AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
In this sense, it could be said that Gramsci was not only a member in spirit of the Frankfurt School, he was also a structuralist.\)įunctionalism, also called structural-functional theory, sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of the individuals in that society. Hence, education and persuasion are important to change the social mass mind, so that political change can evolve. Gramsci's most influential idea has been what Togliatti called Gramsci's "theory of hegemony," whereby the dominant class in society creates not only its own ideology, but also that of the classes dominated by it-all classes share the ideology of the dominant class. According to Togliatti, education and persuasion were the paths to reform toward a classless society, rather than Bolshevism or direct political revolution. Gramsci's Prison Notebooks (compiled after his death, beginning in 1971) was edited for publication by Palmiro Togliatti, who succeeded him as leader of the Italian communists. While Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was in prison he worked out his version of Marxism, which was mainly a revolt against Karl Marx's (1818-1883) historical determinism. Although not part of the Frankfurt School because he was imprisoned by the Italian fascist government in 1926, the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) deserves mention in this context. Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) had political interests that implied she had more in common with the Frankfurt School than any other movement, despite striking out on her own as an American philosopher after leaving Germany. Jürgen Habermas (1923-) remains its most famous contemporary member. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) and Erich Fromm (19001980), were also among its first generation of members. The Institute in Frankfurt was reinstated after World War II ended in 1945. The Institute was, in addition, funded by Frankfurt University and, during the Nazi period (1933-1944), Max Horkmeier (1895-1973) and Theodore Adorno (1903-1969) secured the support of Columbia University to set up its exiled version as The International Institute of Social Research in New York City. Gift from Felix Weil (1898-1975) in 1923, following the First Marxist Week, which was very well-received by intellectuals. Gramsci (whose photo is seen in the background on the right) came up with the idea that a society's dominant class defines the ideology of all classes within that society (AP). The president of Italy visits Antonio Gramsci museum. The Frankfurt School was the intellectual activity associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. That is, the structuralists paved the way for intellectual postmodernism, which is also known as "post-structuralism."Ĭritical Theorists What was the Frankfurt School? In some quarters, given the successors or intellectual heirs of structuralism, language and the "symbolic order" became the only intellectual subject. They also took up Freudian psychology and were instrumental in laying the foundations for a new focus on language and symbols as an important philosophical subject. While structuralists might have shared certain goals with Marxian critical theorists, their subjects were other social institutions besides government. Although the members and followers of the Frankfurt School were not narrowly political, their Marxist legacy tended to point them in certain political directions. Critical theory seeks to provide analyses that further progressive and egalitarian social goal, structuralism also uses critical theory. The term "structuralism" refers to a study of mental structures in society. The term "critical theory" is associated with the Frankfurt School, which developed the twentieth century version of scholarly Marxism. Many structuralists denied being structuralists and some critical theorists were unaware of the term "critical theory." But from the standpoint of a reader, it may help to keep in mind that both structuralism and critical theory provide analyses of society that need not be accepted by the members of society being analyzed. There is no clear distinction of practice that practitioners of both schools of thought would accept. What is the difference between critical theory and structuralism?.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |