Craig Browne

The End of Immanent Critique

Immanent critique has been a defining feature of the programme of critical social theory. It is a methodology that underpins theoretical diagnoses of contemporary society, based on its linking normative and empirical modes of analysis. Immanent critique distinctively seeks to discern emancipatory or democratizing tendencies. However, the viability of immanent critique is currently in question. Habermas argued that it was necessary to revise the normative foundations of critical social theory, late-capitalist developments tended to undermine immanent critique. Although there is a need for critical social theory to incorporate aspects of alternative interpretations of the contemporary period, the logics of influential theoretical perspectives on the present, especially postmodernism, the risk society and globalization, will be shown to be inconsistent with some of immanent critiques presuppositions. The synthetic aspirations of critical social theory nevertheless persist in recent attempts to reconcile positive liberty and social justice.

Austerity and Its Antitheses: Practical Negations of Capitalist Legitimacy

This article investigates the manner in which anti-austerity protests constitute practical negations of capitalist legitimacy. The analysis is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the key issues at stake in contemporary anti-austerity protests, from capitalist legitimacy to collective forms of autonomy. The second part examines central sociological dimensions permeating the reality of austerity, from the power of the state, via the pervasive processes of commodification, to the emergence of a “new spirit of capitalism.” The third part reflects on the emancipatory potential of anti-austerity movements, arguing that they contribute to personal and social empowerment, as well as to radical democratization. The article suggests that the recent protests against austerity indicate that there is room not only for despair but also for hope.

The institution of critique and the critique of institutions

My paper argues that Luc Boltanski’s pragmatic sociology makes an important contribution to two central concerns of critical theory: the empirical analysis of the contradictions and conflicts of capitalist societies and the reflexive clarification of the epistemological and normative grounds of critique. I show how Boltanski’s assessment of the limitations of Bourdieu’s critical sociology significantly influenced his pragmatic sociology of critique and explication of the political philosophies present in actors’ practices of dispute and justification. Although pragmatism has revealed how social life involves considerable uncertainty, Boltanski contends that critique needs to take into account how institutions generate semantic security, as well as symbolic violence. Boltanski’s endeavour to reformulate critique is compared with influential alternative conceptions, notably those of Habermas, Castoriadis, and Honneth. Despite its potential deficiencies and weaknesses, Boltanski’s reformulation of critique is found to be of considerable theoretical significance. In particular, Boltanski’s analysis of the role critique has played in the reorganization of capitalism can be extended, and his work is suggestive of how some of the intentions of critical theory can be pursued in new ways.

Democracy, Religion and Revolution

Charles Taylor’s conception of the relationship between democracy and social creativity developed through a critical synthesis of various traditions, including the Romantic Movement and liberal political philosophy. However, it is argued that Taylor’s understanding of the implications of religion and revolution significantly differentiates his standpoint from that of pragmatism and theories of democratic creativity. Taylor’s defence of religious transcendence is shown to give rise to tensions with the latter perspective. The theorists of democratic creativity suggest that democracy originates in the rupturing of religious significations and their closure of meaning. Taylor essentially inverts these arguments and perceives that the loss of transcendence may lead to a closed world structure. Taylor claims that the dilemmas of the modern immanent frame were prefigured in the French Revolution’s inability to generate an institutional form consistent with its understanding of democracy and that social creativity should be qualified in light of this historical experience.

‘Experience is a mixture of violence and justification’ Luc Boltanski in conversation with Craig Browne

In this discussion with Craig Browne, Luc Boltanski comments on how his recent work reconsiders the questions of agency and the nature of social explanation. Boltanski reflects on the connections between his investigations of grammars of justifications and his later work with Eve Chiapello on the historical transition to a new spirit of capitalism. The significance of politics, conflict and critique to Boltanski’s sociology are highlighted. Bolanski explains why he regards May 1968 as a major disruption of the capitalist social order and how the conservative response to this contestation subsequently prevailed in France. The reorganisation of capitalism in recent decades has increased social division, yet Boltanski believes that the recent recession and existing discontent could lead to unexpected outcomes.

Pragmatism and Radical Democracy

Abstract This paper suggests that pragmatism makes a distinctive contribution to the theory and practice of radical democracy. It investigates the relation ship between the renewal of interest in pragmatism and the recent attempts to develop radical democratic alternatives to political liberalism. With particular reference to the contemporary critical social theory of Habermas and Honneth, the paper outlines key dimensions of the civic republican, deliberative democratic and reflexive cooperative reconstructions of John Deweys conception of democracy. These reconstructions are shown to have explicated important pragmatist insights concerning public participation in civic associations, the discursive practices of deliberation, and the cooperative organization of the division of labour. However, it is argued that each of these reconstructions pre suppose some facet of the additional pragmatist understanding of the creativity of action and that the most distinctive contributions of pragmatism to radical democratic theory and practice derive from a notion of democracy as instituted and emergent meaning.

Democratic Justice as Intersubjective Freedoms

According to Maria Markus, the development of a particularly open and interested moral-psychological disposition towards the other is critical to the endeavour of subjects to realize the decent society. Drawing on the work of George Herbert Mead, it will be argued that such a sense of decency involves not just a normative commitment to reciprocity but a reflexive appreciation of the significance of the other to the formation of the self. Meads sketches of intersubjective freedoms are shown to provide a critical perspective on unjust social relations from the standpoint of the utopian horizon of a decent society. Meads conception converges, as well as contrasts, with Markuss perspective on civil society and the regulative ideal of the decent society. Significantly, Markuss account of the problem of the potential divergence between the decency of institutions and the decency of human relationships highlights the difficulties of interconnecting democratic justice and intersubjective freedoms.

Change is Central to Sociology

Change is a central problem for the discipline of sociology. It is often claimed that sociology originated as a discipline to comprehend the major changes that characterised modern society, especially those bequeathed by two revolutions: the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Sociology approaches the question of change at a number of different levels, and major theoretical traditions can be demarcated in terms of their conceptions of change, particularly with respect to their interpretations of the origins, agencies, scale, preconditions, consequences and potentials of change. As a discipline that is in dialogue with the present state of society, sociologists’ thinking about change is affected by contemporary trends and developments. Sociologists have recently been very much concerned with whether the topic of their investigation has changed, particularly with the question of whether the global has replaced the national as the context of social relations. C Wright Mills once described the best work in sociology as establishing a connection between history and biography. The sociological imagination enables individuals to turn their personal experience of private troubles into public issues that are recognised as shared (Wright Mills 1959). Sociology accomplishes this reflection through disclosing general patterns in social relations and revealing connections between different dimensions of society.

Introduction to Special Issue on the work of Luc Boltanski

This introduction to a special issue of Thesis Eleven devoted to the work of Luc Boltanski overviews the various contributions to the issue, including the interview it contains with Luc Boltanski that was conducted by Craig Browne. Boltanski is described as challenging formulaic approaches in sociology and as developing instead novel theoretical insights and an innovative pragmatist methodology. It is suggested that these innovations are complemented by Boltanski’s substantial investigations into empirical developments. Links are drawn between the themes of Boltanski’s work, especially on the new spirit of capitalism, and Peter Murphy’s book The Collective Imagination, which is the subject of a review essay article by Craig Browne. Peter Murphy is one of the other contributors to the issue, along with Paul Blokker and Simon Susen. The papers engage with various features of Boltanski’s work, especially the topics of critique, democracy, capitalism, and ideology.

From the creativity of collective imagination to the crisis of postmodern fantasy

The Collective Imagination explicates the media of social creativity and explains how the imagination has shaped historically significant social institutions. It focuses on the media of wit, paradox, and metaphor, and develops a distinctive and original interpretation of the imagination’s appositional quality. Murphy’s conception of the collective imagination is compared with that of Cornelius Castoriadis. The discussion suggests that Murphy’s claims are likely to be disputed, particularly because they diverge from the common equation of contemporary creativity with social progress. Murphy draws attention to a kind of conservative disposition that is necessary for imagination to have substantial social efficacy. Murphy claims that the creativity of the collective imagination has to a large extent been eclipsed by fantasy and kitsch. The deleterious effects of fantasy’s denial of reality are explored in relation to four domains of collective creativity: art, society, economy and politics. It is argued that the ramifications of Murphy’s profound interpretation of the imagination may be developed in ways that differ from some of his conclusions.