The Handbook of Critical Theory - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0631183795 ISBN 13: 9780631183792

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 1996

Synopsis

The Handbook of Critical Theory brings together for the first time a detailed examination of the state of critical theory today. The fifteen essays provide analyses of the various orientations which critical theory has taken both historically and systematically in recent years, expositions of the new perspectives which have begun to shape the field, and reflections upon the direction of critical theory.

About this title

About the Author

David M. Rasmussen is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Philosophy and Social Criticism (1978- ), the Philosophy and Social Criticism Book Series (1995- ), and Cultural Hermeneutics (1973-7). He is the author of Reading Habermas (1990), Symbol and Interpretation (1974), and Mythic-Symbolic Language and Philosophical Anthropology (1971), editor of Universalism vs. Communitarianism: Contemporary Debates in Ethics (1990) and co-editor of The Narrative Path (1989) and The Final Foucault (1988).

From the Back Cover

The Handbook of Critical Theory brings together for the first time a detailed examination of the state of critical theory today.

The fifteen essays provide analyses of the various orientations which critical theory has taken both historically and systematically in recent years, expositions of the new perspectives which have begun to shape the field, and reflections upon the direction of critical theory. Although critical theory has undergone numerous transformations over the years, it is alive and well, as is represented by its practitioners, the best of whom are represented in this superlative volume.

This volume offers its readers an invitation to encounter critical theory through its many and varied manifestations. Aesthetics, history, pragmatics, psychoanalysis, ethics, empirical science, the controversy over the meaning of justice, the new discussion of democracy, the discourse over civil society, the controversy over autonomy, and the most recent contributions to the philosophy and sociology of law - all these areas have found modes of expression in critical theory. At the same time one will find practice of critical theory as expressed through confrontation with its critics, particularly analytic philosophy and deconstruction, as it seeks to find new forms of expression forged out of a living tradition.

The fifteen essays provide analyses of the various orientations which critical theory has taken both historically and systematically in recent years, expositions of the new perspectives which have begun to shape the field, and reflections upon the direction of critical theory. Although critical theory has undergone numerous transformations over the years, it is alive and well, as is represented by its practitioners, the best of whom are represented in this superlative volume.

This volume offers its readers an invitation to encounter critical theory through its many and varied manifestations. Aesthetics, history, pragmatics, psychoanalysis, ethics, empirical science, the controversy over the meaning of justice, the new discussion of democracy, the discourse over civil society, the controversy over autonomy, and the most recent contributions to the philosophy and sociology of law - all these areas have found modes of expression in critical theory. At the same time one will find practice of critical theory as expressed through confrontation with its critics, particularly analytic philosophy and deconstruction, as it seeks to find new forms of expression forged out of a living tradition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0631183795
• ISBN 13: 9780631183792
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 440
• Editor: Rasmussen David M.