Course info

Needs are central to many social controversies, but widely regarded as non-negotiable. The latter is due to the nature-like quality of many needs, but also to the assumption that the needs, interests and desires of individuals are simply given. Critical theory offers an alternative approach that seeks to analyse the formation of needs, thus turning them into objects of critical analysis and debate. In the Summer School, we will reconstruct this approach and discuss its current relevance by confronting it with prominent positions in the contemporary philosophical debate on needs.

The Summer School will involve plenary lectures and discussions, reading sessions, small group discussions and panel debates. Only the panel debates will be open to the broader public. We will explore classical approaches such as Marx on the production of needs, Theodor Adorno’s »Theses on Needs«, and Herbert Marcuse’s analysis of false needs while also engaging with the work of leading contemporary theorists: Maeve Cooke, Nancy Fraser, Lawrence Hamilton, Sarah Clark Miller, and Frank Nullmeier will participate and discuss their work.