"Language and Critical Theory": Conference at the Schlaues Haus

The Smart House Oldenburg (Schlossplatz 16) will host an international conference on "Language and Critical Theory" from 13 to 15 December. The conference is being organised by the Adorno Research Centre in co-operation with the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.

"Language has played a central role in the various approaches of critical theory not only since the linguistic turn propagated by Habermas," explains Prof. Dr Johann Kreuzer, professor of philosophy and, together with Philip Hogh, one of the organisers of the conference. It has been of constitutive importance for epistemology and social theory, as well as for the philosophy of history and art, from the very beginning.

The explicit debate ranges from Walter Benjamin's work on language to Horkheimer's and Adorno's reflections on the logic of judgement and his considerations on the linguistic form of art to Habermas' approach to communication theory. The aim of the conference, which will be attended by speakers from Germany, France, Great Britain, the USA and the Netherlands, is to analyse the linguistic-philosophical considerations of critical theory from its beginnings to the present day. The aim is to identify connections and references to other schools of thought in the humanities and social sciences for whose conceptualisation language is relevant.