Critical theory today

Abstract

Today, the term ‘critical theory’ is often used in an expansive manner, applied to traditions as varied as Foucault's biopolitics, Debord's psychogeography and Lacanian psychoanalysis. While these authors have undeniably expanded the reach of critical theory, this chapter focuses on the primary ideas of the core Frankfurt School theorists based at the Institute for Social Research. In this regard, the signifier ‘critical theory’ is best read as a euphemism for ‘Marxian-inflected social research’. This is not to suggest that there is a pure Marxist kernel of ‘critical theory’ which today risks being tainted by exposure to post-structuralist and deconstructionist currents. On the contrary, an open, interdisciplinary sensitivity is central to the Frankfurt School's approach. Rather, as we argued in this chapter, the Frankfurt School's iteration of critical theory retains its coherence through its development of ideas rooted in German Idealism, a coherence, which at times, is stretched by some of its more divergent contemporary practitioners.