ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that both Diasporic Philosophy and Counter-Education Project are developed by Gur-Ze'ev as a critique of the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory. According to Gur-Ze'ev, Walter Benjamin's philosophy has two distinct utopian components: one positive and another negative. The Jewish prohibition of positing the Absolute, God, is according to Gur-Ze'ev at the centre of Horkheimer's understanding that knowledge and truth is something that is verifiable and changeable, requiring to be contextualised historically, socially, and culturally – thus, differing from ‘traditional theory’, which conceives of knowledge and truth in Absolute terms. The chapter discusses that Gur-Ze'ev places Critical Pedagogy, the pedagogical branch of Critical Theory, as being directly related to the first phase of Critical Theory and to positive utopia, whilst positioning himself and his Counter-Education Project as being immediately associated with the second phase, and to the notion of negative utopia.
