This collection brings together essays by Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, who were key members of the Frankfurt School for Social Research. Their multidisciplinary research on capitalist society led to the developing of critical theory, which is now an established field and research paradigm in political science, philosophy, sociology, literary and cultural studies.
By focusing on epistemology, ontology, and method, this text engages the reader with issues that are fundamental to the work of these thinkers. It introduces key questions that lie at the heart of critical theory, from reflections on the nature of reason and the assessment of the concepts of essence and truth to critiques of positivist methodology and limits of empiricism.
The focal point of the text makes it an essential resource for understanding and teaching critical theory. In addition, it provides easy access to key essays, most of which have been translated specifically for this volume. Subject and Object will interest anyone studying critical theory and the works of the Frankfurt School.
Industry Reviews
Ruth Groff should be congratulated for bringing together these seminal texts from the 'inner circle' of the Frankfurt School. They shed light on the purposes of critical theory and its salience for the present. Professor Groff has done the entire intellectual community an important service. * Stephen Eric Bronner, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University, USA *
Ruth Groff's anthology is an important contribution for those of us teaching the writings of the so-called 'early Frankfurt School'. Bringing together in one anthology such groundbreaking texts as 'Subject and Object,' 'Means and Ends,' and 'Negative Dialectics' makes this a worthy enough project. But Professor Groff's entirely lucid introductory abstracts are what makes this an invaluable book. Strikingly clear, Groff's writings are absorbing and memorable reads on their own account. * Catherine Kellogg, Department of Political Science, University of Alberta, Canada *
The next time somebody tells you that critical theory is inattentive to objects-that all it cares about is culture, language, discourse, and codes-this volume is how you show them that they're wrong. The essays collected here draw our attention to a negative dialectics that has as much in common with Bruno Latour and Quentin Meillassoux as it does with Derrida and Foucault. The realists, materialists, and ontologists come knocking at the gates of Frankfurt. * Christian Thorne, Williams College, USA and author of The Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment *
This invaluable collection offers a nuanced, well-reasoned approach to questions of epistemology, ontology and method from the first generation of Critical Theorists that insists on "determinate" rather than "abstract" negation, situating these questions within the broader historical and social contexts from which they emerge. Ruth Groff's pithy introductions of each of these seminal essays, moreover, are wonderfully illuminating without simplifying their central claims. * Samir Gandesha, Associate Professor of Modern European Culture in the Department of the Humanities and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada *
