Frank Engster
Biographic Data
| ID | 2027161 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Frank Engster |
| GIVEN NAMES | Frank |
| FAMILY NAME | Engster |
| SIGNATURE | ENGSTER F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Helle Panke, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Germany |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Road to Hell is Paved with Dialectics
So fears the fictional spectator within the third act of Ludwig Tieck’s Die verkehrte Welt (Tieck 1978: 87). By the time it nears its conclusion, the 1797 play has become a quadruple play-within-a-play-within-a-play-within-a-play, with the character audience unable to tell what is fiction and what is reality, with Tieck undermining conventional narration as a parable of poetic fantasy and Romantic irony, part of that comic heritage extending from…
Sohn-Rethel’s Unity of the Critique of Society and the Critique of Epistemology, and his Theoretical Blind Spot
Sohn-Rethel’s great idea was to ‘socialise’ Kant’s transcendental subject by combining it with Marx’s commodity-form. In so doing, he took on three challenges simultaneously: a) the timeless validity of modern natural science; b) the social genesis of empirically pure forms of cognition; and c) socialisation occurring through a purely social synthesis. However, Sohn-Rethel construed Marx’s value-form analysis as an empirical exchange of commoditi…
Excerpt from Chapter One of Frank Engster’s Book
The question of the book is how a radical critique of capitalism is possible when critique in the tradition of Kant and Hegel means that the criticized subject itself has to “give” the measure of its critique. The thesis is that, while in Kant this reflexivity is achieved by transcendental subjectivity and reason and in Hegel by self-consciousness, self-relation of the concept and the absolute reason of spirit, in Marx we find a materialist turn.…
Alfred Sohn-Rethels große Idee und ihr Problem
L’article développe une critique immanente de Sohn-Rethel qui conserve ses questions épistémologiques mais y apporte une réponse différente. Contrairement à Sohn-Rethel, nous proposons de ne pas considérer l’argent comme un moyen d’échange, mais de comprendre ses différentes fonctions et cycles comme technique de mesure et de quantification et simultanément comme constitution des rapports mesurés et quantifiés, ainsi que comme une forme plus larg…
Measure, machine, money
The aim of the text is to clarify why machines are economically productive only in capitalism and therefore in our society are capitalistic machines. They are capitalist not only because they increase the productive power of the capitalist valorisation, but this valorisation first of all is producing these machines, or at least it produces their productivity and hence 'the machinic' of machines. To understand this production of the machinic, we m…
Machines and measure
This Special Issue, entitled 'Machines & Measure', is largely the dissemination from a workshop held at University of Leicester School of Business, organised by editor Phoebe V Moore, for the Conference for Socialist Economists South Group in February 2018, which was hosted by the University of Leicester School of Business, Philosophy and Political Economy Centre. Not all the authors in the Special Issue were speakers at the event, but this colle…
The search for (artificial) intelligence, in capitalism
Artificial intelligence is being touted as a new wave of machinic processing and productive potential. Building on concepts starting with the invention of the term artificial intelligence in the 1950s, now, machines can supposedly not only see, hear, and think, but also solve problems and learn, and in this way, it seems that actually there is a new form of humiliation for humans. This article starts with a historical overview of the forerunners …
Subjectivity and its crisis
Neither Critical Theory nor western Marxism ever understood crises as being solely concerned with the economy. Both saw them rather as necessarily involving consciousness and subjectivity as well. How does Critical Theory conceptualize economy and subjectivity as inseparable? This is the crucial question. Critical Theory claims, indeed, that it shows the inner connection between the economy and subjectivity. In its first generation, at any rate (…
Subjectivity and its crisis
Neither Critical Theory nor western Marxism ever understood crises as being solely concerned with the economy. Both saw them rather as necessarily involving consciousness and subjectivity as well. How does Critical Theory conceptualize economy and subjectivity as inseparable? This is the crucial question. Critical Theory claims, indeed, that it shows the inner connection between the economy and subjectivity. In its first generation, at any rate (…
Sohn-Rethel’s Unity of the Critique of Society and the Critique of Epistemology, and his Theoretical Blind Spot
Sohn-Rethel’s great idea was to ‘socialise’ Kant’s transcendental subject by combining it with Marx’s commodity-form. In so doing, he took on three challenges simultaneously: a) the timeless validity of modern natural science; b) the social genesis of empirically pure forms of cognition; and c) socialisation occurring through a purely social synthesis. However, Sohn-Rethel construed Marx’s value-form analysis as an empirical exchange of commoditi…
Measure, machine, money
The aim of the text is to clarify why machines are economically productive only in capitalism and therefore in our society are capitalistic machines. They are capitalist not only because they increase the productive power of the capitalist valorisation, but this valorisation first of all is producing these machines, or at least it produces their productivity and hence 'the machinic' of machines. To understand this production of the machinic, we m…
The search for (artificial) intelligence, in capitalism
Artificial intelligence is being touted as a new wave of machinic processing and productive potential. Building on concepts starting with the invention of the term artificial intelligence in the 1950s, now, machines can supposedly not only see, hear, and think, but also solve problems and learn, and in this way, it seems that actually there is a new form of humiliation for humans. This article starts with a historical overview of the forerunners …
Subjectivity and its crisis
Neither Critical Theory nor western Marxism ever understood crises as being solely concerned with the economy. Both saw them rather as necessarily involving consciousness and subjectivity as well. How does Critical Theory conceptualize economy and subjectivity as inseparable? This is the crucial question. Critical Theory claims, indeed, that it shows the inner connection between the economy and subjectivity. In its first generation, at any rate (…
Alfred Sohn-Rethels große Idee und ihr Problem
L’article développe une critique immanente de Sohn-Rethel qui conserve ses questions épistémologiques mais y apporte une réponse différente. Contrairement à Sohn-Rethel, nous proposons de ne pas considérer l’argent comme un moyen d’échange, mais de comprendre ses différentes fonctions et cycles comme technique de mesure et de quantification et simultanément comme constitution des rapports mesurés et quantifiés, ainsi que comme une forme plus larg…
Measure, machine, money
The aim of the text is to clarify why machines are economically productive only in capitalism and therefore in our society are capitalistic machines. They are capitalist not only because they increase the productive power of the capitalist valorisation, but this valorisation first of all is producing these machines, or at least it produces their productivity and hence 'the machinic' of machines. To understand this production of the machinic, we m…
Machines and measure
This Special Issue, entitled 'Machines & Measure', is largely the dissemination from a workshop held at University of Leicester School of Business, organised by editor Phoebe V Moore, for the Conference for Socialist Economists South Group in February 2018, which was hosted by the University of Leicester School of Business, Philosophy and Political Economy Centre. Not all the authors in the Special Issue were speakers at the event, but this colle…
The search for (artificial) intelligence, in capitalism
Artificial intelligence is being touted as a new wave of machinic processing and productive potential. Building on concepts starting with the invention of the term artificial intelligence in the 1950s, now, machines can supposedly not only see, hear, and think, but also solve problems and learn, and in this way, it seems that actually there is a new form of humiliation for humans. This article starts with a historical overview of the forerunners …
Excerpt from Chapter One of Frank Engster’s Book
The question of the book is how a radical critique of capitalism is possible when critique in the tradition of Kant and Hegel means that the criticized subject itself has to “give” the measure of its critique. The thesis is that, while in Kant this reflexivity is achieved by transcendental subjectivity and reason and in Hegel by self-consciousness, self-relation of the concept and the absolute reason of spirit, in Marx we find a materialist turn.…
Sohn-Rethel’s Unity of the Critique of Society and the Critique of Epistemology, and his Theoretical Blind Spot
Sohn-Rethel’s great idea was to ‘socialise’ Kant’s transcendental subject by combining it with Marx’s commodity-form. In so doing, he took on three challenges simultaneously: a) the timeless validity of modern natural science; b) the social genesis of empirically pure forms of cognition; and c) socialisation occurring through a purely social synthesis. However, Sohn-Rethel construed Marx’s value-form analysis as an empirical exchange of commoditi…
The Road to Hell is Paved with Dialectics
So fears the fictional spectator within the third act of Ludwig Tieck’s Die verkehrte Welt (Tieck 1978: 87). By the time it nears its conclusion, the 1797 play has become a quadruple play-within-a-play-within-a-play-within-a-play, with the character audience unable to tell what is fiction and what is reality, with Tieck undermining conventional narration as a parable of poetic fantasy and Romantic irony, part of that comic heritage extending from…
Economics (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Political Economy and Marxism (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Capitalism (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Critical Theory and Philosophy (3 works)