critical theory

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Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups.{{Cite web |title=Critical theory |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-theory |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=Britannica |language=en |quote="Marxist-inspired movement in social and political philosophy originally associated with the work of the Frankfurt School. Drawing particularly on the thought of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, critical theorists maintain that a primary goal of philosophy is to understand and to help overcome the social structures through which people are dominated and oppressed."}} Beyond just understanding and critiquing these dynamics, it explicitly aims to transform society through praxis and collective action with an explicit sociopolitical purpose.Ludovisi, S.G. ed., 2015. Critical theory and the challenge of praxis: Beyond reification. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.{{Cite SEP |last=Bohman |first1=James |last2=Flynn |first2=Jeffrey |last3=Celikates |first3=Robin |title=Critical Theory |url-id=critical-theory |edition=Fall 2016|quote="Critical theory refers to a family of theories that aim at a critique and transformation of society (...) overcoming the gap between theory and practice has been a central methodological and political concern for critical theorists" }}{{cite book |last1=Elizabeth |first1=Depoy |title=Naturalistic Designs |date=2016|quote="Critical theory represents a complex set of strategies that are united by the commonality of sociopolitical purpose. Critical theorists seek to understand human experience as a means to change the world."}}

Critical theory's main tenets center on analyzing systemic power relations in society, focusing on the dynamics between groups with different levels of social, economic, and institutional power.Horkheimer, M., Adorno, T.W. and Noeri, G., 2002. Dialectic of enlightenment. Stanford University Press.Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum, 1970. Unlike traditional social theories that aim primarily to describe and understand society, critical theory explicitly seeks to critique and transform it. Thus, it positions itself as both an analytical framework and a movement for social change.Horkheimer, M., 1972. Traditional and critical theory. Critical theory: Selected essays, 188(243), pp.1-11.Marcuse, H., 2013. One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Routledge.How, A., 2017. Critical theory. Bloomsbury Publishing. Critical theory examines how dominant groups and structures influence what society considers objective truth, challenging the very notion of pure objectivity and rationality by arguing that knowledge is shaped by power relations and social context.{{Cite book |title=Naturalistic Designs (2016) |quote="Critical theory is a response to post-Enlightenment philosophies and positivism in particular. Critical theorists 'deconstruct' the notion that there is a unitary truth that can be known by using one way or method."}}Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory. "Horkheimer and his followers rejected the notion of objectivity in knowledge by pointing, among other things, to the fact that the object of knowledge is itself embedded into a historical and social process: 'The facts which our senses present to us are socially preformed in two ways: through the historical character of the object perceived and through the historical character of the perceiving organ' (Horkheimer [1937] in Ingram and Simon-Ingram 1992, p. 242). Further, with a rather Marxist twist, Horkheimer noticed also that phenomenological objectivity is a myth because it is dependent upon 'technological conditions' and the latter are sensitive to the material conditions of production. Critical Theory aims thus to abandon naïve conceptions of knowledge-impartiality. Since intellectuals themselves are not disembodied entities observing from a God's viewpoint, knowledge can be obtained only from a societal embedded perspective of interdependent individuals."Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. Pantheon Books, 1977. Key principles of critical theory include examining intersecting forms of oppression, emphasizing historical contexts in social analysis, and critiquing capitalist structures. The framework emphasizes praxis (combining theory with action) and highlights how lived experience, collective action, ideology, and educational systems play crucial roles in maintaining or challenging existing power structures.McKerrow, R.E., 1989. Critical rhetoric: Theory and praxis. Communications Monographs, 56(2), pp.91-111.Bronner, S.E., 2017. Critical theory: A very short introduction (Vol. 263). Oxford University Press.Steffy, B., & Grimes, A., 1986. A Critical Theory of Organization Science. Academy of Management Review, 11, pp. 322-336.Masschelein, J., 2004. How to Conceive of Critical Educational Theory Today. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 38, pp. 351-367

The historical evolution of critical theory traces back to the first generation of the Frankfurt School in the 1920s. Figures like Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and others sought to expand traditional Marxist analysis by incorporating insights from psychology, culture, and philosophy, moving beyond pure economic determinism.Rush, F.L. and Rush, F. eds., 2004. The Cambridge companion to critical theory. Cambridge University Press.{{Cite web|url=https://iep.utm.edu/critical-theory-frankfurt-school/|title=The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}Kellner, D., 1989. Critical Theory, Marxism and Modernity. Polity.{{cite book |last=Outhwaite |first=William |orig-date=1988 |date=2009 |title=Habermas: Key Contemporary Thinkers |edition=2nd |isbn=978-0745643281 |pages=5–8|publisher=Polity }}Adorno, T.W., 1990. Negative dialectics. Routledge. Their work was significantly influenced by Freud's psychoanalytic theories, particularly how subjective experience shaped human consciousness, behavior, and social reality.Genel, K., 2016. The Frankfurt School and Freudo-Marxism: On the Plurality of Articulations between Psychoanalysis and Social Theory. Actuel Marx, pp. 10-25.Whitebook J. The marriage of Marx and Freud: Critical Theory and psychoanalysis. In: Rush F, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge University Press; 2004:74-102. Freud's concept that an individual's lived experience could differ dramatically from objective reality aligned with critical theory's critique of positivism, science, and pure rationality.

Critical theory continued to evolve beyond the first generation of the Frankfurt School. Jürgen Habermas, often identified with the second generation, shifted the focus toward communication and the role of language in social emancipation. Around the same time, post-structuralist and postmodern thinkers, including Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, were reshaping academic discourse with critiques of knowledge, meaning, power, institutions, and social control with deconstructive approaches that further challenged assumptions about objectivity and truth. Though neither Foucault nor Derrida belonged formally to the Frankfurt School tradition, their works profoundly influenced later formulations of critical theory.Landry, L.Y., 2000. Beyond the 'French Fries and the Frankfurter' An agenda for critical theory. Philosophy & social criticism, 26(2), pp.99-129. Collectively, the post-structuralist and postmodern insights expanded the scope of critical theory, weaving cultural and linguistic critiques into its Marxian roots.{{cite book |last=Ritzer |first=George |chapter=Sociological Theory |title=From Modern to Postmodern Social Theory (and Beyond) |publisher=McGraw-Hill Higher Education |location=New York, New York |date=2008 |pages=567–568}}{{Cite book |title=Critical Theory and Society: A Reader |publisher=Routledge |year=1990}}

With the emigration of Herbert Marcuse, contemporary critical theory has expanded to the United States and today it covers a wide range of social critique within economics, ethics, history, law, politics, psychology, and sociology, with a diverse list of subjects including critical animal studies, critical criminology, dependency theory and imperialism studies, critical environmental justice, feminist theory and gender studies, critical historiography, intersectionality, critical legal studies, critical pedagogy, postcolonialism, critical race theory, queer theory, and critical terrorism studies.Abromeit, J. and Cobb, W.M. eds., 2014. Herbert Marcuse: A critical reader. Routledge.Jay, M., 1996. The dialectical imagination: A history of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950 (No. 10). Univ of California Press.Wiggershaus, R. (1995). The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance (M. Robertson, Trans.). MIT Press{{Cite web |title=The Left Hemisphere |url=https://www.versobooks.com/products/2321-the-left-hemisphere |access-date=2023-05-18 |website=Verso |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide |url=https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Theory-Today-A-User-Friendly-Guide/Tyson/p/book/9780367709426 |access-date=2023-05-18 |website=Routledge & CRC Press |language=en}} Modern critical theory represents a movement away from Marxism's purely economic analysis to a broader examination of social and cultural power structures with the incorporation and transformation of Freudian concepts and postmodernism, while retaining Marxism's emphasis on analyzing how dominant groups and systems shape and control society through exploitation and oppression{{cite book |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139196598.007 |last=Fuchs |first=Christian |author-link=Christian Fuchs |chapter=What is Critical Theory? |title=Foundations of Critical Theory |publisher=Routledge |date=2021 |pages=17–51|doi=10.1017/CBO9781139196598.007 }} along with social and political praxis, the adaptation and reformulation of multiple Marxian conceptual frameworks (including alienation, reification, ideology, emancipation, base and superstructure), and a general skepticism towards and critique of capitalism.

Criticism of critical theory have come from various intellectual perspectives. Critics have raised concerns about critical theory's reliance on Marxist revisionismDisco, Cornelis. "Critical theory as ideology of the new class: Rereading Jürgen Habermas." Theory and Society (1979): 159-214.Anderson, P. (1976). Considerations on Western Marxism.Kolakowski, L., 1978. Main currents of Marxism: its rise, growth, and dissolution. Philosophy, 54(210). and its frequent emphasis on subjective narratives, which can sometimes be at odds with empirical methodologies.Morrow, R.A., Morrow, R.A. and Brown, D.D., 1994. Critical theory and methodology (Vol. 3). Sage.Thompson, M.J., 2016. The domestication of critical theory. Rowman & Littlefield.Oliveira, G.C., 2018. Reconstructive methodology and critical international relations theory. Contexto Internacional, 40(01), pp.09-32. They also point to issues of circular reasoning and a lack of falsifiability in some critical theory arguments, as well as an epistemological and methodological stance that challenges or conflicts with traditional scientific methods and ideals of rationality and objectivity.Latour, B., 2004. Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical inquiry, 30(2), pp.225-248.Crews, F. 1986, Skeptical engagements, Oxford University Press, New York.Gross, P.R. and Levitt, N., 1997. Higher superstition. JHU Press.Sokal, A.D. and Bricmont, J., 1999. Fashionable nonsense. Macmillan.Otto, S., 2016. The war on science.Fuller, S. (2017). Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game{{Cite web |url=https://nationalpost.com/opinion/bruce-pardy-how-canadas-secular-religion-of-cultural-self-hate-took-hold |title=Bruce Pardy, "How Canada's secular religion of cultural self-hate took hold" |access-date=2025-01-10}}

History

Max Horkheimer first defined critical theory ({{langx|de|kritische Theorie}}) in his 1937 essay "Traditional and Critical Theory", as a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only toward understanding or explaining it. Wanting to distinguish critical theory as a radical, emancipatory form of Marxist philosophy, Horkheimer critiqued both the model of science put forward by logical positivism, and what he and his colleagues saw as the covert positivism and authoritarianism of orthodox Marxism and Communism. He described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them".Horkheimer 1982, p. 244. Critical theory involves a normative dimension, either by criticizing society in terms of some general theory of values or norms (oughts), or by criticizing society in terms of its own espoused values (i.e. immanent critique).{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/critical-theory/ |chapter=Critical Theory |title=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |last=Bohman |first=James |date=8 March 2005 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Fall 2016 |archive-date=13 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190613210654/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/critical-theory/ |url-status=live}} Significantly, critical theory not only conceptualizes and critiques societal power structures, but also establishes an empirically grounded model to link society to the human subject.{{Citation |last1=Bohman |first1=James |title=Critical Theory |date=2021 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/critical-theory/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Spring 2021 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=2022-06-10 |last2=Flynn |first2=Jeffrey |last3=Celikates |first3=Robin}} It defends the universalist ambitions of the tradition, but does so within a specific context of social-scientific and historical research.

The core concepts of critical theory are that it should:

be directed at the totality of society in its historical specificity (i.e., how it came to be configured at a specific point in time)
improve understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including geography, economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology

Postmodern critical theory is another major product of critical theory. It analyzes the fragmentation of cultural identities in order to challenge modernist-era constructs such as metanarratives, rationality, and universal truths, while politicizing social problems "by situating them in historical and cultural contexts, to implicate themselves in the process of collecting and analyzing data, and to relativize their findings".{{sfn|Lindlof|Taylor|2002|p=[https://archive.org/details/qualitativecommu00lind/page/49 49]|ps=: "forms of authority and injustice that accompanied the evolution of industrial and corporate capitalism as a political-economic system.}}

= Marx =

Marx explicitly developed the notion of critique into the critique of ideology, linking it with the practice of social revolution, as stated in the 11th section of his Theses on Feuerbach: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm |title=Theses on Feuerbach |others=§XI |publisher=Marxists Internet Archive |access-date=11 April 2015 |archive-date=16 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150416221439/https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm |url-status=live}} In early works, including The German Ideology, Marx developed his concepts of false consciousness and of ideology as the interests of one section of society masquerading as the interests of society as a whole.

= Adorno and Horkheimer =

One of the distinguishing characteristics of critical theory, as Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer elaborated in their Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), is an ambivalence about the ultimate source or foundation of social domination, an ambivalence that gave rise to the "pessimism" of the new critical theory about the possibility of human emancipation and freedom.Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. [1947] 2002. Dialectic of Enlightenment, translated by E. Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 242. This ambivalence was rooted in the historical circumstances in which the work was originally produced, particularly the rise of Nazism, state capitalism, and culture industry as entirely new forms of social domination that could not be adequately explained in the terms of traditional Marxist sociology.Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Horkheimer and Adorno". In The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, translated by F. Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. p. 116: "Critical Theory was initially developed in Horkheimer's circle to think through political disappointments at the absence of revolution in the West, the development of Stalinism in Soviet Russia, and the victory of fascism in Germany. It was supposed to explain mistaken Marxist prognoses, but without breaking Marxist intentions."Dubiel, Helmut. 1985. Theory and Politics: Studies in the Development of Critical Theory, translated by B. Gregg. Cambridge, MA.

For Adorno and Horkheimer, state intervention in the economy had effectively abolished the traditional tension between Marxism's "relations of production" and "material productive forces" of society. The market (as an "unconscious" mechanism for the distribution of goods) had been replaced by centralized planning.Dialectic of Enlightenment. p. 38: "[G]one are the objective laws of the market which ruled in the actions of the entrepreneurs and tended toward catastrophe. Instead the conscious decision of the managing directors executes as results (which are more obligatory than the blindest price-mechanisms) the old law of value and hence the destiny of capitalism."

Contrary to Marx's prediction in the Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, this shift did not lead to "an era of social revolution" but to fascism and totalitarianism. As a result, critical theory was left, in Habermas's words, without "anything in reserve to which it might appeal, and when the forces of production enter into a baneful symbiosis with the relations of production that they were supposed to blow wide open, there is no longer any dynamism upon which critique could base its hope"."The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment", p. 118. For Adorno and Horkheimer, this posed the problem of how to account for the apparent persistence of domination in the absence of the very contradiction that, according to traditional critical theory, was the source of domination itself.

= Modern critical theorists =

Contemporary philosophers and researchers who have focused on understanding and critiquing critical theory include Nancy Fraser, Axel Honneth, Judith Butler, and Rahel Jaeggi. Honneth is known for his works Pathology of Reason and The Legacy of Critical Theory, in which he attempts to explain critical theory's purpose in a modern context.{{cite journal |last1=Fazio |first1=Giorgio |title=Situating Rahel Jaeggi in the Contemporary Frankfurt Critical Theory |journal=Critical Horizons |date=21 May 2021 |volume=22 |issue=2 |page=116 |doi=10.1080/14409917.2019.1676943 |s2cid=210490119 }}Nancy Fraser (1985). What's critical about critical theory? The case of Habermas and gender. New German Critique, 35, 97-131. Jaeggi focuses on both critical theory's original intent and a more modern understanding that some argue has created a new foundation for modern usage of critical theory. Butler contextualizes critical theory as a way to rhetorically challenge oppression and inequality, specifically concepts of gender.{{cite magazine |last=Gessen |first=Masha |author-link=Masha Gessen |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/judith-butler-wants-us-to-reshape-our-rage |title=Judith Butler Wants Us to Reshape Our Rage |magazine=The New Yorker |date=9 February 2020}}

Honneth established a theory that many use to understand critical theory, the theory of recognition.{{cite journal |last1=Boston |first1=Timothy |title=New Directions for a Critical Theory of Work: Reading Honneth Through Deranty. |journal=Critical Horizons |date=May 2018 |volume=19 |issue=2 |page=111 |doi=10.1080/14409917.2018.1453287 |s2cid=149532362 }} In this theory, he asserts that in order for someone to be responsible for themselves and their own identity they must be also recognized by those around them: without recognition in this sense from peers and society, individuals can never become wholly responsible for themselves and others, nor experience true freedom and emancipation—i.e., without recognition, the individual cannot achieve self-actualization.

Like many others who put stock in critical theory, Jaeggi is vocal about capitalism's cost to society. Throughout her writings, she has remained doubtful about the necessity and use of capitalism in regard to critical theory.{{cite journal |last1=Condon |first1=Roderick |title=Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi, Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory. |journal=Irish Journal of Sociology |date=April 2021 |volume=29 |issue=1 |page=129 |doi=10.1177/0791603520930989 |s2cid=225763936 |hdl=10468/10810 |hdl-access=free}} Most of Jaeggi's interpretations of critical theory seem to work against the foundations of Habermas and follow more along the lines of Honneth in terms of how to look at the economy through the theory's lens.{{cite journal |last1=Marco |first1=Marco |last2=Testa |first2=Italo |title=Immanent Critique of Capitalism as a Form of Life: On Rahel Jaeggi's Critical Theory |journal=Critical Horizons |date=May 2021 |volume=22 |issue=2 |page=111 |doi=10.1080/14409917.2020.1719630 |s2cid=214465382 |doi-access=free}} She shares many of Honneth's beliefs, and many of her works try to defend them against criticism Honneth has received.

To provide a dialectical opposite to Jaeggi's conception of alienation as 'a relation of relationlessness', Hartmut Rosa has proposed the concept of resonance.{{Cite book |last1=Jaeggi |first1=Rahel |title=Alienation |last2=Neuhouser |first2=Frederick |date=2014 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-15198-6 |series=New directions in critical theory |location=New York}}{{Cite book |last=Rosa |first=Hartmut |title=Resonanz: eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung |date=2016 |publisher=Suhrkamp |isbn=978-3-518-58626-6 |edition=3. Aufl |location=Berlin}} Rosa uses this term to refer to moments when late modern subjects experience momentary feelings of self-efficacy in society, bringing them into a temporary moment of relatedness with some aspect of the world. Rosa describes himself as working within the critical theory tradition of the Frankfurt School, providing an extensive critique of late modernity through his concept of social acceleration.{{Cite book |last=Rosa |first=Hartmut |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7312/rosa14834/html |title=Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity |date=2013-12-31 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-51988-5 |doi=10.7312/rosa14834}} However his resonance theory has been questioned for moving too far beyond the Adornoian tradition of "looking coldly at society".{{Cite book |last=Brumlik |first=Micha |title=Resonanz oder: Das Ende der kritischen Theorie. |language=de |trans-title=Resonance or: The end of critical theory. |year=2016 |pages=120–123}}

Fields

=Postmodern critical social theory=

Focusing on language, symbolism, communication, and social construction, critical theory has been applied in the social sciences as a critique of social construction and postmodern society.{{Citation |last=Agger |first=Ben |title=North American Critical Theory After Postmodernism |date=2012 |pages=128–154 |chapter=Ben Agger |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |doi=10.1057/9781137262868_7 |isbn=978-1349350391}}.

While modernist critical theory (as described above) concerns itself with "forms of authority and injustice that accompanied the evolution of industrial and corporate capitalism as a political-economic system", postmodern critical theory politicizes social problems "by situating them in historical and cultural contexts, to implicate themselves in the process of collecting and analyzing data, and to relativize their findings".{{sfn|Lindlof|Taylor|2002|p=[https://archive.org/details/qualitativecommu00lind/page/49 49]|ps=: "forms of authority and injustice that accompanied the evolution of industrial and corporate capitalism as a political-economic system.}} Meaning itself is seen as unstable due to social structures' rapid transformation. As a result, research focuses on local manifestations rather than broad generalizations.

Postmodern critical research is also characterized by the crisis of representation, which rejects the idea that a researcher's work is an "objective depiction of a stable other". Instead, many postmodern scholars have adopted "alternatives that encourage reflection about the 'politics and poetics' of their work. In these accounts, the embodied, collaborative, dialogic, and improvisational aspects of qualitative research are clarified."{{sfn|Lindlof|Taylor|2002|p=53}}

The term critical theory is often appropriated when an author works in sociological terms, yet attacks the social or human sciences, thus attempting to remain "outside" those frames of inquiry. Michel Foucault has been described as one such author.{{cite journal |last1=Rivera Vicencio |first1=E. |title=Foucault: His influence over accounting and management research. Building of a map of Foucault's approach |journal=International Journal of Critical Accounting |date=2012 |volume=4 |issue=5/6 |pages=728–756 |url=http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid=51466 |doi=10.1504/IJCA.2012.051466 |access-date=4 July 2015 |archive-date=9 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180909035547/http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid=51466 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }} Jean Baudrillard has also been described as a critical theorist to the extent that he was an unconventional and critical sociologist;{{Cite web |url=https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/postmodernism/modules/baudrillardpostmodernity.html |title=Introduction to Jean Baudrillard, Module on Postmodernity |website=www.cla.purdue.edu |access-date=2017-06-16 |archive-date=9 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180909035756/https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/postmodernism/modules/baudrillardpostmodernity.html |url-status=live}} this appropriation is similarly casual, holding little or no relation to the Frankfurt School.{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/baudrillard/ |chapter=Jean Baudrillard |title=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |last=Kellner |first=Douglas |date=22 April 2005 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Winter 2015 |archive-date=18 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190318044413/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/baudrillard/ |url-status=live}} In contrast, Habermas is one of the key critics of postmodernism.{{cite SEP |last=Aylesworth |first=Gary |title=Postmodernism |url-id=postmodernism |edition=Spring 2015 |archive-date=27 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180927121137/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/#9 |url-status=live}}

==Communication studies==

When, in the 1970s and 1980s, Habermas redefined critical social theory as a study of communication, with communicative competence and communicative rationality on the one hand, and distorted communication on the other, the two versions of critical theory began to overlap to a much greater degree than before.{{citation needed|date=October 2018}}

=Critical disability theory=

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=Critical legal studies=

==Immigration studies==

Critical theory can be used to interpret the right of asylum{{cite book | chapter-url=https://ecommons.luc.edu/context/philosophy_facpubs/article/1073/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf | doi=10.1007/978-3-030-72732-1_2 | chapter=What an Ethics of Discourse and Recognition Can Contribute to a Critical Theory of Refugee Claim Adjudication: Reclaiming Epistemic Justice for Gender-Based Asylum Seekers | title=Migration, Recognition and Critical Theory | series=Studies in Global Justice | date=2021 | last1=Ingram | first1=David | volume=21 | pages=19–46 | isbn=978-3-030-72731-4 }} and immigration law.{{cite journal | url=https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2012.763168 | doi=10.1080/1070289X.2012.763168 | title=In liberty's shadow: The discourse of refugees and asylum seekers in critical race theory and immigration law/Politics | date=2013 | last1=Pulitano | first1=Elvira | journal=Identities | volume=20 | issue=2 | pages=172–189 | url-access=subscription }}

=Critical finance studies=

Critical finance studies apply critical theory to financial markets and central banks.{{cite book |last1=Borch |first1=Christian |last2=Wosnitzer |first2=Robert |title=The Routledge Handbook of Critical Finance Studies |date=2020 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9781315114255 |isbn=9781315114255 |url=https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315114255}}

=Critical management studies=

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=Critical international relations theory=

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=Critical race theory=

=Critical pedagogy=

Critical theorists have widely credited Paulo Freire for the first applications of critical theory to education/pedagogy, considering his best-known work to be Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a seminal text in what is now known as the philosophy and social movement of critical pedagogy.{{Cite web |date=2014-07-09 |title=Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed : Book Summary |url=http://www.theeducationist.info/paulo-freires-pedagogy-oppressed-book-summary/ |access-date=2020-06-04 |website=The Educationist |language=en-US |archive-date=28 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328154753/http://www.theeducationist.info/paulo-freires-pedagogy-oppressed-book-summary |url-status=live}}For a history of the emergence of critical theory in the field of education, see {{cite book |last=Gottesman |first=Isaac |date=2016 |title=The Critical Turn in Education: From Marxist Critique to Postructuralist Feminism to Critical Theories of Race |location=New York |publisher=Routledge}} Dedicated to the oppressed and based on his own experience helping Brazilian adults learn to read and write, Freire includes a detailed class analysis in his exploration of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. In the book, he calls traditional pedagogy the "banking model of education", because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge. He argues that pedagogy should instead treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge.

In contrast to the banking model, the teacher in the critical-theory model is not the dispenser of all knowledge, but a participant who learns with and from the students—in conversation with them, even as they learn from the teacher. The goal is to liberate the learner from an oppressive construct of teacher versus student, a dichotomy analogous to colonizer and colonized. It is not enough for the student to analyze societal power structures and hierarchies, to merely recognize imbalance and inequity; critical theory pedagogy must also empower the learner to reflect and act on that reflection to challenge an oppressive status quo.See, e.g., Kołakowski, Leszek. [1976] 1979. Main Currents of Marxism 3. W.W. Norton & Company. {{ISBN|0393329437}}. ch. 10.

==Critical consciousness==

==Critical university studies==

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=Critical psychology=

=Critical criminology=

=Critical animal studies=

=Critical ethnography=

=Critical data studies=

=Critical environmental justice=

Critical environmental justice applies critical theory to environmental justice.{{cite journal | last=Vermeylen | first=Saskia | title=Special issue: environmental justice and epistemic violence | journal=Local Environment | volume=24 | issue=2 | date=2019 | issn=1354-9839 | doi=10.1080/13549839.2018.1561658 | pages=89–93| bibcode=2019LoEnv..24...89V }}

Criticism

While critical theorists have often been called Marxist intellectuals, their tendency to denounce some Marxist concepts and to combine Marxian analysis with other sociological and philosophical traditions has resulted in accusations of revisionism by Orthodox Marxist and by Marxist–Leninist philosophers. Martin Jay has said that the first generation of critical theory is best understood not as promoting a specific philosophical agenda or ideology, but as "a gadfly of other systems".{{Cite book |last=Jay |first=Martin |date=1996 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nwkzVdaaB2sC&pg=PA41 |title=The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923–1950 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0520204232 |page=41 |access-date=7 May 2020 |archive-date=28 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028061218/https://books.google.com/books?id=nwkzVdaaB2sC&pg=PA41 |url-status=live}}

Critical theory has been criticized for not offering any clear road map to political action (praxis), often explicitly repudiating any solutions.Corradetti, Claudio. "[https://www.iep.utm.edu/frankfur/#SH2a The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory]". {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180218090424/https://www.iep.utm.edu/frankfur/#SH2a |date=18 February 2018 }}. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Those objections mostly apply to first-generation Frankfurt School, while the issue of politics is addressed in a much more assertive way in contemporary theory.{{Cite journal |last1=Bohmann |first1=Ulf |last2=Sörensen |first2=Paul |date=2022-06-20 |title=Exploring a Critical Theory of politics |url=https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/index.php/civitas/article/view/42204 |journal=Civitas - Revista de Ciências Sociais |volume=22 |pages=e42204 |doi=10.15448/1984-7289.2022.1.42204 |s2cid=249915438 |issn=1984-7289 |doi-access=free}}

Another criticism of critical theory "is that it fails to provide rational standards by which it can show that it is superior to other theories of knowledge, science, or practice." Rex Gibson argues that critical theory suffers from being cliquish, conformist, elitist, immodest, anti-individualist, naive, too critical, and contradictory. Hughes and Hughes argue that Habermas' theory of ideal public discourse "says much about rational talkers talking, but very little about actors acting: Felt, perceptive, imaginative, bodily experience does not fit these theories".{{Cite web |date=2022-11-03 |title=Understanding Critical Theory |url=https://www.simplypsychology.org/critical-theory.html |access-date=2023-06-25 |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=9.8 PROBLEMS WITH CRITICAL THEORIES OF EDUCATION |url=https://members.aect.org/edtech/ed1/09/09-08.html |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=members.aect.org}}

Some feminists argue that critical theory "can be as narrow and oppressive as the rationalization, bureaucratization, and cultures they seek to unmask and change.

Critical theory's language has been criticized as being too dense to understand, although "Counter arguments to these issues of language include claims that a call for clearer and more accessible language is anti-intellectual, a new 'language of possibility' is needed, and oppressed peoples can understand and contribute to new languages."

Bruce Pardy, writing for the National Post, argued that any challenges to the "legitimacy [of critical theory] can be interpreted as a demonstration of their [critical theory's proponents'] thesis: the assertion of reason, logic and evidence is a manifestation of privilege and power. Thus, any challenger risks the stigma of a bigoted oppressor."{{Cite news |last=Pardy |first=Bruce |date=June 24, 2023 |title=How Canada's secular religion of cultural self-hate took hold |work=National Post |url=https://nationalpost.com/opinion/bruce-pardy-how-canadas-secular-religion-of-cultural-self-hate-took-hold}}

Robert Danisch, writing for The Conversation, argued that critical theory, and the modern humanities more broadly, focus too much on criticizing the current world rather than trying to make a better world.{{Cite web |last=Danisch |first=Robert |date=2023-01-10 |title=The humanities should teach about how to make a better world, not just criticize the existing one |url=http://theconversation.com/the-humanities-should-teach-about-how-to-make-a-better-world-not-just-criticize-the-existing-one-190634 |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=The Conversation |language=en}}

= Lists =

= Journals =

References

= Footnotes =

= Works cited =

{{cite book |editor-last=Bell |editor-first=Christopher |title=Blackness and Disability: Critical Examinations and Cultural Interventions |series=Forecaast Series |publisher=LIT Verlag Münster |date=2011 |isbn=978-3-643-10126-6 |oclc=1147991080 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2N8uMz6g02gC}}
{{cite journal

|last=Connolly

|first=William E.

|author-link=William E. Connolly

|year=2013

|title=The 'New Materialism' and the Fragility of Things

|journal=Millennium: Journal of International Studies

|volume=41

|issue=3

|pages=399–412

|doi=10.1177/0305829813486849

|s2cid=143725752

|issn=1477-9021

}}

{{cite book

|year=2010

|editor1-last=Coole

|editor1-first=Diana

|editor1-link=Diana Coole

|editor2-last=Frost

|editor2-first=Samantha

|title=New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics

|location=Durham, North Carolina

|publisher=Duke University Press

|isbn=978-0-8223-4753-8

}}

{{cite book

|year=2002

|editor1-last=Hobden

|editor1-first=Stephen

|editor2-last=Hobson

|editor2-first=John M.

|editor2-link=John M. Hobson

|title=Historical Sociology of International Relations

|location=Cambridge, England

|publisher=Cambridge University Press

|isbn=978-0-521-80870-5

}}

{{cite book |last1=Lindlof |first1=Thomas R. |last2=Taylor |first2=Bryan C. |title=Qualitative Communication Research Methods |date=2002 |publisher=SAGE Publications |isbn=978-0761924944 |url=https://archive.org/details/qualitativecommu00lind |url-access=registration |language=en}}
{{cite book

|last1=Van der Tuin

|first1=Iris

|last2=Dolphijn

|first2=Rick

|year=2012

|title=New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies

|location=Ann Arbor, Michigan

|publisher=Open Humanities Press

|doi=10.3998/ohp.11515701.0001.001

|doi-access=free

|isbn=978-1-60785-281-0

|ref={{sfnref|van der Tuin|Dolphijn|2012}}

}}

=Bibliography=

"Problematizing Global Knowledge." Theory, Culture & Society 23(2–3). 2006. {{ISSN|0263-2764}}.
Calhoun, Craig. 1995. Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of Difference. Blackwell. {{ISBN|1557862885}} – A survey of and introduction to the current state of critical social theory.
Charmaz, K. 1995. "Between positivism and postmodernism: Implications for methods." Studies in Symbolic Interaction 17:43–72.
Conquergood, D. 1991. "[http://www.csun.edu/~vcspc00g/301/RethinkingEthnog.pdf Rethinking ethnography: Towards a critical cultural politics]." Communication Monographs 58(2):179–94. {{doi|10.1080/03637759109376222}}.
Corchia, Luca. 2010. [https://books.google.com/books?id=U56Sag72eSoC La logica dei processi culturali. Jürgen Habermas tra filosofia e sociologia]. Genova: Edizioni ECIG. {{ISBN|978-8875441951}}.
Dahms, Harry, ed. 2008. No Social Science Without Critical Theory, (Current Perspectives in Social Theory 25). Emerald/JAI.
Gandler, Stefan. 2009. Fragmentos de Frankfurt. Ensayos sobre la Teoría crítica. México: 21st Century Publishers/Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro. {{ISBN|978-6070300707}}.
Geuss, Raymond. 1981. The Idea of a Critical Theory. Habermas and the Frankfurt School. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0521284228}}.
Honneth, Axel. 2006. La société du mépris. Vers une nouvelle Théorie critique, La Découverte. {{ISBN|978-2707147721}}.
Horkheimer, Max. 1982. Critical Theory Selected Essays. New York: Continuum Publishing.
Morgan, Marcia. 2012. [https://philpapers.org/rec/MORKAC Kierkegaard and Critical Theory]. New York: Lexington Books.
Rolling, James H. 2008. "[https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=tl Secular blasphemy: Utter(ed) transgressions against names and fathers in the postmodern era]." Qualitative Inquiry 14(6):926–48. – An example of critical postmodern work.
Sim, Stuart, and Borin Van Loon. 2001. Introducing Critical Theory. {{ISBN|1840462647}}. – A short introductory volume with illustrations.
Thomas, Jim. 1993. Doing Critical Ethnography. London: Sage. pp. 1–5 & 17–25.
Tracy, S. J. 2000. "[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sarah_Tracy3/publication/34040485_Emotion_labor_and_correctional_officers_A_study_of_emotion_norms_performances_and_unintended_consequences_in_a_total_institution/links/57ba215608aedfe0ec96ebc2.pdf Becoming a character for commerce: Emotion labor, self subordination and discursive construction of identity in a total institution]." Management Communication Quarterly 14(1):90–128. – An example of critical qualitative research.
Willard, Charles Arthur. 1982. [https://philpapers.org/rec/WILAAT-22 Argumentation and the Social Grounds of Knowledge]. University of Alabama Press.
— 1989. A Theory of Argumentation. University of Alabama Press.
— 1996. [https://books.google.com/books?id=OU75AafuhvcC Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chapter 9. Critical Theory {{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/437147422 |title=The Blackwell Guide to Continental Philosophy. |date=2007 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |others=David L. Sherman |isbn=978-1405143042 |editor-last=Solomon |editor-first=Robert C. |editor-link=Robert C. Solomon |location=Oxford |oclc=437147422}}

External links

{{cite IEP |url-id=frankfur |title=The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory}}
[http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode.html?id=g9781405184649_chunk_g9781405184649586 Gerhardt, Christina. "Frankfurt School". The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. Ness, Immanuel (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2009. Blackwell Reference Online].
[https://nplusonemag.com/issue-2/the-intellectual-situation/death-is-not-the-end/ "Theory: Death Is Not the End"] N+1 magazine's short history of academic Critical Theory.
[http://www.criticallegalthinking.com/ Critical Legal Thinking] A Critical Legal Studies website which uses Critical Theory in an analysis of law and politics.
L. Corchia, [https://books.google.com/books?id=-T14AQAAQBAJ Jürgen Habermas. A Bibliography: works and studies (1952–2013)], Pisa, Edizioni Il Campano – Arnus University Books, 2013, 606 pages.
Sim, S.; Van Loon, B. (2009). Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide. Icon Books Ltd.

=Archival collections=

[http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf5q2nb391 Guide to the Critical Theory Offprint Collection.] Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, Cali [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt5k403303 Guide to the Critical Theory Institute Audio and Video Recordings, University of California, Irvine.] Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
[http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt9x0nf6pd University of California, Irvine, Critical Theory Institute Manuscript Materials.] Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

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