices that draws on norms already present within these practices to demand social change, rather than merely conservatively reproducing them. Titus Stahl defends the claim that such a critique is not only possible, but also has politically powerful potential. Taking up recent developments in analytic enquiry into collective intentionality theory and in the philosophy of language, he argues that all social practices rest on structures of mutual recognition between persons that allow social theorists to reconstruct hidden norms present within these practices. Starting from a comprehensive critique of contemporary critical theory, Immanent Critique also spells out the consequences of this line of thought for the practice of social critique, for the social sciences and for political philosophy.
The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften International - Translation Funding for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT and the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publisher & Booksellers Association)
List of contents
Foreword to the English Translation
IntroductionSocial CritiqueInterpretation and Immanent CritiqueImmanent Critique and the Critical Theory of SocietyCollective IntentionalityNorms and Social PracticesThe Immanent Norms of Social PracticesThe Possibility of Immanent CritiqueThe Critique of ReificationConclusion: Social Conflict and Social HopeBibliography
Index
About the author
Titus Stahl is Assistant Professor of Philosophy (with tenure) at the University of Groningen. His main areas of research are political philosophy, critical theory and the philosophy of hope. He has published the monograph Immanente Kritik (2013; forthcoming translation with Rowman and Littlefield as Immanent Critique in 2018); he has authored the Stanford Encylopedia articles on Georg Lukács (2014) and, together with Claudia Blöser, on hope (2017), as well as several research articles, among them "Fundamental Hope and Practical Identity", (forthcoming in Philosophical Papers).
Summary
This original book offers a systematic overview of contemporary accounts of social critique in critical theory and beyond.
