Leaving it to the Dialectical Imagination

159 REVIEWS feminist project in France, is an excerpt from de Beauvoir's seminal text, 7Ae Second Sex. The book then proceeds with selections grouped dialecticaUy with all excerpts written from 1968 to the present in order to provide current entries. "Démystifications" analyzes the major male modes ofcommunication and the dangerous power residing within such modes. "Warnings" takes a more active stand on issues. Interestingly enough, the majority of these feminists assert that Marxist/socialist movements have not adequately confronted feminine issues. Therefore, "Creations," the following section, emphasizes the necessity for strictly feminist investigations and the need to connect a woman's unconscious and her language in order to counterbalance the damaging precedents established by a phallocentric culture. With selections aimed towards more concrete action, "Manifestoes-Actions" focuses on single issues such as contraception, abortion reform, and prostitution. This discussion of common themes for women comes closest to the concerns most often associated with American feminists. The tone of the writers is strong and compelling yet self-reflexive as well. They fear that if reforms are enacted, feminists might cling to the status quo as male activists have done in the past to their great detriment. Only in the final section entitled "Utopias" does the text lean towards idealities for the women's movement, towards the belief in a new and more humane mode of existence. The editors ofNew French Feminisms provide a perceptive introduction to and overview of the women's movement in France. If some of the selections are far too brief, this flaw must be overlooked because brevity permits the wide-ranging selections. One can only trust that such a text wiU stimulate the demand for more complete translations of French feminists very soon. Linda Saladin LEAVING IT TO THE DIALECTICAL IMAGINATION David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. University of California Press, 1980. 511 pp. $12.75 Any attempt to look back and see with fresh eyes an ensemble of texts by a school of interdisciplinary scholars deserves recognition. For it is, in fact, an act of survival. But while David Held's Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas is admirable for its intent, the book fails to provide a comprehensive introduction to the Institute for Social Research, the Frankfurt School. The book's scope is enormous: it examines the main influences on critical theory, expounds upon a number of thematic concerns, and assesses the implications and limitations of the School's work. But the book fails to fulfill its own aspirations. The examination of critical theory's role and contributions to twentieth century thought is presented primarily through a focus on the works of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and the later Habermas. While these are not the only scholars affiliated with the Institute for Social Research, Held considers them the central figures of critical theory, and for them he reserves the term "Frankfurt School." Through a discussion of their ideas, Held shows the School's anti-reductionist, anti-positivist philosophy, whose concern with the individual in modern society added substantial contributions to Marxist thinking. However, the discussion is too partial and fragmented. The book discusses influences, themes, and contributions. The exploration of the main historic and philosophical influences (Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Lukács) upon the various members of the Institute is a dialogue of dangling conversations. Secondly, the examination of the Institute's major thematic concerns is weakened by the limitations of the immense intellectual grasp that any one person must possess in order to adequately present the issues. As one scholar of the Frankfurt School, Martin Jay, says, perhaps any comprehensive analysis of such a diverse grouping would require an entire team of scholars to do it justice. Finally, the book's evaluation of critical theory's assumptions and implications is marred by a simplistic 160 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW presentation of the positions held by a number of the Frankfurt School critics as weU as an indifference to the way certain aspects of the Frankfurt tradition are being carried on today by contemporary schools ofthought. Beginning with his exploration of thé various theoretical and philosophical ancestors to the Frankfurt School, Held pursues a path of inconsistent dialogues. Particularly in the...