Hauke Brunkhorst: Critical Theory of Legal Revolutions: Evolutionary Perspectives

Critical theory was always characterized by a particular attempt to develop a general theory of society on the basis of an integrative approach combining philosophy and sociology and normative and descriptive dimensions. In Frankfurt, the original epicentre of this particular school of thought, this has however come to an end. Contemporary Frankfurt theorists essentially have abandoned the sociological and descriptive dimension and recast what is left of the Frankfurt School into a subdivision of Anglo-American analytical political philosophy. As apparent from the book under review and his entire oeuvre, Hauke Brunkhorst, the last of the Mohicans of real Frankfurt-style critical theory, has always resented this development. He has therefore found himself in internal exile at the University of Flensburg, the intellectual equivalent of Siberia in the German academic context, for the last few decades. The exceptional brilliance of the book under review thereby confirms the old insight, illustrated again and again throughout history, that the best books tend to be written in exile, by authors who did not correspond to the prevailing Zeitgeist but who nonetheless choose to stick to their guns.

Kjær, Poul F: Hauke Brunkhorst: Critical Theory of Legal Revolutions: Evolutionary Perspectives, p. 312-318, in Journal of Law and Society, Volume 42, Issue 2, June 2015, DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6478.2015.00710.x