Against the critical theory of society of the Frankfurt School, the criticism was repeatedly expressed that it conceals the normative premise on the basis of which its criticism only becomes possible and that it is therefore as a theory dishonest and incomplete. But this criticism is wrong, at least as far as Max Horkheimer until the end of the 1930s concerned. He designed his theory of society on the basis of the Left-Hegelian tradition which saw a process of the realization of progress in the history, although he could no longer keep his confidence in the history in the course of the political development after 1939. Dialectic of Enlightenment which Horkheimer wrote together with Adorno between 1941 and 1944 is a document of their desperation. The following generations of the School, above all Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth, rejected to accept the pessimistic conception of history in Dialectic of Enlightenment. They tried to adopt the theoretical approach of Horkheimer in the 30s again. For this purpose, they must find an objective realization of the reason in the social movements. (Here we should not forget the attempt of Albrecht Wellmer not to equate the rationality with the instrumental reason and to pursue the possibility of aesthetic rationality in the sense of Adorno.) As such an interesting attempt, we should pay attention to the work of Honneth which tries to reactualize the idea of socialism. He will interpret the socialism other than the Marxist tradition and gain it as the historical-philosophical premise for criticism.

  This paper aims to examine the importance of the gender perspective in social criticism regarding the study of the history of social thought. Two main questions are at stake here. First, what is the importance of the gender perspective in social criticism? Second, what is the significance of considering the history of social thought from a gender perspective, focusing on the intellectual history of America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? First, this paper examines Judith Butler’s critical theory. The characteristic of Butler’s argument is that corporeality, such as gender and sexuality, is related to human survival, and that it is a political issue in that the possibility of survival is unequally distributed. Second, by tracing the history of women’s participation in American higher education, I discussed which gender norms emerged in the scientifical field. Specifically, modern home economics reproduced gender norms in science by discussing the gender division of labor in Foucault’s sense of government. Through examining the ways in which social science discourse consisted in gender performance, I argue that a critical examination of the politics of corporeality is enabled.

  This paper aims to analyze the two means of the “critique”.

  Kantian philosophy could be approached from epistemological view, as well as ontology which M. Heidegger chose in the 20^th century. Here we discussed the relation between Kantian philosophy and the evolution of natural science in the 19^th and 20^th century. In the 21th century, more and more important is that the philosophy examines the science and the technology ...

  Next, the general structure and characteristic of capitalism is analyzed from the point of view of “modern world system” theory, where the necessity of the state for “liberalism” is focused on. In this context, we examine the history of hegemonic state as “British Empire” and U.S.A. in the 20^th century.

  After W.W.II, America, the greatest “hegemonic state” in the history, ruled on the world through the regime of “global cold war”, however the process of “décolonisation” disturbed the world-system. In 1955, so-called “the third world” as India, Indonesia and Egypt assembled at Bandung and sought for the neutral position against the logic of cold war. But Washington refuged the neutral position and backed up the military coup d’ état by means of the support of CIA.

  From 70’s, the neo-liberal project is introduced in Latin America like Chili and expanded in the “North-Area” after 80’. Today, the neo-liberal policy is literally universal on the earth. It is now when we could and should change the capitalism.

  This paper intends to clarify the concept of administration as formulated by Henri Saint-Simon (1760–1825). Upon realizing that administration by aristocrats and military did not satisfy the interests of “industrials” — a class comprised of all kinds of producers, scientists, and artists — in 1818 he began emphasizing the necessity of administrative reform and envisaged public administration by the most competent industrials. If the State’s institutional administration was refused, what would comprise the “industrial administration”?

  First, we focus on the eighteenth-century definitions of “administration.” We present several features shared by Saint-Simon about the conceptual division between government and administration. Second, we provide an overview of his plans for industrial administration consisting of industrial capacity. By emphasizing the differences between “governmental action” and “administrative action,” we examine two characteristics of his argument: meritocracy and egalitarianism. Our examinations reveal that in his writings, the term “administration” indicates an association and a self-fulfillment of industrials by their own capacity. Despite his meritocratic insistence on capacity, he does not pretend to establish new privileged classes based on ability. The primary objective of industrial administration is to promote egalitarian, horizontal, and peaceful relationships — contrary to the hierarchical, vertical, and war-like relationships established by the old social system.

  This paper attempts to examine S. A. Kierkegaard’s works from the perspective of the Dialectic of Enlightenment, written by Th. W. Adorno and M. Horkheimer. In social philosophy, Kierkegaard has often been considered an anti-modernist or a post-modernist, since he distances himself from the outside world as well as the concept of social modernization, and hence insists on the truthfulness of individual inwardness. However, beginning with the critical theorist’s conception of enlightenment, this study reinterprets Kierkegaard’s thought as a social philosophy that assumes an ambivalent attitude toward modern enlightenment and thus leads to its immanent critique.

  First, this paper addresses the Dialectic of Enlightenment to confirm that Adorno and Horkheimer understand modern enlightenment as a historical process of “disenchantment” through which irrational aspects must forcibly be integrated into the rational framework. Second, it clarifies that using the concept of “leveling,” Kierkegaard problematizes excessive rationalization in the sense of standardization and indicates his tendency to promote anti-intellectualism. Finally, it examines how Kierkegaard’s criticism of the myth of reason aims to not only merely promote anti-intellectualism but also correct the establishment to defend individuals’ qualitative experiences. Therefore, Kierkegaard’s thought reveals a potential for the “disenchantment of the disenchanted world,” which requires self-reflection of enlightenment as an essential part of the modern enlightenment process.

  This article aims to clarify the role of religion in Karl Mannheim’s idea of “Planning for Freedom.” In England, Mannheim was an active member of a Christian intellectual group “the Moot” within which he elaborated his idea of planning, pursuing the possibility of cooperation between sociological and theological thinking. Many of the Moot members attempted to develop a new social philosophy toward the rebirth of Christian world in order to overcome the crisis of both laissez-faire liberalism and totalitarianism. From Mannheim’s viewpoint, such a philosophy had to be conceived of in accordance with the actual context of a changing world, which he described as a planned society. Such a planned society was a society which required material ethics (or the ethics of responsibility) instead of formalistic ethics. Here religious or moral ethics should not be abstract but concrete one that shows how to live as Christian believers. Mannheim introduced a psychological notion of “archetypes” which would appeal the masses’ emotion and/or subconscious for making them realize the Christian way of life. This article shows how Mannheim expected that archetypes, rather than religious dogma, contribute to the revitalization of fundamental religious spirit that would be necessary for the reconstruction of disintegrating mass society.

  The purpose of this research is to grasp Hajime Kawakami’s understanding of historical materialism based on his paper “Yuibutsu-Shikan ni kansuru Jiko-Seisan (A Self- Liquidation about Historical Materialism)” (1927-28). In particular, I investigate his thought about the relationship between human social existence and social consciousness.

  According to Kawakami, there were three theoretical and/or philosophical contentions in his study of historical materialism: Relationship between theory and practice, Practical materialism, and Function of human consciousness. Since human life is based on material or economic life supported by labour, economics, therefore, analyzes social relations about human material activities. Furthermore, it is said that the economic study of human activities can be brought us an idea of historical materialism as a representation of our understanding of society and history. Kawakami therefore concluded that materialism, economics and historical materialism should be closely linked in economic study.

  Indeed, Kawakami considered social-economic structures and human lives through the argument with Kazuo Fukumoto and Kiyoshi Miki. This paper thus concludes that not only mental products, composed of the forms of social consciousness and the forms of ideology but also social and political life will be regulated by economic structures.

  This paper poses the question of whether a society based on liberal perfectionism, which was drawn by Yuichi Shionoya as an ideal, could be derived by his method of institutional reform.

  In Shionoya’s economic ethics, through Schumpeter’s research, he explains that a society based on liberal perfectionism can be achieved when an elite, seeking his own excellence, leads the masses. However, his theory of institutional reform is problematic. Through his interpretation of Schumpeter, he advocates a democracy led by a referendum elected leader, in which institutional reform is promoted by the adaptation of the majority of average people and the creative destruction of a few elites. However, the majority may not accept the elite’s proposals for extraordinariness in an equality-seeking society. As a solution, Shionoya presented the possibility of deliberative democracy and civic virtue, but it did not fully answer the question. As a response to that problem, this paper presents the concept of political leadership; while it is extraordinary, in the sense that it destroys existing values and presents a new common good, it has the commonality that can disseminate the elite’s proposals to the majority.

  Since 1967, Syrian political writers have sought to identify the cause of “Arab defeat” through reference to their own religious traditions. In his Critique of Religious Thought (1969), Sadik Jalal al-Azm argued that religious thinking is not only contrary to scientific thinking, but also reinforces existing rules and orders, thus hindering all political and social liberation. In other words, according to Azm, a theological way of thinking is totally inconsistent with modernity, freedom and democracy.

  By contrast, Burhan Ghalioun was less critical of religion in his work Critique of Politics: State and Religion (1991). His analysis focuses on the distinct historical processes through which the state and religion developed, and whereby the former eventually came to overwhelm and dominate the latter, especially after the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. As Ghalioun notes, the reduction of all causes to “religious culture” runs the risk of essentialism, while overlooking the specific logic of politics, especially an alliance between secularism and authoritarianism in Arab countries.

  The purpose of this article is to examine how Syrian political thinkers have analyzed the different logics of politics and religion, thus identifying the relation between secularism and authoritarianism.