What happens when “reason” is in decline, when the world appears to be moving in the direction of irrationality and political pathology? Martin Jay discusses how two Frankfurt School thinkers, Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas, tried to salvage a critical version of reason. Whereas Adorno looked to art and aesthetics, Habermas appealed to practices of interpersonal communication and argumentation. (Encore presentation.)
Martin Jay, Reason after Its Eclipse: On Late Critical Theory University of Wisconsin Press, 2016