Critical Theory

Critical Theory refers to the work of the so-called Frankfurt School, the Institute of Social Research, which was established in Frankfurt in 1923, relocated in the USA in the 1930s, and was re-established in Frankfurt in the early 1950s. The Institute was dissolved in 1969. Two phases in the development of critical theory can be identified. The first was associated with the theorists who dominated the institute’s work in the pre-war and early post-war period, notably Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse. The second phase stems from the work of the major post-war exponent of critical theory, Habermas.

Critical theory does not and has never constituted a unified body of work. However, certain general themes tend to distinguish Frankfurt thinkers as a school. The original intellectual and political inspiration for critical theory was Marxism. However, critical theorists were repelled by Stalinism, criticized the determinist and scientistic tendencies in orthodox Marxism, and were disillusioned by the failure of Marx’s predictions about the inevitable collapse of capitalism. Frankfurt thinkers therefore developed a form of neo-Marxism that focused more heavily upon the analysis of ideology than upon economics and no longer treated the proletariat as the revolutionary agent. They also blended Marxist insights with the ideas of thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Weber and Freud. Critical theory is characterized by the attempt to extend the notion of critique to all social practices by linking substantive social research to philosophy. In so doing, it not merely looks beyond the classical principles and methodology of Marxism but also cuts across a range of traditionally discrete disciplines, including economics, sociology, philosophy, psychology and literary criticism.

Critical theory has itself attracted criticism, however. First-generation Frankfurt thinkers in particular were criticized for advancing a theory of social transformation that was often disengaged from the ongoing social struggle. Moreover, they were accused of over-emphasizing the capacity of capitalism to absorb oppositional forces, and thus of underestimating the crisis tendencies within capitalist society. On the other hand, critical theory has brought about important political and social insights through the cross-fertilization of academic disciplines and by straddling the divide between Marxism and conventional social theory. It has also provided a continuingly fertile and imaginative perspective from which the problems and contradictions of existing society can be explored.

Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) A German philosopher and social psychol-ogist, Horkheimer pioneered the interdisciplinary approach that was to become characteristic of critical theory. His principal concern was to analyse the psychic and ideological mechanisms through which class societies contain conflict. He explained totalitarianism in terms of the psychological, racial and political tendencies of liberal capitalism, and argued that the advent of ‘mass society’ and the dominance of the ‘culture industry’ had made old ideological divisions irrelevant and threatened permanently to subordinate individual freedom. Horkheimer’s major works include Studies on Authority and the Family (with Erich Fromm) (1936), Dialectic of Enlightenment (with Theodor Adorno) (1944) and The Eclipse of Reason (1974).

Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) A German political philosopher and social theorist, Marcuse portrayed advanced industrial society as an all-encompass-ing system of repression, which subdues argument and debate and absorbs all forms of opposition. Against this ‘one-dimensional society’, he held up the unashamedly utopian prospect of personal and sexual liberation, looking not to the conventional working class as a revolutionary force but to groups such as students, ethnic minorities, women and workers in the developing world. Marcuse had a major influence on the New Left of the 1960s. His most important works include Reason and Revolution (1941), Eros and Civilization ([1955] 1969) and One-Dimensional Man (1964).

Theodor Adorno (1903–69) A German philosopher, sociologist and musicologist, Adorno made important contributions to the critique of mass culture. With Horkheimer, he developed a new socio–cultural theory that centred on the advance of ‘instrumental reason’ rather than the Marxist idea of class struggle. Adorno interpreted culture and mass communication as political instruments through which dominant ideologies are imposed upon society, producing conformism and paralysing individual thought and behaviour. He also helped to provide the theoretical basis for a psychological theory of authoritarianism. Adorno’s best-known writings include The Authoritarian Personality (1950), Minima Moralia (1951) and Negative Dialectics (1966).

Ju¨rgen Habermas (1929– ) A German philosopher and social theorist, Habermas is the leading exponent of the ‘second generation’ of the Frankfurt School. Habermas’ work ranges over epistemology, the dynamics of advanced capitalism, the nature of rationality, and the relationship between social science and philosophy. He has highlighted the ‘crisis tendencies’ in capitalist society that result from tensions between capital accumulation and democracy. His analysis of rationality has developed critical theory into what has become a theory of ‘communicative action’. Habermas’s main works include Towards Rational Society (1970), Legitimation Crisis (1975) and The Theory of Communicative Competence (1984).