Criticism today. Theory of society, sociology and critique of the social in France and Germany.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Axel Honneth
• Subject Area: Practical Philosophy
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 230431179

The "Critical Theory of Society" represents a specific field of research in the contemporary German and French philosophical discussion which however cannot be subsumed under a unified paradigm of thinking. Our project shall examine the divergences and convergences of different approaches aiming at formulating a critical theory of society in a historical, systematic and Franco-German perspective. This cross-disciplinary study shall take into account the significant continuities and discontinuities in the methodological (approach of the object "society"), ontological (reality of the object "society") and metaphysical (status of the criteria of criticism) dimensions to consider, and to show how they structure the field of social critique.The study will address three issues: Firstly, it shall trace back the history of the concept "criticism" in political philosophy since 1945 in Germany and France (Project I); while in Germany this notion of "criticism" is assigned a narrow meaning (Frankfurt School), it is subject to various uses and interpretations in France (Althusser, Foucault, Lyotard, Rancière, Balibar). A comparative study shall be carried out, emphasizing on the one hand the differences between the two traditions in the use of the concept, and studying on the other hand the debates that took within the respective traditions the form of a "criticism of criticism". Secondly, shall be systematically discussed the methodological, ontological, and (post)metaphysical presuppositions of the concept of society and the concept of criticism (Project II). Two approaches of the criticism of the social are opposed: a conception of the criticism, which makes the possibility of criticizing the theory depend on the theory of society that grasps the social reality (Althusser, Adorno, Bourdieu), and a conception that draws the criticism of the social itself from an internal perspective, the theory remaining here the container of the critique (Foucault, Boltanski, Rancière, Habermas, Honneth). Thirdly, the project seeks to examine the actual relevance of the criticism (Project III). For this purpose, it shall establish a dialogue between the two tradition that have, in Germany and France, a philosophical and sociological approach to social reality: the Frankfurter critical theory (Habermas, Honneth) and the "sociology of criticism" (Boltanski, Thévenot), which was developed in response to the "critical sociology" of Bourdieu. The dialogue between the two approaches, that share the idea that social actors have the capacity of criticizing, shall be supplemented by the inclusion of conflicting approaches that do not accept these assumptions (Rancière, Balibar, the late work of Boltanski). This project shall also examine the relationship between critical theory and social practice (social movements) and explore the tension between the approach of the social philosophy and the political philosophy, at the point where their territory overlap obviously.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Participating Persons: Professorin Dr. Catherine Colliot-Thélène; Dr. Katia Genel