Christoph Henning (Erfurt): Marx’s Critical Theory and its Absence in Contemporary Social Philosophy

Karl Marx started his career as a philosopher, and philosophical topics remain visible even in Capital. Twentiethcentury philosophers such as Sartre, Adorno, and Negri were often inspired by Marx, but in the twenty-first century there is not much ‘Marxism’ left in social philosophy, even in the midst of an intensified debate about capitalism. This lecture will suggest some reasons for this disappearance, such as the ‘normative’ misreadings of the later Frankfurt School. It will also present an alternative reading of Marx’s philosophy, reconstructing his work as a Critical Theory that is still impressive as a social philosophy of contemporary society.

Christoph Henning is Junior Fellow for Philosophy at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at Erfurt University. His research interests lie in social, cultural, and political philosophy, critical theory, and the history of thought. His books include Philosophy after Marx: 100 Years of Misreadings and the Normative Turn in Political Philosophy (2015), Theorien der Entfremdung zur Einführung (2015), and Marx und die Folgen (2017).