Philosophy@UWS Postgraduate Workshop

Abstract: It can be argued that the very definition of what a contemporary critical social philosophy can and should do is dependent on the very notion of power employed. Social critique might be conceived of as either the detection of impediments to individual agency or as a more general assessment of power relations. Though the former option remains more prominent in social theory today (and might be traced back to the tradition from Hobbes to Weber), the latter (referring to authors like Spinoza, Arendt or Foucault) is broader in scope and might be particularly useful for the project of a contemporary critical analysis of the social.

Biographical Note: Martin Saar’s first book was on the concept of genealogy, Genealogie als Kritik. Geschichte und Theorie des Subjekts nach Nietzsche und Foucault (Campus Verlag, 2007). His second book, Die Immanenz der Macht. Politische Theorie nach Spinoza (Suhrkamp, 2013), is on Spinoza’s political theory.

Required reading: Martin Saar (2010), “Power and Critique”, Journal of Power, 3: 1, 7-20.

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