Continental · 1923 – today
Critical theory (Frankfurt School)
Social theory should not just describe society but expose the forms of domination it hides, with a view to human emancipation.
Why did reason and progress produce new forms of domination?
The Institute for Social Research was founded in Frankfurt in 1923, and its thinkers soon asked why the socialist revolution Marx predicted had not come in the West. Mostly Jewish, they watched workers turn to fascism and fled Nazi Germany; in American exile they confronted mass culture and advertising.
Horkheimer distinguished “traditional” theory, which treats society as a given object, from “critical” theory, which asks whose interests the existing order serves. Horkheimer and Adorno argued that Enlightenment reason, reduced to a tool for controlling nature and people, can turn into its opposite. Habermas later found a counterweight in communication: norms are legitimate only if all affected could agree to them in free discussion.
- Theory should serve emancipation, not just description.
- Instrumental reason can turn enlightenment into new domination.
- The culture industry manufactures conformity.
It shaped the New Left, media and cultural studies, and theories of democracy built on public discussion.
Thinkers
1895–1973Max HorkheimerDirector of the Frankfurt Institute who defined critical theory1903–1969Theodor W. AdornoFrankfurt philosopher, music theorist and critic of the culture industry1892–1940Walter BenjaminBerlin critic who joined Marxism, messianism and media theory1898–1979Herbert MarcuseFrankfurt School exile who became the New Left’s philosopher1929–2026Jürgen HabermasLeading second-generation Frankfurt theorist of democracy and communicationKey texts
Where it came from
Grew out ofMarxismThe Frankfurt School kept Marx’s critique of capitalism but asked why the working class had not become revolutionary.Reacted against
The EnlightenmentDialectic of Enlightenment argued that reason bent on mastering nature can turn into domination over people.Reacted against
Logical positivism (Vienna Circle)Horkheimer and Adorno attacked positivism for treating existing facts as the limit of knowledge.Borrowed from
Ordinary language philosophyHabermas built his theory of communicative action on Austin’s and Searle’s speech-act theory.