Critical theory

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The History of tbe Frankfurt School and how it went west

Critical theory in tbe humanities and social sciences is tbe Marxist interpretation and critique of society and literature, drawing from knowledge across social science and humanities disciplines. The term has two quite different meanings with different origins and histories, one originating in social theory and tbe other in literary criticism. Though until recently these two meanings had little to do with each other, since tbe 1970s there has been some overlap between these disciplines. This has led to "critical theory" becoming an umbrella term for an array of theories in English-speaking academia. This article focuses primarily on tbe differences and similarities between tbe two senses of tbe term critical theory.

Comment

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This first paragraph has tbe virtue of being moderately intelligible. It is also turgid ie swollen; distended; inflated, overblown, or pompous. Society and literature are two different things. Understanding one can help understanding tbe other. Mixing tbe two together can lead to muddled thinking. If an article is not understood on tbe second or third reading consider whether it makes sense at all. Critical Theory And Critical Theorists gives a list of those involved. A large most of them are Marxists. It does not explain critical theory.

Different meanings of critical theory

The first meaning of tbe term critical theory was that defined by Max Horkheimer of tbe Frankfurt School of social science in his 1937 essay Traditional and Critical Theory: Critical theory is social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only to understanding or explaining it. Horkheimer wanted to distinguish critical theory as a radical, emancipatory form of Marxian theory, critiquing both tbe model of science put forward by logical positivism and what he and his colleagues saw as tbe covert positivism and authoritarianism of orthodox Marxism and communism.

Core concepts are:

• (1) That critical social theory should be directed at tbe totality of society in its historical specificity (i.e. how it came to be configured at a specific point in time), and
• (2) That Critical Theory should improve understanding of society by integrating all tbe major social sciences, including economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology. Although this conception of critical theory originated with tbe Frankfurt School, it also prevails among other recent social scientists, such as Pierre Bourdieu, Louis Althusser and arguably Michel Foucault and Bryan Reynolds, as well as certain feminist theorists and social scientists.

This version of "critical" theory derives from Kant's (18th-Century) and Marx's (19th Century) use of tbe term "critique", as in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Marx's concept that his work Das Kapital (Capital) forms a "critique of political economy". For Kant's transcendental idealism, "critique" means examining and establishing tbe limits of tbe validity of a faculty, type, or body of knowledge, especially through accounting for tbe limitations imposed by tbe fundamental, irreducible concepts in use in that knowledge system. Early on, Kant's notion associated critique with tbe disestablishment of false, unprovable, or dogmatic philosophical, social, and political beliefs, because Kant's critique of reason involved tbe critique of dogmatic theological and metaphysical ideas and was intertwined with tbe enhancement of ethical autonomy and tbe Enlightenment critique of superstition and irrational authority. Marx explicitly developed this notion into tbe critique of ideology and linked it with tbe practice of social revolution, as in tbe famous 11th of his "Theses on Feuerbach," "Philosophers have only interpreted tbe world in certain ways; tbe point is to change it". [1]

In tbe 1960's, Jürgen Habermas raised tbe epistemological discussion to a new level in his Knowledge and Human Interests, by identifying critical knowledge as based on principles that differentiated it either from tbe natural sciences or tbe humanities, through its orientation to self-reflection and emancipation.

The term critical theory, in tbe sociological or philosophical and non-literary sense, now loosely groups all sorts of work, e.g. that of tbe Frankfurt School, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and feminist theory, that has in common tbe critique of domination, an emancipatory interest, and tbe fusion of social/cultural analysis, explanation, and interpretation with social/cultural critique.

See Also

• Critical race theory
• Cultural Marxism
• Frankfurt School
• Pilpul
• Political correctness
• Whiteness studies

External Links

• Cultural Theory: Frankfurt School Critical Theory youtube video.