From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@stanford.edu)
Date: Mon Nov 11 2002 - 03:24:25 EST
>Rakesh, > > Many thanks for the comments and the references. I'll check them out. > > John John, I haven never read Adorno's Negative Dialectics (which I know by way of Martin Jay's summary and discussion in Rolf Wiggershaus', Erik Krakauer's and Moishe Postone's books). Adorno's ideas about identity logic and negative dialectics are obviously more important than process philosophy to your work. For someone who has been put off by the economic or empirical deficit in Critical Theory, your work does show how our understanding of class realities and Marx's economic critique can indeed be enriched by a critical theoretical insights into the dialectic of the subject and object, the nature of classification, and reification (by the way, has Hardt or Negri spoken to your criticism?). Much of critical theory (Horkheimer's early essays, Dialectic of Enlightenment) had seemed to me too abstract before I saw how you drew from it in your critiques of traditional Marxism, autonomist Marxism and identity politics. I don't know whether process philosophy or vitalism has much relevance to your project. Just mentioned them because I had been reading about them in another context. Which has led me to wonder to what extent the reaction within Marxism against the Second International drew from and continues to owe to vitalist reactions to positivism and mechanism. Yours, rb
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