Rethinking The Communicative Turn

Assesses linguistic versus aesthetic visions of critical theory and their capacity to contribute to the analysis of contemporary democratic society.

Assesses linguistic versus aesthetic visions of critical theory and their capacity to contribute to the analysis of contemporary democratic society.

This book considers whether there is a legitimate or even necessary place for the perspective of 'care' when addressing questions of universal justice. To this end, it examines two major frameworks of contemporary moral philosophy_Jürgen Habermas's model of discourse ethics and Jacques Derrida's deconstructive ethics of radical singularity_in which the contrasting standpoints of communicative reciprocation and care for the absolute otherness of the other are respectively prioritized.

From government eavesdropping to Internet crime, reality TV to computer-mediated communication and mobile telephones, the face of communication has fundamentally changed. The contingencies and complexities of communication can be witnessed in old and new media, in changing patterns of face-to-face interactions and the pluralization of the self and blurring of the distinction between the real and virtual. To date, theories of interaction have been slow to conceptualize communication in terms of its instabilities. Social communication models remain heavily indebted to an interaction paradigm which is often intuitive, epistemologically conservative and even a-critical. By contrast, an interdisciplinary programme in communication covers a complex field which requires the broadest possible range of approaches beyond current disciplinary confines. This collection seeks to examine some of the implications for our understanding of interaction when communication is conceptualized as a complex uncertainty.

This timely research handbook offers a systematic and comprehensive examination of the election laws of democratic nations. Through a study of a range of different regimes of election law, it illuminates the disparate choices that societies have made concerning the benefits they wish their democratic institutions to provide, the means by which such benefits are to be delivered, and the underlying values, commitments, and conceptions of democratic self-rule that inform these choices.

Few intellectual figures of the twentieth century dealt with such a vast scope of subjects as Theodor Adorno (1903-1969). His insights, therefore, lend themselves to critical overview as many have cross-disciplinary relevance, appealing to scholars from a variety of backgrounds. Adorno and the Need in Thinking examines questions dealt with in the works of Adorno, offering a glimpse at the development of his complex thought. This collection of essays, though dealing with different topics from section to section, is unified by the idea that, at least in the English-speaking world, there are numerous facets of Adorno's work that have been hitherto neglected in terms of critical scholarship. Adorno and the Need in Thinking addresses these forgotten nuances, whether they apply to questions of politics, language, metaphysics, aesthetics, ecology, or several of these at once. Also included for the first time in English is Adorno's important early essay, "Theses on the Language of the Philosopher." At a time when Adorno scholarship is on the rise, this collection sheds light on new areas of critical research, adding another dimension to the existing literature on this most important intellectual.

This book argues that Jürgen Habermas’ critical theory can be productively developed by incorporating a wider understanding of fantasy and imagination as part of its conception of communicative rationality and communicative pathologies. Given that meaning is generated both linguistically and performatively, MacKendrick argues that desire and fantasy must be taken into consideration as constitutive aspects of intersubjective relations. His aim is to show that Habermasian social theory might plausibly renew its increasingly severed ties with the early critical theory of the Frankfurt School by taking account of these features of practice life, thus simultaneously rekindling the relevance of the nearly forgotten emancipatory intent in his earlier work and rejuvenating an emphasis on the contemporary critique of reason. This innovative new study will be of interest to those focusing on the early writings of Habermas, the writings of the Frankfurt School, and the relation between critical theory, hermeneutics, and psychoanalysis.

This book outlines a theory of communication and justice for the digital age, updating classic positions in political philosophy and ethics, and engaging thinkers from Aristotle through Immanuel Kant and the American pragmatists to John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, and Amartya Sen. In communication seeking to define justice and call out injustice, there is such a thing as the last word. The chapters in this book trace the historical emergence of communication as a human right; specify the technological resources and institutional frameworks necessary for exercising that right; and address some of the challenges following from digitalization that currently confront citizens, national regulators, and international agencies. Among the issues covered are public access to information archives past and present; local and global networks of communication as sources of personal identities and imagined communities; the ongoing reconfiguration of the press as a fourth branch of governance; and privacy as a precondition for individuals and collectives to live their lives according to plans, and to make their own histories. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in media and communication studies, cultural studies, political philosophy and ethics, and interdisciplinary fields examining the ethical and political implications of new information and communication infrastructures.