Concrete Critical Theory: Althusser's Marxism (Historical Materialism Book, 249)

✍ Scribed by William S. Lewis, Skidmore College

• Publisher: BRILL
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 220
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Departing from Althusserian premises, this book rigorously develops a critical theoretic method focused on the analysis of particular, concrete situations of unfreedom and defends it as the correct one for effective socio-political analysis and transformation.

✦ Table of Contents

‎Contents
‎Acknowledgements
‎Chapter 1. Introduction
‎1. Concrete Analysis and Frankfurt School Critical Theory
‎2. Methodology
‎3. Structure of the Book
‎Chapter 2. ‘But Didn’t He Kill His Wife?’
‎1. The Duty to Cite
‎2. Countervailing Harms
‎2.1. Direct Harms
‎2.2. Indirect Harms
‎3. External and Internal Approaches
‎3.1. Externalism
‎3.2. Internalism
‎4. A Duty to Speak and to Respond
‎Chapter 3. Althusser’s Scientism
‎1. Definition of Althusser’s Scientism
‎2. Althusser’s (Mostly) Consistent Scientism: 1960–1980
‎2.1. Althusser’s Scientism 1960–1965
‎2.2. Althusser’s Scientism 1966–1972
‎2.3. Althusser’s Scientism 1972–1980
‎3. Althusser 1982–1987: Marxist Philosophy without Marxist Science?
‎3.1. Althusser’s Scientism Abandoned?
‎3.2. Internalist Explanation of the Abandonment Thesis
‎4. An Aleatory Materialism Consistent with Marxist Science?
‎4.1. An Alternative to the Abandonment Thesis
‎4.2. The Explicit Endorsement of Scientism in Althusser’s Later Works
‎4.3. Aleatory Materialism and Marxist Science: Theory for Marxism
‎4.4. The Relation between Aleatory Materialism and Marxist Science
‎4.5. Making Sense of Late Anti-Scientistic Statements
‎5. Conclusion
‎Chapter 4. Historical Materialism and Concrete Analysis
‎1. The Theoretical and Political Context for Concrete Analysis
‎2. Althusser’s Original Formulation of Concrete Analysis
‎3. Critique of Concrete Analysis
‎4. Reconstructing Concrete Analysis
‎5. Historical Materialism and Critical Theory
‎Chapter 5. Class as Concrete and Normative
‎Introduction
‎1. Gender Theories
‎1.1. The Classical Theory of Gender
‎1.2. The Conventionalist Understanding of Gender
‎1.3. The Trait/Norm Covariance Model
‎2. Marxian Class Theories
‎2.1. Classical Marxist Theory
‎2.2. Post-Marxism
‎3. Trait/Norm Covariant Class Model
‎Chapter 6. Separating Racist Science from Racial Science
‎1. Separating Science from Ideology
‎2. Critical Technique Defined
‎3. Critical Technique Applied
‎Chapter 7. Manipulation of Consent and Deliberative Democracy
‎1. Deliberation from Procedural to Feasible
‎2. Obstacles to Deliberation
‎3. Overcoming Obstacles
‎4. Insurmountable Obstacles?
‎4.1. Ideology as Insurmountable
‎Chapter 8. Cosmopolitanism and Class Erasure
‎1. Against a ‘Cosmopolitanism of Fear’
‎2. Reconstruction of Althusser’s Anti-Cosmopolitan Argument
‎3. Contemporary Cosmopolitanisms
‎3.1. Nussbaum’s Moral Cosmopolitanism
‎3.2. Appiah’s Cultural Cosmopolitanism
‎4. Critique of Moral and Cultural Cosmopolitanisms
‎Works Cited
‎Index