Critical Theory

Critical theory is a tradition of social thought that originated with the Frankfurt School, a group of German theorists including Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse working at the Institute for Social Research from the 1930s onward, who drew on both Marxism and psychoanalysis to analyze modern capitalist society. Horkheimer set out the tradition's founding statement of purpose in his 1937 essay Traditional and Critical Theory, distinguishing critical theory from what he called traditional theory: traditional theory aims only to describe and explain social phenomena as they are, while critical theory aims to expose the hidden structures of domination and ideology that shape social life, with the explicit goal of contributing to human emancipation from unnecessary forms of domination rather than remaining a neutral, purely descriptive exercise. Adorno and Horkheimer's joint 1944 work Dialectic of Enlightenment extended this critique to the culture industry, arguing that mass-produced entertainment and media tend to standardize thought and pacify the public rather than fostering genuine critical reflection. Critical theory's combination of social analysis with an explicit emancipatory aim distinguishes it from purely explanatory sociological traditions and has continued to influence later strands of conflict-oriented social theory, including subsequent feminist and postcolonial critique.