Illusion and Fetishism in Critical Theory: A study of Nietzsche, Benjamin, Castoriadis and the Situationists [Paperback]

Preface  Introduction  1.Alienation, Illusion, Fetishism and Non-Identity Thinking in Nietzsches Critical Theory  2. Negativity and Illusion in Walter Benjamins Dialectics  3.Cornelius Castoriadiss Social Imaginary, Socialism and Autonomy Reconsidered. A Critical Theory Reading  4. Debunking the Illusions of the Spectacle Through Negative Dialectics. How the Open Marxism of the Situationists Cracks Capitalism

Illusion and Fetishism in Critical Theory is a must read for scholars of political theory and political philosophy, critical theory, the Frankfurt School, Sociology, and in democratic theory.

In this exciting and important book, Vasilis Grollios looks at the complex relationship between the fetishism of the social forms and material essence through the lens of a negative dialectic. Working off his previous book on this subject, Grollios explores Nietzsche, Benjamin, Castoriadis and the Situationists in order to reveal how each of these thinkers engages in fundamentally Marxist understandings of this relationship without replicating the dangers that come from what might be called a positive dialectical outlook. This work is not hagiographic. These thinkers come in for their share of criticism but overall, Grollios shows how these authors demonstrate the power of materiality to resist phantasms of capitalism and how class struggle and alienation remain at the center of contemporary politics.

James Martel, Professor, Department of Political Science, San Francisco State University

Through the negative dialectics of Theodore Adorno, Illusion and Fetishism in Critical Theory offers an examination of Nietzsche, Benjamin, Castoriadis and the Situationists, who put the concept of illusion at the forefront of their philosophical thought.

l#y