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Contemporary critical theory's methodology is currently taking shape under the impact both of transformative internal develops within the discipline, and of external pressures and incentives arising from a series of international debates. In this book, Piet Strydom presents a groundbreaking treatment of critical theory's methodology, using as a base the reconstruction of the left-Hegelian tradition, the relation between critical theory and pragmatism, and the associated metatheoretical implications. He assesses extant positions, presents a detailed yet comprehensive restatement and development of critical theory's methodology, compares it with a wide range of current concepts of social criticism and critique, and analyzes leading critical theorists' exemplary applications of it. Besides immanent transcendence and the sign-mediated epistemology common to the left-Hegelian tradition, special attention is given to the abductive imagination, reconstruction, normative and causal explanation, explanatory mechanisms and the communicative framework which enables critical theory to link up with its addressees and the public. Contemporary Critical Theory and Methodology is recommended reading for senior undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as professionals working within disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, political science, critical theory and cultural studies.

The figure of thought Ananta Kumar Giri introduces in his poser, namely 'roots and routes', is thought-provoking. His interpretation of it is apparent from conceptual pairs such as 'tradition and modernity', 'home and world', 'near and far' and 'closed and open'. The dialectic these formulas capture allows him to offer a penetrating diagnosis of the currently fraught situation, particularly in parts of India, and to suggest ways of interpreting and ameliorating it. The key component of his proposal turns on a single vital idea expressed in a variety of ways: 'dynamic process', 'cross-fertilisation', 'border-crossing', 'bridging', 'translation' and 'communication'.

Investigating Habermas’s radicalization of the ontological turn in the philosophy of language that eventuated in his universal or formal pragmatics, this article finds that he has not pursued his avowed radicalization far enough. By contrast with his claim that due to its conceptual thrust his type of formal pragmatics is required over and above the empiricist approach to sharpen social analysis, it emerges that his three world-concepts are social-theoretically underspecified. The direction in which the proposed radicalization beyond Habermas is pursued is determined by the core assumption that the ontological properties at issue are of a cognitive nature. The central argument is therefore that the ontological turn in Critical Theory represented by Habermas needs to be cognitive-sociologically radicalized, the result of which is the introduction of the concept of the cognitive order of society. The unique ontological status of the cognitive order thus also needs explication. Finally, that the lack of this concept systematically leaves a conspicuous theoretical gap in contemporary Critical Theory is briefly indicated with reference to some recent key publications by Honneth and Forst and Günther.

These reflections are devoted to a critical comparison of three distinct interpretations of Habermas’s theory of truth. The first, which is presented as the more adequate interpretation, takes Habermas’s theory as having a three-moment structure, whereas the two remaining interpretations are both based on his two-moment conception of “Janus-faced truth”. Whereas Steven Levine stresses the nonepistemic lifeworld pole of the two-sided concept and Alex Seemann the opposite epistemic discursive pole, the three-moment interpretation counters with a synthetic conception which emphasises the role of the context-transcendent universalistic concept of truth. This overarching interpretation is inspired by a cognitive perspective concerned with the full circle of the sociocultural embodiment and realisation of reason.

By closely analysing the contributions of such theorists as More, Hobbes, Vico, Montesquieu, Ferguson and Millar to the emergence of sociology in its original form, Piet Strydom follows the discursive construction of sociology in the context of the society-wide early modern practical discourse about violence and rights. Parallels with the nineteenth- and twentieth-century discourse on poverty and justice and the contemporary discourse of risk and responsibility allow the author to reflect not only on the generation of knowledge through discourse but also on the role that sociology itself plays in this process.

The figure of thought Ananta Kumar Giri introduces in his poser, namely 'roots and routes', is thought-provoking. His interpretation of it is apparent from conceptual pairs such as 'tradition and modernity', 'home and world', 'near and far' and 'closed and open'. The dialectic these formulas capture allows him to offer a penetrating diagnosis of the currently fraught situation, particularly in parts of India, and to suggest ways of interpreting and ameliorating it. The key component of his proposal turns on a single vital idea expressed in a variety of ways: 'dynamic process', 'cross-fertilisation', 'border-crossing', 'bridging', 'translation' and 'communication'.

By closely analysing the contributions of such theorists as More, Hobbes, Vico, Montesquieu, Ferguson and Millar to the emergence of sociology in its original form, Piet Strydom follows the discursive construction of sociology in the context of the society-wide early modern practical discourse about violence and rights. Parallels with the nineteenth- and twentieth-century discourse on poverty and justice and the contemporary discourse of risk and responsibility allow the author to reflect not only on the generation of knowledge through discourse but also on the role that sociology itself plays in this process.

Comments on Ananta Kumar Giri's \"Gift of Knowledge: Knowing Together in Compassion and Confrontation\" (2011). Adapted from the source document.

Comments on Ananta Kumar Giri's \"Gift of Knowledge: Knowing Together in Compassion and Confrontation\" (2011). Adapted from the source document.