Lunches on course days:

Műhelycafe: 6 days

07,09,10,14,16,17 of July

Address: 1088, Budapest. Múzeum krt. 6.

The course introduces students to the ideas of the unorthodox Marxian thinkers known as the Frankfurt School and the Budapest School. Influenced by György Lukács and generally regarded to be an undogmatic movement in Marxist theory, thinkers of the Frankfurt School and the Budapest School developed critical theories which seek to critically examine capitalist society, while giving up Marx’s idea of proletarian revolution. Students will encounter a variety of texts of the leading figures of the Schools: Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, Ágnes Heller, Mihály Vajda and György Márkus. Since these philosophers were convinced that modern society can be understood but within an interdisciplinary approach, the course also discusses topics in social theory and cultural studies.

The course endeavours to provide a better understanding of the complex problems discussed in the writings of Critical Theory such as reification, culture industry, critical theory, and emancipation, while it also offers an up-to-date overview of the Western development of Marxism within the context of Continental Philosophy in the 20th century.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students will have gained a good grounding in the critical theory of Frankfurt School and the Budapest School as well as the ability to see their virtues and shortcomings. The course endeavors to provide a better understanding of the complex problems discussed in the writings of Critical Theory such as reification, culture industry, critical theory, and emancipation, while it also offers an up-to-date overview of the Western development of Marxism within the context of Continental Philosophy in the 20th century. Students will also have become more skilled readers of difficult, older texts. They will have further developed their argumentation and writing skills and become better able to articulate their own positions on the key questions.

Requirement

At least level B2 (CEFR) English proficiency 

Schedule:

Week 1

7 July

9.00- 10.30 History, structure and institutional background of the Frankfurt School and the Budapest School, leading figures (Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Ágnes Heller, Mihály Vajda, György Márkus)
11.00-12.30 Overview of Marx’ theory; Lukács’s place in the Marxist tradition; Lukács’s beginnings
13.30- 15.00 The early Lukács: The Soul and the Forms (1911); The Theory of the Novel (1916)

8 July

9.00- 10.30 History and Class-Consciousness and the orthodox Marxism of the late Lukács
11.00-12.30 Horkheimer’s initial project: interdisciplinary Marxism as critical theory of capitalism; traditional reactionary theory versus critical progressive theory
13.30- 15.00 Marcuse’s theory of affirmative culture; Benjamin’s theory of the work of art in modern times; the conception of the aura; art and politics

10 July

9.00- 10.30 Benjamin’s conception of history – messianic moments and critique of progress; the Arcades project; Horkheimer – Adorno: Dialectic of Enlightenment; historical and political context of the publication (1944): World War II
11.00-12.30 concept of Enlightenment as a critique of reason; the historical epoch of Enlightenment; domination as the essence of reason, nature as the object of domination; forms of Enlightenment
13.30- 15.00 Alienation in Horkheimer and Adorno; culture industry; Adorno’s theory on popular culture; Adorno’s late philosophy of art in the Aesthetic theory

Week 2

14 July

9.00-10.30 The late Marcuse; summary of the first generation of critical theory: social philosophy without normative political philosophy; second generation of critical theory: Jürgen Habermas’ The Theory of Communicative Action
11.00.12.30 Habermas’s conception of power; procedural democracy and civil society
13.30-15.00 Guided visit to Lukács apartment or Budapest School Archive

15 July

9.00- 10.30 Recent developments: Axel Honneth and the problem of recognition; criticisms on the Frankfurt School;
11.00-12.30 The unity of the Budapest School; “Renaissance of Marxism”; Vajda’s “Letter to my friends”
13.30- 15.00 Heller’s analysis of modernity

17 July

9.00- 10.30 Vajda’s concept of the Existential and the Social; his path to Postmodernity
11.00-12.30 Márkus’s vision of culture
13.30- 15.00 Final all-round discussion

Recommended readings:

• Benjamin, Walter: The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. In: Walter Benjamin:

• Benjamin, Walter: On the Concept of History. http://members.efn.org/~dredmond/ThesesonHistory.html

• Habermas, Jürgen: The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. I. Boston: Beacon Press, 1984.

• Habermas, Jürgen: Three Normative Models of Democracy. In: Constellations. Volume 1, Issue 1 December 1994, pp. 1-10.

• Heller, Ágnes: A theory of history. London: Routledge, 1982. Chapter 4. Introduction to a theory of history. pp. 279-333.

• Honneth, Axel: Reification as Forgetfulness of Recognition. In: Axel Honneth: Reification. A new Look at an old Idea. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 52-63.

• Horkheimer, Max: Traditional and critical theory. In: Max Horkheimer: Critical Theory: Selected Essays. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. pp. 188–243.

• Horkheimer, Max – Adorno, Theodor W.: The Concept of Enlightenment. In: Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002, pp. 1-34.

• Horkheimer, Max – Adorno, Theodor W.: The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In: Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002. pp. 94-136.

• Lukács, George: The Phenomenon of Reification. In: George Lukács: History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, 1971. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/hcc05.htm

• Marcuse, Herbert: The Affirmative Character of Culture. In: Herbert Marcuse: Negations. Essays in Critical Theory. London: MayFly, 2009. pp. 65-98. (several editions)

• Marx, Karl – Engels, Friedrich: The Communist Manifesto. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/

• Márkus, György: “A Society of Culture: The Constitution of Modernity”, in György Márkus, Culture, Science, Society. The Constitution of Cultural Modernity, (Leiden - Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 17-36,

• Vajda, Mihály: “Marxism, Existentialism, Phenomenology: a Dialogue”; in: Telos, 1971, pp. 3-29.

• Held, David: Introduction to Critical Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1980.

• Olay, Csaba: Alienation. http://real.mtak.hu/152445/1/Csaba-Olay-Alienation.pdf

• Rush, Fred (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

• Wiggershaus, Rolf: The Frankfurt School. Its History, Theories, and Political Significance. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, 1995.

Meet the Lecturers

Csaba Olay
Full Professor
Institute of Philosophy
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
olay.csaba@btk.elte.hu

Csaba Olay is a full professor and director of the Institute of Philosophy at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Having studied philosophy, mathematics, and physics at Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Csaba Olay obtained his PhD in philosophy at Freiburg University (Germany). He has been teaching at Eötvös Loránd University since 2001, where he was appointed as a full professor in 2015. His main research areas are 19-20th century continental philosophy, hermeneutics, György Lukács, Heidegger, Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, and Frankfurt School. He has published books and articles, and edited collections of essays in these fields in English, German, French and Hungarian, and taught courses in Berlin, Dijon, Shanghai, Oldenburg, Cluj, and Oradea.

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