The rational critique of social unreason. On critical theory in the Frankfurt tradition

Magazine article

By “critical theory” in a general sense, we mean a unity of philosophical reflection and social scientific analysis informed by an interest in emancipation; all critical theories methodologically and normatively aim at uncovering forms of social domination and inquire into the possibilities of overcoming them. Critical theory in the tradition of what has been called the “Frankfurt School,” however, means something more specific: It develops a historically situated and normatively reflexive, systematic rational critique of existing forms of social unreason that are ideologically presented as forms of (individual and social) rationality – “the unreason of the dominant reason” (Adorno, 2005/1962, p. 151). It explains why that is the case (that is, it unveils the rationale for such unreason) and it also conceives of a (more) rational form of a social and political order.1 Specifically, it asks why the existing power relations within (and beyond) a society prevent the emergence of such an order. This is consistent with Horkheimer’s (2002/1937, p. 199; tr. amended) original understanding of critical theory as “a theory guided at every turn by a concern for reasonable conditions of life.”