Traditional and Critical Theory Today: Toward a Critical Political Science

Abstract

In the famous early theoretical manifesto of the Frankfurt School, “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937), Max Horkheimer proclaimed the necessity of rethinking the direction in which theory was moving in the context of the circulating intellectual traditions of phenomenology, sociology of knowledge, neo-Kantianism, and positivism. For Horkheimer, while the theoretical terrain associated with 1930s Europe seemed diverse and possibly open to radical directions and progressive articulations, it ultimately conspired to reinforce the socio-economic status quo in which human beings were controlled by the very practices they created and continue to recreate. Drawing on the spirit and concepts of Horkheimer’s opening salvo for critical theory published eighty years ago, I argue that it is time to reinvest in the commitments heralded in the problematic of critical theory and continue to promote a critical political science that takes seriously the importance of critique and human emancipation.