The New School
Visual and Cultural Studies
During the Enlightenment, the emphasis in both cultural critique and social reform was on
a. reason as a way out of the dogma ("appeal to authority") and absolutism of the Middle Ages, and
b. the privilege claimed by the ruling class since the Fifteenth Century.
Human freedom and autonomy -- two concepts of emerging importance -- were thought to be achievable primarily through a combination of
a. objective observation,b. reason, andc. critique.
What does this mean and what were the assumptions lying behind these concepts?
a. Objective observation of the world around us provides unmediated access to reality. (Galileo)b. Reason, the essence and defining feature of human nature, is considered to be a natural endowment equally distributed among all human beings. (Descartes)c. The route to truth, which bypasses entrenched dogma, is through the practice of critique, i.e approaching life critically by examining and questioning all beliefs and claims to truth. (Socrates, Kant)
Kant's Critical Philosophy
1. Distinction between freedom (of the Will) and autonomy (thinking for oneself).2. Investigation of the a priori conditions for the possibility of experience.
Hermeneutics rejected objectivity as practically unachievable and emphasized the value of subjective experience.
Basic Assumptions of Hermeneutics
1. Cultural products are "texts" (understood in a broad sense) and must be interpreted as such.2. The primary function of a text is to communicate meaning from an "author" to a "reader".3. The primary aim of textual analysis is understanding, not explanation.4. "Language", also understood in a broad sense, is the primary medium of the communication of meanings.
This paralleled the shift in European thought of the Nineteenth Century to
a. imagination (Romanticism) andb. ethical judgment in philosophy and the arts; as well asc. an increasing interest in communication and interpretation, which had the unfortunate effect of weakening the critical aspect of culture, while strengthening the value placed on the individual.
Marx and materialism generally rejected
a. hermeneutics' reliance on subjective imagination, andb. its lack of criticality.
Culture was viewed by Marx largely as a by-product of economic (material) relations -- an aspect of ideology which serves to maintain the status quo and make oppressive conditions appear "natural".
Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory
However, as physiological and rational explanations of "abnormal" human behavior appeared increasingly inadequate, Freud developed a new explanatory theory based on the unconscious, i.e. an aspect of the mind which lies between the purely material, biological level and conscious thought and perception.
According to Freud, since human behavior is shaped by unconscious desires, rational control, hermeneutic understanding, and social and economic reorganization cannot fully explain it.
T. R. Quigley, 2002