School · 1892 CE–present
Critical theory
Critical theory is social critique associated with the Frankfurt School and its successors, linking philosophy to political economy, culture, domination, and emancipation.
Shared questions
- How can critique diagnose forms of domination while retaining grounds for emancipation?
Internal disagreements
- Whether reason is chiefly an instrument of administration, a resource for democratic freedom, or both.
Key texts
- Dialectic of Enlightenment · 1944 — Written by Horkheimer and Adorno in Californian exile and circulated in mimeograph before publication.
- The Theory of Communicative Action · 1981 — Habermas's attempt to give critical theory the normative ground he judged the first generation lacked.