UCONCRI · Universality, Conflict, and Social Critique in Jean-Francois Lyotard and the Frankfurt School
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-01-01 → 2021-12-31
- EU contribution
- €184,708
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Universality, Conflict, and Social Critique in Jean-Francois Lyotard and the Frankfurt School
UCONCIR addresses three problems of contemporary politics connected to growing plurality and diversity in Western societies: 1) The role of consensus and dissensus as orienting principles of political action and judgment; 2) The causes and relationship between different social conflicts; 3) The critique of totalitarianism and ideological extremism. It does so by developing a new theoretical framework based on the reconsideration of two of the main theoretical perspectives in the field of political philosophy: on the one hand, the work of French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, and on the other, the Frankfurt School tradition of Critical Theory, in particular the work of Theodor Adorno, Jürgen Habermas, and Axel Honneth. While both perspectives have been usually interpreted as being antithetical to one another, the project traces a series of implicit and explicit contrasts between them, in order to show that they can be productively combined. On the basis of this theoretical framework, the project pursues three main objectives: 1) To assess the fruitfulness and limitations of Lyotard’s and Habermas’s approaches for articulating the tension between social heterogeneity and universal foundations for political action and judgment in contemporary politics; 2) To contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between critical theory and social struggles, and specifically, of the role of critical theory in their orientation and mutual articulation; 3) To examine the capacity of Lyotard’s and Adorno’s perspectives to explain and criticize phenomena such as intolerance, xenophobia, and ideological extremism more broadly. Each of these objectives overlaps with a pressing political problem that concerns contemporary societies. UCONCRI provides conceptual tools to better understand these issues and to develop responses to the challenges they pose.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The project examines the tension between social heterogeneity and universal principles for political action and judgment through a comparative reading of the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard and the Frankfurt School tradition of critical theory. Frankfurt School critical theory and agonistic political theory influenced by French philosophy are predominantly read as two separate and mutually exclusive perspectives in political philosophy. This project traces a series of explicit and implicit discussions between Lyotard and the Frankfurt School in order to read both perspectives as different yet interrelated. The connections and contrasts between both perspectives are then used to develop a new framework to address three central issues within critical theory and political philosophy more broadly. Specifically, the project pursues three specific objectives: 1) To assess the possibilities and limitation of consensus and dissensus as grounds of universal political action and judgment, by means of a contrast between Lyotard and Habermas; 2) To understand the causes of social conflict as well as the role of critical theory is their articulation, by means of a contrast between Lyotard and Honneth; 3) To explain the sources of ideological extremism and determine the capacity of critical theory to respond to it, by means of a contrast between Lyotard and Adorno. Relying on a comparative methodology that involves intertextual reading, genealogical analysis, and intellectual history, the research will illuminate and generate dialogues between perspectives that are often considered separately from one another, thus improving our understanding of universality, conflict, and critique in heterogeneous societies.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITE DE STRASBOURG · StrasbourgCoordinatorFrance
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union