Ethics at a Standstill: History and Subjectivity in Levinas and the Frankfurt School

Asher Horowitz explores the philosophies of Levinas and the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School, demonstrating the ways in which their works diverge from and complement each other. As Horowitz explains, the manner in which these thinkers are here related to each other resembles Adorno's suggestion, or even program, for thinking in constellations. Demonstrating an authoritative command of both the thinkers themselves -- including Benjamin, Horkheimer, and Marcuse -- and the various philosophical contexts (German idealism, phenomenology, Marxism, psychoanalysis) in which they are embedded, Horowitz offers a politically thoughtful and philosophically provocative analysis based on a wide range of texts and a critical reconstruction and confrontation between the positions. While a few studies have previously addressed the philosophical relationship between Levinas and Adorno, in particular, Ethics at a Standstill is unique in arguing that each of these ways of thinking calls forth from the other, respectively, a social-critical and ethical supplement that is insufficiently developed in their own work.