Critical theory is a social, historical, and politicalschool of thought andphilosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, andsocial structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups.[1] Beyond just understanding and critiquing these dynamics, it explicitly aims to transform society throughpraxis andcollective action with an explicit sociopolitical purpose.[2][3][4]
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.[5][6] 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 amovement for social change.[7][8][9][3] Critical theory examines how dominant groups and structures influence what society considersobjective truth, challenging the very notion ofpure objectivity andrationality by arguing thatknowledge is shaped by power relations and social context.[10][11][7][12] Key principles of critical theory include examining intersecting forms ofoppression, emphasizing historical contexts in social analysis, and critiquingcapitalist structures. The framework emphasizes praxis (combining theory with action) and highlights howlived experience, collective action,ideology, andeducational systems play crucial roles in maintaining or challenging existingpower structures.[13][14][15][16]
Critical theoristNancy Fraser summarises the difference between a critical and uncritical theory as follows:[17]
A critical social theory frames its research program and its conceptual framework with an eye to the aims and activities of those oppositional social movements with which it has a partisan though not uncritical identification. The questions it asks and the models it designs are informed by that identification and interest. Thus, for example, if struggles contesting the subordination of women figured among the most significant of a given age, then a critical social theory for that time would aim, among other things, to shed light on the character and bases of such subordination. It would employ categories and explanatory models which revealed rather than occluded relations of male dominance and female subordination. And it would demystify as ideological rival approaches which obfuscated or rationalized those relations. In this situation, then, one of the standards for assessing a critical theory, once it had been subjected to all the usual tests of empirical adequacy, would be: How well does it theorize the situation and prospects of the feminist movement? To what extent does it serve the self-clarification of the struggles and wishes of contemporary women?
The historical evolution of critical theory traces back to the first generation of theFrankfurt School in the 1920s. Figures likeMax Horkheimer,Theodor Adorno,Herbert Marcuse, and others sought to expand traditionalMarxist analysis by incorporating insights from psychology, culture, and philosophy, moving beyond pure economic determinism.[18][14][19][20][3][21][7][8][22] Their work was significantly influenced byFreud'spsychoanalytic theories, particularly how subjective experience shaped human consciousness, behavior, and social reality.[3][19][23][24] Freud's concept that an individual's lived experience could differ dramatically from objective reality aligned with critical theory's critique ofpositivism,science, and pure rationality.[19][23][24]
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.[3] Around the same time,post-structuralist andpostmodern thinkers, includingMichel Foucault andJacques Derrida, were reshaping academic discourse with critiques of knowledge, meaning, power, institutions, and social control withdeconstructive 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.[18][25] Collectively, the post-structuralist and postmodern insights expanded the scope of critical theory, weaving cultural and linguistic critiques into itsMarxian roots.[3][14][18][26][27][28]
Max Horkheimer first defined critical theory (German:kritische Theorie) in his 1937 essay "Traditional and Critical Theory", as asocial theory oriented towardcritiquing and changingsociety 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 ofMarxist philosophy, Horkheimer critiqued both the model of science put forward bylogical positivism, and what he and his colleagues saw as the covertpositivism andauthoritarianism oforthodox Marxism andCommunism. He described a theory ascritical insofar as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them".[48] Critical theory involves anormative dimension, either by criticizing society in terms of some general theory ofvalues or norms (oughts), or by criticizing society in terms of its own espoused values (i.e.immanent critique).[49] 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.[50] It defends the universalist ambitions of the tradition, but does so within a specific context of social-scientific and historical research.[50]
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)
Postmodern critical theory is another major product of critical theory. It analyzes the fragmentation ofcultural identities in order to challengemodernist-era constructs such asmetanarratives,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".[51]
Marx explicitly developed the notion ofcritique into thecritique of ideology, linking it with the practice ofsocial revolution, as stated in the 11th section of hisTheses on Feuerbach: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."[52] In early works, includingThe 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.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of critical theory, asTheodor W. Adorno andMax Horkheimer elaborated in theirDialectic 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 ofhuman emancipation andfreedom.[53] This ambivalence was rooted in the historical circumstances in which the work was originally produced, particularly the rise ofNazism,state capitalism, andculture industry as entirely new forms of social domination that could not be adequately explained in the terms of traditionalMarxist sociology.[54][55]
Contrary to Marx's prediction in thePreface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, this shift did not lead to "an era ofsocial revolution" but tofascism andtotalitarianism. 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".[57] 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.
Habermas's ideas about the relationship between modernity andrationalization are in this sense strongly influenced byMax Weber. He further dissolved the elements of critical theory derived fromHegelianGerman idealism, though his epistemology remains broadly Marxist. Perhaps his two most influential ideas are the concepts of thepublic sphere andcommunicative action, the latter arriving partly as a reaction to newpost-structural or so-called "postmodern" challenges to the discourse of modernity. Habermas engaged in regular correspondence withRichard Rorty, and a strong sense of philosophicalpragmatism may be felt in his thought, which frequently traverses the boundaries between sociology and philosophy.
Contemporary philosophers and researchers who have focused on understanding and critiquing critical theory includeNancy Fraser,Axel Honneth,Judith Butler, andRahel Jaeggi. Honneth is known for his worksPathology of Reason andThe Legacy of Critical Theory, in which he attempts to explain critical theory's purpose in a modern context.[60][61] 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.[60] Butler contextualizes critical theory as a way to rhetorically challenge oppression and inequality, specifically concepts of gender.[62]
Honneth established a theory that many use to understand critical theory, thetheory of recognition.[63] 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 achieveself-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.[64] 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.[65] She shares many of Honneth's beliefs, and many of her works try to defend them against criticism Honneth has received.[60]
To provide a dialectical opposite to Jaeggi's conception of alienation as 'a relation of relationlessness',Hartmut Rosa has proposed the concept ofresonance.[66][67] Rosa uses this term to refer to moments when late modern subjects experience momentary feelings ofself-efficacy in society, bringing them into a temporary moment of relatedness with some aspect of the world.[67] Rosa describes himself as working within the critical theory tradition of the Frankfurt School, providing an extensive critique of late modernity through his concept ofsocial acceleration.[68] However his resonance theory has been questioned for moving too far beyond the Adornoian tradition of "looking coldly at society".[69]
Whilemodernist critical theory (as described above) concerns itself with "forms of authority and injustice that accompanied the evolution of industrial andcorporate capitalism as apolitical-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".[51] 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 thecrisis 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."[70]
The termcritical theory is oftenappropriated when an author works insociological 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.[71]Jean Baudrillard has also been described as a critical theorist to the extent that he was an unconventional and critical sociologist;[72] this appropriation is similarly casual, holding little or no relation to theFrankfurt School.[73] In contrast, Habermas is one of the key critics of postmodernism.[74]
When, in the 1970s and 1980s, Habermas redefinedcritical social theory as astudy of communication, with communicative competence andcommunicative 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]
At the intersection of disability studies and critical theory is critical disability theory.[75][76][77][78] The termcrip theory originates in Carrie Sandahl's article "Queering the Crip or Crippling the Queer?: Intersections of Queer andCrip Identities in Solo Autobiographical Performance". It was published in 2003 as part of a journal issue titled "Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies".[79]Christopher Bell's[80]Blackness and Disability;[81] and the work ofRobert McRuer both explorequeerness and disability. Work includes the intersections of race and ethnicity with disability in the field of education studies and has attempted to bridgecritical race theory with disability studies.[82]
Critical management studies (CMS) is a loose but extensive grouping of theoretically informed critiques ofmanagement, business and organisation, grounded originally in a critical theory perspective. Today it encompasses a wide range of perspectives that are critical of traditional theories of management and the business schools that generate these theories.
Critical theorists have widely creditedPaulo Freire for the first applications of critical theory to education/pedagogy, considering his best-known work to bePedagogy of the Oppressed, a seminal text in what is now known as the philosophy and social movement ofcritical pedagogy.[95][96] 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.[95][97]
Critical consciousness, conscientization, orconscientização inPortuguese (Portuguese pronunciation:[kõsjẽtʃizaˈsɐ̃w]), is a popular education and social concept developed by Brazilianpedagogue andeducational theoristPaulo Freire, grounded inneo-Marxist critical theory. Critical consciousness focuses on achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, allowing for the perception and exposure of social and political contradictions. Critical consciousness also includes taking action against the oppressive elements in one's life that are illuminated by that understanding.[98]
Critical university studies is a field examining the role ofhigher education in contemporary society and its relation to culture, politics, and labor. Arising primarily fromcultural studies, it applies critical theory toward the university since the 1970s, particularly the shift away from a strongpublic model of higher education to aneoliberalprivatized model. Emerging largely in the United States, which has the most extensive system of higher education, the field has also seen significant work in the United Kingdom, as well as in other countries confronting neoliberalism. Key themes of CUS research arecorporatization, academic labor, andstudent debt, among other issues.
Critical psychology is a perspective on psychology that draws extensively on critical theory. Critical psychology challenges the assumptions,theories and methods of mainstreampsychology and attempts to apply psychological understandings in different ways.
Critical criminology applies critical theory tocriminology. Critical criminology examines the genesis of crime and the nature of justice in relation to power, privilege, and social status. These include factors such asclass,race,gender, andsexuality. Legal and penal systems are understood to reproduce and uphold systems ofsocial inequality.[99][100] Additionally, critical criminology works to uncover possible biases within traditional criminological research.[101]
Critical animal studies (CAS) (not to be confused withAnimal Studies) is an academic sub-discipline that critically examines human relationships with nonhuman animals, with a focus on social justice andanimal liberation. Challenging the conventionalanthropocentric views of humans on animals, it recognizes and acknowledges the inherent value of nonhuman animals and aims to create a more equitable and ethical relationship between humans and other animals. CAS applies critical theory[102] toanimal studies andanimal ethics. It emerged in 2001 with the founding of the Centre for Animal Liberation Affairs by Anthony J. Nocella II andSteven Best, which in 2007 became the Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS).[103][104] The core interest of CAS isanimal ethics, firmly grounded in trans-speciesintersectionality,environmental justice,social justice politics and critical analysis of the underlying role played by thecapitalist system.[105] Scholars in the field seek to integrate academic research with political engagement and activism.
Critical social work is the application tosocial work of a critical theory perspective. Criticalsocial work seeks to address social injustices, as opposed to focusing on individualized issues. Critical theories explain social problems as arising from various forms ofoppression and injustice in globalized capitalist societies and forms of neoliberal governance.
Critical ethnography applies a critical theory based approach toethnography. It focuses on the implicit values expressed within ethnographic studies and, therefore, on the unacknowledged biases that may result from such implicit values.[107] It has been called critical theory in practice.[108] In the spirit of critical theory, this approach seeks to determine symbolic mechanisms, to extract ideology from action, and to understand the cognition and behaviour of research subjects within historical, cultural, and social frameworks.
Critical data studies is the exploration of and engagement with social, cultural, and ethical challenges that arise when working withbig data. It is through various unique perspectives and taking a critical approach that this form of study can be practiced.[109] As its name implies, critical data studies draws heavily on the influence of critical theory, which has a strong focus on addressing the organization of power structures. This idea is then applied to the study of data.
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 ofrevisionism byOrthodox Marxist and byMarxist–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 "agadfly of other systems".[111]
Critical theory has been criticized for not offering any clear road map to political action (praxis), often explicitly repudiating any solutions.[112] 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.[113]
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".[114][115]
Some feminists argue that critical theory "can be as narrow and oppressive as the rationalization, bureaucratization, and cultures they seek to unmask and change.[114][115]
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."[115]
Bruce Pardy, writing for theNational 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."[116]
Robert Danisch, writing forThe 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.[117]
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^Ludovisi, S.G. ed., 2015. Critical theory and the challenge of praxis: Beyond reification. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
^Elizabeth, Depoy (2016).Naturalistic Designs.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.
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^Naturalistic Designs (2016).Critical theory is a response to post-Enlightenment philosophies andpositivism in particular. Critical theorists 'deconstruct' the notion that there is a unitarytruth 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.
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^Critical Theory and Society: A Reader.Routledge. 1990.
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^abBohman, James; Flynn, Jeffrey; Celikates, Robin (2021),"Critical Theory", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.),The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab,Stanford University, retrieved10 June 2022
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^Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Horkheimer and Adorno". InThe 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.
^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."
^"The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment", p. 118.
^Katsiaficas, George N., Robert George Kirkpatrick, and Mary Lou Emery. 1987.Introduction to Critical Sociology. Irvington Publishers. p. 26.
^Kellner, Douglas (22 April 2005)."Jean Baudrillard". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.).Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2015 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.Archived from the original on 18 March 2019.
^Hall, Melinda C. (2019)."Critical Disability Theory". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.).The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved28 December 2019.
^Pulitano, Elvira (2013). "In liberty's shadow: The discourse of refugees and asylum seekers in critical race theory and immigration law/Politics".Identities.20 (2):172–189.doi:10.1080/1070289X.2012.763168.
^Lynn, M; Solorzano, D; Parker, L (2002). "Critical race theory and education: Qualitative research in the new millennium".Qualitative Inquiry.8 (1):3–6.doi:10.1177/1077800402008001001.
^Iati, Marisa (29 May 2021)."What is critical race theory, and why do Republicans want to ban it in schools?".The Washington Post.Rather than encouraging white people to feel guilty, Thomas said critical race theorists aim to shift focus away from individual people's bad actions and toward how systems uphold racial disparities.
^For a history of the emergence of critical theory in the field of education, seeGottesman, Isaac (2016).The Critical Turn in Education: From Marxist Critique to Postructuralist Feminism to Critical Theories of Race. New York:Routledge.
^Uggen, Christopher; Inderbitzin, Michelle (2010). "Public criminologies".Criminology & Public Policy.9 (4):725–749.doi:10.1111/j.1745-9133.2010.00666.x.Uggen, C. and Inderbitzin, M. (2010), Public criminologies. Criminology & Public Policy, 9: 725-749. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9133.2010.00666.x
^Allen, Michael, et al. Critical Animal Studies and Social Justice: Critical Theory, Dismantling Speciesism, and Total Liberation. Rowman & Littlefield, 2022.
^Taylor, Nik;Twine, Richard (2014). "Introduction: Locating the 'critical' in critical animal studies".The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: From the Margins to the Centre. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. p. 1.ISBN978-0415858571.
^"About". Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS).Archived from the original on 27 August 2010. Retrieved27 July 2020.
Coole, Diana; Frost, Samantha, eds. (2010).New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.ISBN978-0-8223-4753-8.
Hobden, Stephen;Hobson, John M., eds. (2002).Historical Sociology of International Relations. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-80870-5.
Calhoun, Craig. 1995.Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of Difference. Blackwell.ISBN1557862885 – A survey of and introduction to the current state of critical social theory.
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