The main purpose of this book is to explicate the problematic relationship between the heterogeneity of what is experienced as beautiful and the homogeneity of the conceptualization of that experience, or attempt at such a conceptualization in the era of modern philosophy. While the heterogeneity of what is experienced as beautiful was permitted, and indeed celebrated, in the dominant ancient conception—for example, in the Symposium and Phaedrus of Plato—the need for homogenization in the later appropriation of Plato and in the Enlightenment period relegated the beautiful to the privileged domain of artworks. In her analysis Agnes Heller provides a unique and significant emphasis on the original 'life content' of the experience of the beautiful, which becomes lost in the modern system of the arts. This book details the history of the concept of the beautiful, starting with what Agnes Heller distinguishes between the 'warm' metaphysics of beauty and the 'cold' one—inspired by Plato's Janus-faced relationship to beauty—and ending with a fragmented yet hopeful vision propagated by Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno, among others. In between these two historical parentheses—the metaphysical Plato on one hand and the post-metaphysical Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Adorno on the other hand—lay a plenitude of figures and intellectual developments, all of which contributed to the demise of the concept of the beautiful in the Western metaphysical tradition. The most important of these figures and developments are examined in this book.

The collection includes Heller's reflections on the collected essays, as well as an early essay on her mentor Lukacs that exposes her own steadfast engagement with certain practical and philosophical issues throughout her life's work."--BOOK JACKET.

The basic discoveries underlying Marx's critique of political economy - labour power, surplus value, use value - are all in some way built upon the concept of need. From Marx's varying and passing interpretations of a theory of need, Agnes Heller unravels the main tendencies and demonstrates the importance which Marx attached to the "restructuring" of a system of needs going beyond the purely material. She also brings out those aspects, especially the idea of "radical needs" which point to revolutionary activity and to the project which Marx could only foresee but which for us today is of real urgency: the "society of associated producers". Thus Agnes Heller's study is not only the first full presentation of a fundamental aspect of Marx, but the basis for a discussion of the utmost contemporary relevance.

György Lukacs was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, writer, and literary critic who shaped mainstream European Communist thought. Soul and Form was his first book, published in 1910, and it established his reputation, treating questions of linguistic expressivity and literary style in the works of Plato, Kierkegaard, Novalis, Sterne, and others. By isolating the formal techniques these thinkers developed, Lukács laid the groundwork for his later work in Marxist aesthetics, a field that introduced the historical and political implications of text. For this centennial edition, John T. Sanders and Katie Terezakis add a dialogue entitled "On Poverty of Spirit," which Lukács wrote at the time of Soul and Form, and an introduction by Judith Butler, which compares Lukács's key claims to his later work and subsequent movements in literary theory and criticism. In an afterword, Terezakis continues to trace the Lukácsian system within his writing and other fields. These essays explore problems of alienation and isolation and the curative quality of aesthetic form, which communicates both individuality and a shared human condition. They investigate the elements that give rise to form, the history that form implies, and the historicity that form embodies. Taken together, they showcase the breakdown, in modern times, of an objective aesthetics, and the rise of a new art born from lived experience.

This radical analysis of the role and importance of historiography interprets the philosophy and theory of history on the basis of historicity as a human condition. The book examins the norms and methods of historiography from a philosophical point of view, but rejects generalisations tht the philosophy of history can provide all the answers to contemporary problems. Instead it outlines a feasible theory of history which is still radical enough to apply to all social structures.

This book is a collection of recent lectures by Agnes Heller, delivered all over the world. These essays are edited and introduced by the author of the most significant intellectual biography of her work, John Grumley. In these lectures, Heller engages one of her greatest strengths: to discover philosophy within the very flux of contemporary events. These bring together such timely topics as refugees, human rights, truth in politics and the contemporary university as well as perennial issues like the possibility of artistic representation of the Holocaust, the question whether revolutions are always betrayed, and the possibility of universality in the contemporary multicultural world.

"Tormey and Townshend have succeeded not only in making accessible the notoriously evasive ideas of 'Post-Marxist' thinkers, they have begun the vital work of critically examining their contribution to Marx's project of overcoming capitalism." - James Martin, Goldsmiths, University of London "Excellent textbook - critical, challenging and thoroughly engaging!"- Richard White, Sheffield Hallam University "In language which is clear without being simplistic, Tormey and Townshend help readers think about ways to live ′with and without Marx′ in the wake of Marxism's historical failures as well as its continuing relevance to life under globalizing capitalism."- Mark Rupert, Syracuse University Key Thinkers in Critical Theory to Post Marxism is a comprehensive introduction to perhaps the most key intellectual trend in contemporary critical theory. In jargon-free language, it seeks to unpack, explain and review many of the key figures behind the rethinking of the legacy of Marxism in theory and practice.Key thinkers covered include Cornelius Castoriadis, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Deleuze and Guattari, Laclau and Mouffe, Agnes Heller, Jacques Derrida, J rgen Habermas and post-Marxist feminism. Each chapter covers a key thinker or contribution and thus can be read as a stand alone introduction to the principal aspects of their approach. Each chapter is followed by a summary of key points with a guide to further reading. Underlying the text is also the central question: What is Post-Marxism? Instead of viewing Post-Marxism as an ideology, movement or tradition of theorizing, the authors advocate Post-Marxism as a loose appellation describing those who have problematised Marx's approach to understanding and challenging contemporary capitalism. As such the book also offers an engaging commentary on some of the key political developments of our time including, for example, the anti-globalisation movement. Key Thinkers in Critical Theory to Post Marxism provides an ideal introduction to a hitherto complex subject and will be essential reading for students of contemporary social and political inquiry.

The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism represents the first systematic and comprehensive study of the post-Marxist writings of the Budapest School to be published in English. The School itself has long been known in English-speaking circles for its neo-Marxist critique of the now-defunct Soviet system. The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism enriches this understanding by situating the confrontation with ‘actually existing socialism’ as but one moment, however formative, within a much richer and much more theoretically relevant philosophical itinerary. From the early critique of alienation through to the contemporary critical theories of modernity, The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism charts the evolution of the School’s thinking with a specific emphasis on the themes of culture, critique, history and the contingency of modern subjectivity.

Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning interest in the study of everyday life within the social sciences and humanities. In Critiques of Everyday Life Michael Gardiner proposes that there exists a counter-tradition within everyday life theorising. This counter-tradition has sought not merely to describe lived experience, but to transform it by elevating our understanding of the everyday to the status of a critical knowledge. In his analysis Gardiner engages with the work of a number of significant theorists and approaches that have been marginalized by mainstream academe, including: *The French tradition of everyday life theorising, from the surrealists to Henri Lefebvre, and from the Situationist International to Michel de Certeau *Agnes Heller and the relationship between the everyday, rationality and ethics *Carnival, prosaics and intersubjectivity in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin *Dorothy E. Smith's feminist perspective on everyday life. Critiques of Everyday Life demonstrates the importance of an alternative, multidisciplinary everyday life paradigm and offers a myriad of new possibilities for critical social and cultural theorising and empirical research.

Dr. Bruce Gold, a forty-eight-year-old Jewish professor of English, faces the possibilities of being appointed to a high State Department position and being disowned by his family.