Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.21464/fi36210

Philosophical (Self)Critique of Literature: Lionel Trilling and the “Adversary Culture”

Predrag Brebanović ; Univerzitet u Beogradu, Filološki fakultet, Studentski trg 3, RS–11000 Beograd

Abstract

In this paper, Lionel Trilling’s concept of “adversary culture” is introductorily expounded and compared with Herbert Marcuse’s idea of “affirmative character of culture” and Hannah Arendt’s notion of “crisis of culture”, and then it is discussed against the backdrop of its subsequent interpretations by Raymond Williams, Daniel Bell, Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and Jürgen Habermas. The analysis of Trilling’s view of the relationship between the culture and the self foregrounds the turn towards philosophical criticism, which was developed in Trilling’s writings in pair with his gradual distancing from the “adversary” domain of culture. This turn is perceived as a symptom of a broader and more profound trajectory of Trilling’s thought, away from literature and its culture­based literary studies, through the history of ideas, and towards “pure” philosophy.

Keywords

culture; cultural critique; liberalism; neoconservativism; psychoanalysis; philosophical critique; history of ideas; Lionel Trilling

Hrčak ID:

173360

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/173360

Publication date:

27.9.2016.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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