Critical philosophy has always challenged the division between theory and practice. At its best, it aims to turn contemplation into emancipation, seeking to transform society in pursuit of equality, autonomy, and human flourishing. Yet today’s critical theory often seems to engage only in critique. These times of crisis demand more.
Bernard E. Harcourt challenges us to move beyond decades of philosophical detours and to harness critical thought to the need for action. In a time of increasing awareness of economic and social inequality, Harcourt calls on us to make society more equal and just. Only critical theory can guide us toward a more self-reflexive pursuit of justice. Charting a vision for political action and social transformation, Harcourt argues that instead of posing the question, “What is to be done?” we must now turn it back onto ourselves and ask, and answer, “What more am I to do?”
Critique and Praxis advocates for a new path forward that constantly challenges each and every one of us to ask what more we can do to realize a society based on equality and justice. Joining his decades of activism, social-justice litigation, and political engagement with his years of critical theory and philosophical work, Harcourt has written a magnum opus.
Table of Content
Preface: The Primacy of Critique and Praxis
Introduction: Toward a Critical Praxis Theory
Part I. Reconstructing Critical Theory
1. The Original Foundations
2. Challenging the Frankfurt Foundations
3. Michel Foucault and the History of Truth-Making
4. The Return to Foundations
5. The Crux of the Problem
6. Reconstructing Critical Theory
7. A Radical Critical Philosophy of Illusions
Part II. Reimagining the Critical Horizon
8. The Transformation of Critical Utopias
9. The Problem of Liberalism
10. A Radical Critical Theory of Values
11. A Critical Horizon of Endless Struggle
12. The Problem of Violence
13. A Way Forward
Part III. Renewing Critical Praxis
14. The Transformation of Praxis
15. The Landscape of Contemporary Critical Praxis
16. The New Space of Critical Praxis
Part IV. Reformulating Critique
17. Reframing the Praxis Imperative
18. What More Am I To Do?
19. Crisis, Critique, Praxis
Conclusion
Postscript
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Name Index
Concept Index
About the author
Bernard E. Harcourt is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and professor of political science at Columbia University and a chaired professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. An editor of Michel Foucault’s work in French and English, Harcourt is the author of several books, includingThe Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War Against Its Own Citizens (2018) and
The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (2011). He is a social-justice litigator and the recipient of the 2019 Norman Redlich Capital Defense Distinguished Service Award from the New York City Bar Association for his longtime representation of death row prisoners.
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