Dialectic of EnlightenmentDialectic of Enlightenment (Dialektik der Aufklärung) is a work of philosophy and social criticism written by Frankfurt School philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. The text, published in 1947, is a revised version of what the authors originally had circulated among friends and colleagues in 1944 under the title of Philosophical Fragments (Philosophische Fragmente). One of the core texts of critical theory, Dialectic of Enlightenment explores the socio-psychological status quo that had been responsible for what the Frankfurt School considered the failure of the Age of Enlightenment.
LifeworldLifeworld (or life-world) (Lebenswelt) may be conceived as a universe of what is self-evident or given, a world that subjects may experience together. The concept was popularized by Edmund Husserl, who emphasized its role as the ground of all knowledge in lived experience. It has its origin in biology and cultural Protestantism. The lifeworld concept is used in philosophy and in some social sciences, particularly sociology and anthropology. The concept emphasizes a state of affairs in which the world is experienced, the world is lived (German erlebt).
Postanalytic philosophyPostanalytic philosophy describes a detachment from the mainstream philosophical movement of analytic philosophy, which is the predominant school of thought in English-speaking countries. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines the movement as denoting "philosophers who owe much to Analytic philosophy but who think that they have made some significant departure from it." The movement cannot be unified into a single positive project as it is defined it terms of what it stands against, although it has generally been seen as bridging the gap between analytic and continental philosophy.
Alain BadiouAlain Badiou (bɑːˈdjuː; alɛ̃ badju ; born 17 January 1937) is a French philosopher, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École normale supérieure (ENS) and founder of the faculty of Philosophy of the Université de Paris VIII with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Jean-François Lyotard. Badiou has written about the concepts of being, truth, event and the subject in a way that, he claims, is neither postmodern nor simply a repetition of modernity. Badiou has been involved in a number of political organisations, and regularly comments on political events.
Edmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (ˈhʊsɜːrl , USalsoˈhʊsərəl , ˈɛtmʊnt ˈhʊsɐl; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic based on analyses of intentionality. In his mature work, he sought to develop a systematic foundational science based on the so-called phenomenological reduction.
Being in itselfBeing-in-itself is the self-contained and fully realized being of objects. It is a term used in early 20th century continental philosophy, especially in the works of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and the existentialists. Heideggerian terminology In the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Being-in-itself is contrasted with the being of persons, which he terms Dasein. "Dasein means: care of the Being of beings as such that is ecstatically disclosed in care, not only of human Being...
Neo-KantianismIn late modern continental philosophy, neo-Kantianism (Neukantianismus) was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the thing-in-itself and his moral philosophy. The "back to Kant" movement began in the 1860s, as a reaction to the German materialist controversy in the 1850s.
Phenomenology of PerceptionPhenomenology of Perception (Phénoménologie de la perception) is a 1945 book about perception by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in which the author expounds his thesis of "the primacy of perception". The work established Merleau-Ponty as the pre-eminent philosopher of the body, and is considered a major statement of French existentialism. Merleau-Ponty attempts to define phenomenology, which according to him has not yet received a proper definition.
Paul de ManPaul de Man (December 6, 1919 – December 21, 1983), born Paul Adolph Michel Deman, was a Belgian-born literary critic and literary theorist. At the time of his death, de Man was one of the most prominent literary critics in the United States—known particularly for his importation of German and French philosophical approaches into Anglo-American literary studies and critical theory. Along with Jacques Derrida, he was part of an influential critical movement that went beyond traditional interpretation of literary texts to reflect on the epistemological difficulties inherent in any textual, literary, or critical activity.
The Order of ThingsThe Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines, 1966) by French philosopher Michel Foucault proposes that every historical period has underlying epistemic assumptions, ways of thinking, which determine what is truth and what is acceptable discourse about a subject, by delineating the origins of biology, economics, and linguistics.