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Allen’s critique of current Frankfurt School theory presents the joint methods of “problematizing genealogy” and “metanormative contextualism” as alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. Through a close reading of Allen’s critique, I investigate whether Allen’s identification of philosophy of history is an accurate diagnosis of the problems of the normative grounding of current Frankfurt School theory, whether Allen’s distinction between metanormative and normative levels is tenable for critical theory, and whether Allen’s methodology constitutes a viable alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. As an alternative, I suggest scrutinizing the grounding strategies of current Frankfurt School theory to expand beyond their genealogy in Enlightenment thought, and address the question of what made the affirmative form of thought underlying current Frankfurt School theory a historical possibility. Expanding on Allen’s reiteration of the mediated nature of categories, I suggest that the stark contrast between forms of thought underlying first- and second-generation Frankfurt School critical theory needs to be understood not in relation to philosophy of history but against the backdrop of the specific context of the European historical present that informs its normative universe.

Theorists often point to social theory's normativity, but Gouldner's later works provide the most explicit, comprehensive treatment of it as post-traditional normative discourse – a practice distinct from sociology and sociological theory, yet linked historically and analytically to them. His argument about the need for a discourse space to debate social science's normative directions and to strengthen its connections to civil society is relevant today. Because Gouldner's approach has gaps and is somewhat fragmented I will reconstruct his argument about social theory per se. Although I point to problems that derive from his incomplete pragmatic turn, his approach offers an excellent departure point for discussing the meaning of social theory.

This chapter offers a review of Amy Allen’s The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016) and presents the book as having both a negative and positive aim. Its negative aim is to offer a critique of the Eurocentric narratives of historical progress that serves the function of normative grounding in the critical theories of Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. Its positive aim is to provide a new approach to the normative grounding of critical theory that eschews Eurocentric narratives of progress through the idea of metanormative contextualism. For Allen, metanormative contextualism is developed through an engagement with the works of Adorno and Foucault. This chapter raises some critical questions concerning the position of metanormative contextualism, arguing that there are significant differences between Adorno and Foucault that render the position unstable. Specifically, Adorno’s normative conception of truth, alongside his critical naturalism presented through the notion of natural history, makes him ill-suited as a representative of Allen’s metanormative contextualism and complicates the contributions of Foucault’s genealogical analyses. The chapter concludes that a careful consideration of Adorno’s views reveals him to be opposed to the two central tenets of metanormative contextualism as defined by Allen.

The relationship between ontology, realism, and normativity is complex and contentious. While naturalist and realist stances have tended to ground questions of normativity in ontology and accounts of human nature, critical theories have been critical of the relationship between ontological and normative projects. Queer theory in particular has been critical of ontological endeavors. Exploring the problem of normativity and ontology, this paper will make the case that the critical realist ontology of open systems and complex, contingent, conjunctural causation deeply resonates with queer theory, generating a queer ontology that both allows for and undermines ontological and normative projects.

An assessment of Axel Honneth’s reception and appropriation of Hegel’s theory of normative reconstruction as presented in his Freedom’s Right (Columbia University Press, 2014).

A comparative assessment of Honneth’s and Hegel’s approach to normative reconstruction focusing on three basic issues: general methodology, understandings of the logic and program of the Philosophy of Right, and analyses and assessments of modern market societies as detailed in Hegel’s account of civil society (bürgerliche Gesellschaft).

For Honneth, normative reconstruction consists in reworking modes of social rationality already realized in modern institutions. By contrast, Hegel is shown to advance an approach to reconstruction in which an account of social rationality is properly fashioned only in the reconstruction process itself. In this way Hegel is also shown to proffer an approach to normative reconstruction that is at once more robustly reconstructive and more robustly normative than is the case with Honneth.

The paper demonstrates the ongoing value of Hegel’s thought for social and political theory. It illuminates Hegel’s uniquely dialectical approach to immanent social critique, dedicated not only to explicating existing tensions and “bifurcations” (Entzweiungen) but – with the help of a distinctive account of Bildung (cultivation or formation) – to engaging those tensions and bifurcations in order to delineate the conditions for their constructive supersession. It also elucidates different ways in which critical social theorists, committed to notions of “immanent transcendence,” draw on the resources of market societies to mount normative challenges to the aporias of those societies.

What is the relationship between the descriptive and the normative? The usual answer, in the social sciences, is based on a sharp distinction between facts and values. This chapter reprises and radicalizes long-standing critiques of the fact/value distinction, proposes an alternative theory of ontic webs in its stead, and then uses it to delineate six different forms of public sociology. It argues that facts are value-laden and values fact-laden; that facts and values are entangled in webs of belief and practice; and that attributions of causation and moral responsibility are connected via ontological assumptions. Effective public sociology therefore requires a combination of ontological extension and moral translation.

This chapter focuses on the normative importance of what attitudes our actions express to others. Business is not conducted in a vacuum – rather, it is conducted against a background schema of social meaning. This chapter argues that the public meaning of our actions, what our actions express, is normatively important. The piece imports familiar norms regarding expressions from interpersonal morality to business ethics, such as those surrounding insult, blame, and gratitude. It argues that many of ethicists’ gripes across a range of business ethics topics – from disproportionate compensation to immoral investing – can fruitfully be analyzed from an expressive perspective.

This chapter critically assesses the neoconservative communitarian critique of rights talk and practices in the contemporary United States. We argue that the critics are unconvincing about: (a) the institutional history of civil rights development; (b) the actual character of rights talk and practices in ordinary life; and (c) the allegation that rights talk undermines community, which remains a poorly specified and implicitly inegalitarian standard. Our argument is developed on the basis of sociolegal theory and empirical study over the last several decades.

Power and domination once occupied center stage in organizational sociology. But as the field developed, the concept of power was marginalized and its overall significance for the drama of organization life neglected. Normative critiques of domination were recast as puzzles of obedience to authority, while scholars wishing to study the concrete workings of power regimes found themselves groping in the shadows. In this introduction, we advocate putting power and domination back on the agenda. Following the lead of classical theorists of power, we argue that organizations should be seen as scenes of struggles and as political projects to be constantly achieved and reconstructed. We critique structural and abstract perspectives that neglect the constant engagement of people in the negotiation of rules, meanings, and destinies. And we survey novel ideas that can help us to see power not as an abstract entity but as a pattern of interactions and social relationships that is instantiated in specific projects of domination and resistance. It is through this lens that power studies can be reinvigorated.

This chapter addresses current trends regarding how the meta-theory of critical realism (CR) frames comparative and international education research and practice. It introduces the key tenets of CR and explores how these ideas have been and can be applied in educational research. It demonstrates how CR provides a valuable alternative to the positivist, interpretivist and constructivist paradigms, and leverages elements of all three to provide new approaches to develop knowledge that is free from the dualisms embedded in their ontological assumptions. I argue that by offering a dialectical understanding of structure and agency, as well as the material and ideational dimension of social reality, CR provides an ontological framework that does not do conceptual violence to the reality we seek to research. This ontological basis is particularly valuable to the social justice agenda of educational research in general because it allows researchers to work beneath the surface of empirical research to disclose the field of possibilities for social action.