Critical Theory

Origins

Approximately seven decades ago, Max Horkheimer articulated the foundations of the social-theoretic school of thought that would be called critical theory. Horkheimer, along with Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and others affiliated primarily with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main, began to revisit Karl Marx's critique of capitalism and apply it to contemporary society.

The Frankfurt School founders drew to some extent from the idealism of George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as well in their development of dialectical means of analysis. The Hegelian source was far less important, however, than were Karl Marx and Max Weber. The difference of their approach was to situate it in immanent (knowledge within the realm of possible experience) terms rather than transcendent (the condition of the possibility of knowledge) terms. The role of history was central to Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse. For that reason, historical examination was, for them, an important element of analytical method. The historical was not merely arti-factual; it was essential to understanding of the social situatedness of contemporary social life.

Second Phase

Critical theory is usually separated into three stages. Following the work of the Frankfurt School members, some transformation of underlying principles, and so methods, was begun. Jürgen Habermas studied with founders of the Frankfurt School; his early work demonstrated his intellectual and practical debts to them. His analysis of the public sphere was firmly historical in that he drew his analysis from the manifestation of public political and social behavior. Habermas then began to turn to communication and language as the analytical and normative bases for inquiring into social action. The normative aspect is important as a distinguishing mark between his work and that of others who are linked to a movement sometimes called the “linguistic turn.” One element of consistency between the first and second stages of critical theory is the denial of relativism that can characterize other theoretical and methodological approaches.

Third Phase

Some students of Habermas further transformed some of the conceptual and analytical bases of critical theory. The third stage of work built on Habermas's critique of instrumental reason—something that he continued, but altered, from the Frankfurt School founders. During the third stage, the force of ideology and its influence on social action became more particularized. Analysis became, if anything, more immanent. The situatedness of specific human actors—and their historical development—was a methodological centerpiece. Also, the connection of ideology and the ethical analysis was strengthened.

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