School
Critical theory
Critical theory is the social philosophy of the Frankfurt School, which studies how society and culture sustain domination and how to change them.
It grew from the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, founded in 1923, and was shaped by Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, with Walter Benjamin close to the circle; they drew on Marx, Hegel and Freud. Jürgen Habermas led a later generation, turning to communication and democracy. The term is also used more broadly for any theory that aims at social critique and emancipation. On this site it answers questions on art and mass culture, distributive justice (6.4.1), social ontology, the philosophy of social science and political philosophy.
Thinkers of this school
- Herbert Marcuse1898 – 1979
- Jürgen Habermas1929 – 2026
- Max Horkheimer1895 – 1973
- Theodor W. Adorno1903 – 1969
- Walter Benjamin1892 – 1940
Guide: Schools of Philosophy: The Main -isms and the Questions They Answer
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Reading group: ‘The Culture Industry’ chapter of Dialectic of Enlightenment
I do stand-up on the northern circuit and work in a call centre by day, which provides most of my material. A friend told me that Adorno and Horkheimer thought comedy on the radio was a form of social control, and I…
Started by Gemma Pritchard5 replies -
Automated cranes at the port, and Ellul’s idea that efficiency decides for us
Terminals around the world, including mine in Marseille, are moving to cranes operated remotely from an office, and some yards are fully automated. Management's word for it is "inevitable". The union's word is "choice". I want to think about which word is…
Started by Hugo Marchetti5 replies -
Reproduction did not wither the aura of art; it made the aura more valuable
I've just reread Walter Benjamin's essay on the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility, from the mid-1930s. His claim, roughly: the original work has an "aura", its unique presence in one time and place, its embeddedness in a…
Started by Chiara Bellandi5 replies -
Is Wiredu’s consensus democracy what Habermas’s discourse principle looks like in a council?
This term I have been reading Wiredu's essays on consensus alongside Habermas with a few older students, and they keep asking a question I want to put to a wider group. Wiredu argued that traditional Ashanti politics, at least at the level…
Started by Kwame Asante5 replies -
Is Iris Marion Young right that most injustice is not about who gets what?
Whenever my reading group discusses Young's Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990), the same split appears. Young argued that political philosophy had been captured by the "distributive paradigm": it treats justice as the fair division of a stock of goods, income,…
Started by Femke Bosman6 replies -
What did Horkheimer mean by ‘traditional’ versus ‘critical’ theory?
I operate a gantry crane at the container port in Marseille and I'm a union delegate. Someone at a union education weekend said the Frankfurt School started with an essay by Max Horkheimer called "Traditional and Critical Theory", from 1937, and that…
Started by Hugo Marchetti4 replies -
Searle’s “X counts as Y in C” leaves out the power that makes people accept it
I spend a lot of time in job centres, accompanying people as a volunteer. A person walks in and, after one interview, counts as a jobseeker. The status comes with obligations (attend, apply, report), sanctions if they fail, and a set of…
Started by Johanna Reinhardt6 replies -
What did Weber actually mean by “value-free” social science?
In arguments about whether journalism or research can be neutral, Max Weber gets quoted by both sides. One side says Weber proved social science must be value-free. The other says Weber admitted that values decide what we study, so neutrality is a…
Started by Sana Rizvi3 replies -
Critical theory diagnoses domination brilliantly but cannot say why it is wrong
I work as an economist at a bank in Valencia, and Marx, Rawls, Hobbes and Ibn Khaldun share a shelf at home. I'd like to press an old objection to critical theory and see whether it still bites. Critical theory asks what…
Started by Javier Ferrandis5 replies