Critical Theory_A Very Short Introduction Read online

  Critical Theory: A Very Short Introduction

  Very Short Introductions available now:

  ADVERTISING Winston Fletcher

  AFRICAN HISTORY

  John Parker and Richard Rathbone

  AGNOSTICISM Robin Le Poidevin

  AMERICAN POLITICAL

  PARTIES AND ELECTIONS

  L. Sandy Maisel

  THE AMERICAN

  PRESIDENCY Charles O. Jones

  ANARCHISM Colin Ward

  ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw

  ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas

  ANCIENT WARFARE

  Harry Sidebottom

  ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman

  THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair

  ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia

  ANTISEMITISM Steven Beller

  THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS

  Paul Foster

  ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn

  ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne

  ARISTOCRACY William Doyle

  ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes

  ART HISTORY Dana Arnold

  ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland

  ATHEISM Julian Baggini

  AUGUSTINE Henry Chadwick

  AUTISM Uta Frith

  BARTHES Jonathan Culler

  BEAUTY Roger Scruton

  BESTSELLERS John Sutherland

  THE BIBLE John Riches

  BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

  Eric H. Cline

  BIOGRAPHY Hermione Lee

  THE BLUES Elijah Wald

  THE BOOK OF MORMON

  Terryl Givens

  THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea

  BRITISH POLITICS Anthony Wright

  BUDDHA Michael Carrithers

  BUDDHISM Damien Keown

  BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown

  CAPITALISM James Fulcher

  CATHOLICISM Gerald O’Collins

  THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe

  CHAOS Leonard Smith

  CHOICE THEORY Michael Allingham

  CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson

  CHRISTIAN ETHICS

  D. Stephen Long

  CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead

  CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy

  CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY

  Helen Morales

  CLASSICS Mary Beard

  and John Henderson

  CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard

  THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon

  COMMUNISM Leslie Holmes

  CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore

  CONTEMPORARY ART

  Julian Stallabrass

  CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

  Simon Critchley

  COSMOLOGY Peter Coles

  CRITICAL THEORY

  Stephen Eric Bronner

  THE CRUSADES Christopher Tyerman

  CRYPTOGRAPHY

  Fred Piper and Sean Murphy

  DADA AND SURREALISM

  David Hopkins

  DARWIN Jonathan Howard

  THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

  Timothy Lim

  DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick

  DESCARTES Tom Sorell

  DESERTS Nick Middleton

  DESIGN John Heskett

  DINOSAURS David Norman

  DIPLOMACY Joseph M. Siracusa

  DOCUMENTARY FILM

  Patricia Aufderheide

  DREAMING J. Allan Hobson

  DRUGS Leslie Iversen

  DRUIDS Barry Cunliffe

  THE EARTH Martin Redfern

  ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta

  EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch

  EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY

  BRITAIN Paul Langford

  THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball

  EMOTION Dylan Evans

  EMPIRE Stephen Howe

  ENGELS Terrell Carver

  ENGLISH LITERATURE

  Jonathan Bate

  EPIDEMIOLOGY Roldolfo Saracci

  ETHICS Simon Blackburn

  THE EUROPEAN UNION

  John Pinder and Simon Usherwood

  EVOLUTION

  Brian and Deborah Charlesworth

  EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn

  FASCISM Kevin Passmore

  FASHION Rebecca Arnold

  FEMINISM Margaret Walters

  FILM MUSIC Kathryn Kalinak

  THE FIRST WORLD WAR

  Michael Howard

  FOLK MUSIC Mark Slobin

  FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY

  David Canter

  FORENSIC SCIENCE Jim Fraser

  FOSSILS Keith Thomson

  FOUCAULT Gary Gutting

  FREE SPEECH Nigel Warburton

  FREE WILL Thomas Pink

  FRENCH LITERATURE John D. Lyons

  THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

  William Doyle

  FREUD Anthony Storr

  FUNDAMENTALISM Malise Ruthven

  GALAXIES John Gribbin

  GALILEO Stillman Drake

  GAME THEORY Ken Binmore

  GANDHI Bhikhu Parekh

  GENIUS Andrew Robinson

  GEOGRAPHY

  John Matthews and David Herbert

  GEOPOLITICS Klaus Dodds

  GERMAN LITERATURE Nicholas Boyle

  GERMAN PHILOSOPHY

  Andrew Bowie

  GLOBAL CATASTROPHES

  Bill McGuire

  GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin

  GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger

  THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE

  NEW DEAL Eric Rauchway

  HABERMAS James Gordon Finlayson

  HEGEL Peter Singer

  HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood

  HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson

  HINDUISM Kim Knott

  HISTORY John H. Arnold

  THE HISTORY OF

  ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin

  THE HISTORY OF LIFE

  Michael Benton

  THE HISTORY OF

  MEDICINE William Bynum

  THE HISTORY OF TIME

  Leofranc Holford-Strevens

  HIV/AIDS Alan Whiteside

  HOBBES Richard Tuck

  HUMAN EVOLUTION Bernard Wood

  HUMAN RIGHTS Andrew Clapham

  HUMANISM Stephen Law

  HUME A. J. Ayer

  IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden

  INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

  Sue Hamilton

  INFORMATION Luciano Floridi

  INNOVATION

  Mark Dodgson and David Gann

  INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary

  INTERNATIONAL

  MIGRATION Khalid Koser

  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

  Paul Wilkinson

  ISLAM Malise Ruthven

  ISLAMIC HISTORY Adam Silverstein

  JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves

  JUDAISM Norman Solomon

  JUNG Anthony Stevens

  KABBALAH Joseph Dan

  KAFKA Ritchie Robertson

  KANT Roger Scruton

  KEYNES Robert Skidelsky

  KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner

  THE KORAN Michael Cook

  LANDSCAPES AND

  GEOMORPHOLOGY

  Andrew Goudie and Heather Viles

  LATE ANTIQUITY Gillian Clark

  LAW Raymond Wacks

  THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS

  Peter Atkins

  LEADERSHIP Keith Grint

  LINCOLN Allen C. Guelzo

  LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews

  LITERARY THEORY Jonathan Culler

  LOCKE John Dunn

  LOGIC Graham Priest

  MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner

  THE MARQUIS DE SADE

  John Phillips

  MARX Peter Singer

  MARTIN LUTHER Scott H. Hendrix

  MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers

  THE MEANING OF LIFE

/>   Terry Eagleton

  MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope

  MEDIEVAL BRITAIN

  John Gillingham and

  Ralph A. Griffiths

  MEMORY Jonathan K. Foster

  MICHAEL FARADAY

  Frank. A. J. L. James

  MODERN ART David Cottington

  MODERN CHINA Rana Mitter

  MODERN IRELAND Senia Pašeta

  MODERN JAPAN

  Christopher Goto-Jones

  MODERNISM Christopher Butler

  MOLECULES Philip Ball

  MORMONISM

  Richard Lyman Bushman

  MUHAMMAD Jonathan A. Brown

  MUSIC Nicholas Cook

  MYTH Robert A. Segal

  NATIONALISM Steven Grosby

  NELSON MANDELA Elleke Boehmer

  NEOLIBERALISM

  Manfred Steger and Ravi Roy

  THE NEW TESTAMENT

  Luke Timothy Johnson

  THE NEW TESTAMENT AS

  LITERATURE Kyle Keefer

  NEWTON Robert Iliffe

  NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner

  NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN

  Christopher Harvie and

  H. C. G. Matthew

  THE NORMAN CONQUEST

  George Garnett

  NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS

  Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green

  NORTHERN IRELAND

  Marc Mulholland

  NOTHING Frank Close

  NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  Joseph M. Siracusa

  NUMBERS Peter M. Higgins

  THE OLD TESTAMENT

  Michael D. Coogan

  ORGANIZATIONS Mary Jo Hatch

  PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close

  PAUL E. P. Sanders

  PENTECOSTALISM William K. Kay

  PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig

  PHILOSOPHY OF LAW

  Raymond Wacks

  PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

  Samir Okasha

  PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards

  PLANETS David A. Rothery

  PLATO Julia Annas

  POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

  David Miller

  POLITICS Kenneth Minogue

  POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young

  POSTMODERNISM

  Christopher Butler

  POSTSTRUCTURALISM

  Catherine Belsey

  PREHISTORY Chris Gosden

  PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY

  Catherine Osborne

  PRIVACY Raymond Wacks

  PROGRESSIVISM Walter Nugent

  PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns

  PSYCHOLOGY

  Gillian Butler and Freda McManus

  PURITANISM Francis J. Bremer

  THE QUAKERS Pink Dandelion

  QUANTUM THEORY

  John Polkinghorne

  RACISM Ali Rattansi

  THE REAGAN REVOLUTION

  Gil Troy

  THE REFORMATION Peter Marshall

  RELATIVITY Russell Stannard

  RELIGION IN AMERICA

  Timothy Beal

  THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton

  RENAISSANCE ART

  Geraldine A. Johnson

  ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway

  THE ROMAN EMPIRE

  Christopher Kelly

  ROMANTICISM Michael Ferber

  ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler

  RUSSELL A. C. Grayling

  RUSSIAN LITERATURE Catriona Kelly

  THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

  S. A. Smith

  SCHIZOPHRENIA

  Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone

  SCHOPENHAUER

  Christopher Janaway

  SCIENCE AND RELIGION

  Thomas Dixon

  SCOTLAND Rab Houston

  SEXUALITY Véronique Mottier

  SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer

  SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt

  SOCIAL AND CULTURAL

  ANTHROPOLOGY

  John Monaghan and Peter Just

  SOCIALISM Michael Newman

  SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce

  SOCRATES C. C. W. Taylor

  THE SOVIET UNION Stephen Lovell

  THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

  Helen Graham

  SPANISH LITERATURE Jo Labanyi

  SPINOZA Roger Scruton

  STATISTICS David J. Hand

  STUART BRITAIN John Morrill

  SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

  Stephen Blundell

  TERRORISM Charles Townshend

  THEOLOGY David F. Ford

  THOMAS AQUINAS Fergus Kerr

  TOCQUEVILLE Harvey C. Mansfield

  TRAGEDY Adrian Poole

  THE TUDORS John Guy

  TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN

  Kenneth O. Morgan

  THE UNITED NATIONS

  Jussi M. Hanhimäki

  THE U.S. CONGRESS

  Donald A. Ritchie

  UTOPIANISM Lyman Tower Sargent

  THE VIKINGS Julian Richards

  WITCHCRAFT Malcolm Gaskill

  WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling

  WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman

  THE WORLD TRADE

  ORGANIZATION Amrita Narlikar

  WRITING AND SCRIPT

  Andrew Robinson

  AVAILABLE SOON:

  THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

  Lawrence M. Principe

  CANCER Nicholas James

  EARLY MUSIC Thomas Forrest Kelly

  PAGANISM Owen Davies

  NUCLEAR POWER Maxwell Irvine

  For more information visit our web site

  www.oup.co.uk/general/vsi/

  Stephen Eric Bronner

  CRITICAL

  THEORY

  A Very Short Introduction

  Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further

  Oxford University’s objective of excellence

  in research, scholarship, and education.

  Oxford New York

  Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi

  Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi

  New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

  With offices in

  Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece

  Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore

  South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

  Copyright © 2011 by Stephen Eric Bronner

  Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

  198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

  www.oup.com

  Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

  without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bronner, Stephen Eric, 1949–

  Critical theory : a very short introduction / Stephen Eric Bronner.

  p. cm.

  Includes index.

  ISBN 978-0-19-973007-0 (pbk.)

  1. Critical theory. I. Title.

  HM480.B76 2011

  301.01—dc22 2010027472

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  Printed in Great Britain

  by Ashford Colour Press Ltd., Gosport, Hants.

  on acid-free paper

  In memory of Ernst Bloch

  Contents

  List of illustrations

  Introduction: what is critical theory?

  1 The Frankfurt School

  2 A matter of method

  3 Alienation and reification

  4 Enlightened illusions

  5 The utopian laboratory

  6 The happy consciousness

  7 The great refusal

  8 From resignation to renewal

  Further reading

  Index

  List of illustrations

  1 Antiwar resisters

  National Archives />
  2 Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas

  Photo by Jeremy J. Shapiro

  3 The Tiller Girls

  Library of Congress

  4 Machine Age poster

  Library of Congress

  5 Goethe’s oak tree in front of the prisoner’s laundry at the Buchenwald concentration camp; illegal photo taken by inmate Georges Angeli

  Buchenwald Memorial Museum

  6 The Garden of Eden by N. Courier

  Library of Congress

  7 Audience at halftime of a football game

  Library of Congress

  8 A scene from Endgame by Samuel Beckett

  Royal Court Theatre

  9 Karl Marx’s grave site in London

  Author’s collection

  Introduction: what is

  critical theory?

  Philosophy has evidenced a subversive element from its inception. Plato’s Apology tells how Socrates was condemned by the Athenian citizenry for corrupting the morals of the young and doubting the gods. There was some truth to that complaint. Socrates called conventional wisdom into question. He subjected long-standing beliefs to rational scrutiny and speculated about concerns that projected beyond the existing order. What became known as “critical theory” was built upon this legacy. The new philosophical tendency was generated between World War I and World War II, and its most important representatives would wage an unrelenting assault on the exploitation, repression, and alienation embedded within Western civilization.

  Critical theory refuses to identify freedom with any institutional arrangement or fixed system of thought. It questions the hidden assumptions and purposes of competing theories and existing forms of practice. It has little use for what is known as “perennial philosophy.” Critical theory insists that thought must respond to the new problems and the new possibilities for liberation that arise from changing historical circumstances. Interdisciplinary and uniquely experimental in character, deeply skeptical of tradition and all absolute claims, critical theory was always concerned not merely with how things were but how they might be and should be. This ethical imperative led its primary thinkers to develop a cluster of themes and a new critical method that transformed our understanding of society.

  Critical theory has many sources. Immanuel Kant identified moral autonomy as the highest value for the individual. He provided critical theory with its definition of scientific rationality, and its goal of confronting reality with the prospects of freedom. Meanwhile Hegel understood consciousness as the motor of history, thinking as linked to practical concerns, and philosophy as “its epoch comprehended in thought.” Critical theorists learned to interpret the particular with an eye on the totality. The moment of freedom appeared in the demand for recognition by the enslaved and the exploited.

  Both Kant and Hegel incarnated the cosmopolitan and universal assumptions deriving from the European Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They relied upon reason to combat superstition, prejudice, cruelty, and the arbitrary exercise of institutional authority. They also speculated about the humane hopes expressed by aesthetics, the redemptive longings of religions, and new ways of thinking about the relation between theory and practice. The young Karl Marx went even farther with his utopian reflections on human emancipation.