_The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism_ develops a systematic reconstruction of the post-Marxist projects of the Budapest School. It charts the evolution of these thinkers from their beginnings in the ‘renaissance of Marxism’ through to their contemporary critical theories of modernity.

In recent years, a series of key social, political and economic events has placed the critique of capitalism very much on the theoretical agenda. Responding to these developments, many have begun to express the need for a rapprochement between social criticism and the critique of political economy. The present essay represents a contribution to the recovery of the project that was once synonymous with critical theory itself via a critical engagement with the early writings of Jürgen Habermas. Not only is (...) Habermas’ explicit engagement with the critique of political economy among the most substantial to be found within the mainstream tradition of critical theory, his early social-theoretical insights into the emergent ‘primacy of the political’ in late capitalism can be taken as representative of a number of broader trends in late-20th-century thought which sought to go beyond the premises and categories of Marx’s economic works. Simply put, no reappraisal of the relationship between critical theory and the critique of political economy can succeed, I submit, without taking seriously Habermas’s path-breaking and wide-ranging innovations. (shrink)

In both continental and analytical philosophy, social ontology has emerged as a particularly lively and increasingly sophisticated area of debate. This essay explores the potential contribution that social-ontological thinking can make to the continued development of critical theory via a critical reading of Georg Lukács and the Possibility of Critical Social Ontology – a collection of essays edited by Michael J. Thompson and published by Brill as part of the Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. The essay argues that whilst (...) social ontology as such no doubt offers a fruitful avenue for contemporary critical theory, the later philosophy of Georg Lukács represents an untenable and antiquated theoretical resource for such endeavours. The conceptual and systematic barriers to the revitalisation of the late Lukács are explored with specific reference to Lukács’ specific interpretation of the paradigm of labour and, closely related to this, his philosophy of history. (shrink)

ABSTRACT On 19 July 2019, Agnes Heller died whilst swimming in Lake Balaton outside Budapest. With her passing, the culture of humanity lost one of its most remarkable representatives. So too, contemporary critique lost a philosophical sensibility that is, today, within the neoliberal university, increasingly rare. It is this philosophical sensibility with which this essay is concerned. Through a critical reconstruction of Heller’s reading of three key figures from the philosophical tradition (Marx, Pascal and Kierkegaard), this essay both charts the (...) changes and continuities in Heller’s philosophy of concrete subjectivity and makes a case for its continuing relevance to the cultural project of philosophy. (shrink)

In recent years, the works of György Márkus – a member of what has been dubbed the ‘Budapest School’ – have begun to generate an increasingly sophisticated and vibrant discussion. The present essay seeks to contribute to this burgeoning body of critical literature by offering a summary account and evaluation of the evolution of Márkus’s thought from the critique of alienation developed during the 1960s through to his post-Marxist philosophy of culture in the latter decades of the 20th century. It (...) does so with the intention of answering what is arguably the question confronting the contemporary reception of Márkus’s body of work: in what relation do Márkus’s later works stand to the aspirations and ideals of his early, more explicitly Marxist writings? (shrink)

Throughout the world, Eastern European critical theory is enjoying a moderate, yet exciting, resurgence. From its oppositional roots in praxis philosophy and critical sociology, this diffuse and dynamic tradition has expanded its field of concern to encompass, among other problems, the aporias of democracy, the Holocaust and legacies of totalitarianism, the vicissitudes of modern culture and the ethical imperatives of living after the grand narrative. In the process, Eastern European thought has come to figure as a vital alternative to the (...) dominant tendencies emanating from Frankfurt and Paris. This essay surveys and introduces a collection of papers delivered at The International Conference of Marxist Critical Theory in Eastern Europe held in Chengdu, P.R.C., in November 2018. It both highlights the thematic range of contemporary scholarship on Eastern European critical theory and signals potential directions in future research. (shrink)

This essay aims to continue to develop the thesis that the welter of political-economic, social, technological, and subjective transformations that characterized the final decades of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st necessitate a re-thinking of the relationship between social criticism and the critique of political economy. Herein the focus is directed towards the critique of reification and industrial rationalization as developed in the works of Georg Lukács and Cornelius Castoriadis. Drawing on recent phenomenological and psychological analyses (...) of work within contemporary capitalism, I argue for both the historical obsolescence of the critique of reification as it has been traditionally understood and, consequently, the need for novel conceptual responses to the pressing needs of our time. (shrink)

In this essay I offer a qualified defence of Axel Honneth's recognition-theoretical critique of reification. This defence begins by engaging with a cross-section of the recent critical responses to Honneth's theory. In response to these criticisms I develop a reading of the recognition-theoretical critique of reification which illuminates both the intentional structure and pre-ethical nature of affective recognition whilst also reconstructing the existential contours of reification, understood as the “forgetfulness of recognition.” The paper concludes by taking the problem of “forgetfulness” (...) in a novel direction by drawing on the theory of double reflection expounded by Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. In this final discussion I argue that the recognition-theoretical application of the theory of double reflection provides a conceptual model which allows one to think through the social, cultural and political mediations which inhibit, or wholly.. (shrink)

The idea of creaturely life has, in recent years, emerged as an important and illuminating category of literary and philosophical critique. In this paper I seek to contribute to this contemporary discourse by examining the references to the creaturely found in the writings of T.W. Adorno. Whilst much attention has been paid to Walter Benjamin’s reflections on creatureliness, Adorno, a thinker with whom Benjamin is often associated, has received comparatively little in this regard. I begin to redress this lacuna by (...) developing a reading of key passages of Dialectic of Enlightenment which orients itself towards Adorno’s remarks concerning the ‘inverse theology’ which he sees as grounding both his own, and Benjamin’s, thought. In placing theological core of Adorno’s philosophy in the foreground of my analysis, I argue that the notion of the creature, which I claim signifies a redemptive perspective on human existence, can be read as an important, if somewhat overlooked, concept in the normative framework of the Dialectic of Enlightenment. (shrink)