Amy Allen's book, The Politics of Our Selves, advances feminists beyond current stalemates that insist that to acknowledge the importance of Habermas's normative insights, is to…
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Amy Allen's book, The Politics of Our Selves, advances feminists beyond current stalemates that insist that to acknowledge the importance of Habermas's normative insights, is to deny the significance of Foucault's description of the impact that power has on subject formation. In this article I describe Allen's position and suggest its strengths and importance, criticize some of Allen's arguments and offer suggestions for advancing the direction of Allen's argument.
Allen’s critique of current Frankfurt School theory presents the joint methods of “problematizing genealogy” and “metanormative contextualism” as alternative for the normative…
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Allen’s critique of current Frankfurt School theory presents the joint methods of “problematizing genealogy” and “metanormative contextualism” as alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. Through a close reading of Allen’s critique, I investigate whether Allen’s identification of philosophy of history is an accurate diagnosis of the problems of the normative grounding of current Frankfurt School theory, whether Allen’s distinction between metanormative and normative levels is tenable for critical theory, and whether Allen’s methodology constitutes a viable alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. As an alternative, I suggest scrutinizing the grounding strategies of current Frankfurt School theory to expand beyond their genealogy in Enlightenment thought, and address the question of what made the affirmative form of thought underlying current Frankfurt School theory a historical possibility. Expanding on Allen’s reiteration of the mediated nature of categories, I suggest that the stark contrast between forms of thought underlying first- and second-generation Frankfurt School critical theory needs to be understood not in relation to philosophy of history but against the backdrop of the specific context of the European historical present that informs its normative universe.
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This chapter offers a review of Amy Allen’s The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016) and presents the book as having both a negative…
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This chapter offers a review of Amy Allen’s The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016) and presents the book as having both a negative and positive aim. Its negative aim is to offer a critique of the Eurocentric narratives of historical progress that serves the function of normative grounding in the critical theories of Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. Its positive aim is to provide a new approach to the normative grounding of critical theory that eschews Eurocentric narratives of progress through the idea of metanormative contextualism. For Allen, metanormative contextualism is developed through an engagement with the works of Adorno and Foucault. This chapter raises some critical questions concerning the position of metanormative contextualism, arguing that there are significant differences between Adorno and Foucault that render the position unstable. Specifically, Adorno’s normative conception of truth, alongside his critical naturalism presented through the notion of natural history, makes him ill-suited as a representative of Allen’s metanormative contextualism and complicates the contributions of Foucault’s genealogical analyses. The chapter concludes that a careful consideration of Adorno’s views reveals him to be opposed to the two central tenets of metanormative contextualism as defined by Allen.
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This chapter is a critical review of Amy Allen's book The Politics of Our Selves. It briefly reconstructs some of the book's impressive achievements: articulating a synthetic…
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This chapter is a critical review of Amy Allen's book The Politics of Our Selves. It briefly reconstructs some of the book's impressive achievements: articulating a synthetic account of gendered subjectivity that accounts for both subjection and autonomy; imaginatively integrating poststructuralist and communicative theories; and, furthering important new interpretations of Butler, Foucault, and Habermas. It also raises critical concerns about Allen's project: her specific conception of autonomy and its justification; her suspicions of the notion of historical progress; her psychological explanation of the continuing power of pernicious norms of gendered subjectivity; the usefulness of psychoanalysis for critical social theory; and, the role of cultural, structural, and materialist explanations and political strategies.
The Looking Glass simulation was developed by behavioural scientists at the Centre for Creative Leadership, North Carolina. Looking Glass, Inc is one of the best known examples of…
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The Looking Glass simulation was developed by behavioural scientists at the Centre for Creative Leadership, North Carolina. Looking Glass, Inc is one of the best known examples of a realistic behavioural simulation. Such simulations allow managers to be studied and trained in situations closely approximating their natural environment. A condensed version of an article which follows one manager through the simulation is presented, giving an insight into the process of self‐assessment and self‐discovery that can take place.
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Bernard Harris, Roderick Floud and Sok Chul Hong
In The Changing Body (Cambridge University Press and NBER, 2011), we presented a series of estimates showing the number of calories available for human consumption in England and…
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In The Changing Body (Cambridge University Press and NBER, 2011), we presented a series of estimates showing the number of calories available for human consumption in England and Wales at various points in time between 1700 and 1909/1913. We now seek to correct an error in our original figures and to compare the corrected figures with those published by a range of other authors. We also include new estimates showing the calorific value of meat and grains imported from Ireland. Disagreements with other authors reflect differences over a number of issues, including the amount of land under cultivation, the extraction and wastage rates for cereals and pulses and the number of animals supplying meat and dairy products. We consider recent attempts to achieve a compromise between these estimates and challenge claims that there was a dramatic reduction in either food availability or the average height of birth cohorts in the late-eighteenth century.
This review essay of Amy Allen's The Politics of Our Selves focuses on the book's excellent work in addressing some of the centermost philosophical and metaphilosophical problems…
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This review essay of Amy Allen's The Politics of Our Selves focuses on the book's excellent work in addressing some of the centermost philosophical and metaphilosophical problems in contemporary critical theory. I first consider the book's intricate discussions of the work of Habermas and Foucault. I then leverage these discussions to pose a question that is crucial for contemporary critical theory. The crucial question concerns the metaphilosophical status of critical theory with respect to what we ought to expect contemporary critical theory to do. What is the best way of interpreting critical theory as a philosophical project?
This chapter rethinks the future of critical theory by engaging Amy Allen’s recent work. Allen does the Frankfurt School a great service by drawing a sharp-edged picture of some…
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This chapter rethinks the future of critical theory by engaging Amy Allen’s recent work. Allen does the Frankfurt School a great service by drawing a sharp-edged picture of some significant problems. I aim to think along with her in a spirit of shared sympathies that follow sometimes divergent paths. I agree with Allen’s critique of Frankfurt tendencies toward Eurocentrism, progress thinking, and historical teleology. However, I also argue that critical theory must be more thoroughly reconfigured to adequately address the struggles and wishes of our age. Specifically, recent work of the Frankfurt School displaces critique in two important ways. The first is a tendency to work at a paradigmatic, meta-level of analysis rather than focusing on concrete problems. The second is a tendency to rely on democratic procedure for normativity without taking account of the tensions and contradictions in actual political cultures. In place of these uncritical tendencies, we need more interpretive and freely experimental critical strategies. One example is an interpretive approach that problematizes political cultures, revealing the tensions ignored by proceduralism. Another example lies in the rich archives of postcolonial thought that have had such a large impact on contemporary political and social life. Postcolonial critique is a non-dogmatic and flexible form of interpretation that has great potential to address problems of racism, international inequality, and the false universalism of many of our ideals.
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Analyses the Bureau of Municipal Research′s (BMR) role in the 1912New York City School Inquiry to show the democratic orientation of keypeople trying to transfer scientific…
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Analyses the Bureau of Municipal Research′s (BMR) role in the 1912 New York City School Inquiry to show the democratic orientation of key people trying to transfer scientific management to government. Because much modern public administration literature portrays scientific management as authoritarian, some people assume its proponents wanted to shut the populace out of public‐sector decision making by transfering power from elected officials to experts. The School Inquiry case shows how important reformers committed to scientific management sought to maximize the control that elected officials had over a key administrative function. The BMR stressed this democratic point of view until threats from its principal financial backer forced it to downplay its voice on educational issues and its innovative concept of efficient citizenship.