法兰克福学派的大众文化批判理论及其启示

大众文化批判是法兰克福学派最富特征的理论之一。法兰克福学派在不同时期对肯定文化、大众文化和文化工业进行了长达半个多世纪的批判,透过大众化和通俗化的表面现象揭示了大众文化的商品化、齐一性和强制性的根本特征及其危害。法兰克福学派的大众文化批判理论是有明显的局限和缺陷的,但同时对我们也有现实的启发意义。     

Effect of Head Position on Facial Soft Tissue Depth Measurements Obtained Using Computed Tomography

Facial soft tissue depth (FSTD) studies employing clinical computed tomography (CT) data frequently rely on depth measurements from raw 2D orthoslices. However, the position of each patient's head was not standardized in this method, potentially decreasing measurement reliability and accuracy. This study measured FSTDs along the original orthoslice plane and compared these measurements to those standardized by the Frankfurt horizontal (FH). Subadult cranial CT scans (n = 115) were used to measure FSTDs at 18 landmarks. Significant differences were observed between the methods at eight of these landmarks (p < 0.05), demonstrating that high‐quality data are not generated simply by employing modern imaging modalities such as CT. Proper technique is crucial to useful results, and maintaining control over head position during FSTD data collection is important. This is easily and most readily achieved in CT techniques by rotating the head to the FH plane after constructing a 3D rendering of the data.     

Hope and Critical Theory

Abstract

In the first part of the paper I consider the relative neglect of hope in the tradition of critical theory. I attribute this neglect to a low estimation of the cognitive, aesthetic, and moral value of hope, and to the strong—but, argue, contingent—association that holds between hope and religion. I then distinguish three strategies for thinking about the justification of social hope; one which appeals to a notion of unfulfilled or frustrated natural human capacities, another which invokes a providential order, and a third which questions the very appropriateness of justification, turning instead to a notion of ungroundable hope. Different senses of ungroundable hope are distinguished and by way of conclusion I briefly consider their relevance for the project of critique today.     

Examining Honneth’s Positive Theory of Recognition

ABSTRACT

In this article I examine Axel Honneth’s positive theory of recognition. While commentators agree that Honneth’s theory qualifies as a positive theory of recognition, I believe that the deeper reason for why this is an apt characterisation is not yet fully understood. I argue that, instead of considering only what it is to recognise another person and what it means for a person to be recognised, we need to focus our attention on how Honneth pictures the practice of recognition as a whole, which according to him works to make societies into places of greater freedom. This conception of recognition as a freedom-enhancing practice is supposed to provide a solution to a key problem of Frankfurt School critical theory, namely of how to determine the emancipatory practice in which critical theory is rooted, which becomes apparent as soon as one turns to the context in which Honneth originally develops his theory of recognition. At the end of the article, I offer a few reasons for doubting the overly positive picture of the practice of recognition that Honneth provides us with.