Critical theory and democratic vision
Subtitle: Herbert Marcuse and recent liberation philosophies
By: Arnold L. Farr.
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Lanham, MD
Language: eng
Number of pages: 188
ISBN-13: 9780739119310; 9780739131350
Subjects: Marcuse, Herbert, -- 1898-1979; Critical theory; Democracy; Liberty -- Philosophy
Description: "Arnold L. Farr argues that the demand for social change by critical theorists is rooted in a desire for the completion of the U.S.democratic experiment. There is too much exploitation, surplus repression, alienation, dehumanization, oppression, and gross economic inequality in the United States for us to believe that we have achieved a complete or finished democracy. Herbert Marcuse's form of critical theory provides us with important theoretical tools for addressing the ways in which our attempt to create a democratic society based on fairness, justice, and equality has been derailed." "While Marcuse experienced tremendous popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, his popularity has since waned in academic circles as well as in public political discourse. Critical Theory and Democratic Vision is an attempt to rescue from obscurity some of Marcuse's most helpful insights with respect to progressive, democratic social change. This book's unique feature is the attempt to put Marcuse in dialogue with what Farr calls recent liberation philosophies such as feminism and African-American philosophy. All of these forms ofphilosophy are driven by a democratic impulse whereby we realize that there are many social groups that have been excluded from the democratic decision-making process."--Jacket.
Table of contents: title: Liberation philosophy and democratic struggles; title: The quest for the revolutionary subject : the early Marcuse; title: The retrieval of Eros and the quest for a new sensibility; title: Marcuse and the problem of intersubjectivity : beyond drive theory; title: One-dimensional society and the demise of dialectical thinking; title: Spectres of liberation : beyond one-dimensional man; title: Liberal democracy and its limits : the challenge of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation; title: Marcuse and discourse ethics; title: Liberation and the democratic vision : educating for a new sensibility.