Critical theory

Critical theory analyzes how social, economic, and cultural arrangements sustain power and domination, while seeking knowledge that can support human emancipation and social transformation.

Ideology: A system of ideas and representations that shapes how people understand social relations and political life. Critical theorists examine how ideas can make unequal social arrangements appear natural or legitimate.
Frankfurt School: A group of German intellectuals associated with the Institute for Social Research and critical social theory. Its early members gave critical theory its best-known institutional home.
Critique of ideology: The analysis of how ideas conceal, justify, or reproduce relations of power. It reveals the interests and social conditions embedded in apparently neutral beliefs.
Jürgen Habermas: A German philosopher and sociologist who developed a theory of communicative rationality and deliberative democracy. He recast critical theory around communication, public reasoning, and democratic legitimacy.
Analytic philosophy: A philosophical tradition emphasizing clarity, argument analysis, and logical or linguistic methods. Its characteristic methods differ from critical theory's focus on historical social totalities and domination.
Reification: The treatment of human relationships or social processes as fixed, independent things. It names how historically made institutions can seem objective and unchangeable.
Institute for Social Research: A research institute founded in Frankfurt in 1923 that became associated with the Frankfurt School. The institute supported interdisciplinary studies of capitalism, culture, and authority.
Culture industry: A concept describing the standardized production of culture as a commercial industry. Adorno and Horkheimer used it to analyze how entertainment can encourage conformity.
Axel Honneth: A German philosopher associated with recognition theory and contemporary critical social theory. His account of social struggle centers on experiences of misrecognition and disrespect.
Traditional theory: Horkheimer's term for theory that presents knowledge as detached from social interests and historical conditions. It is the explicit counterpart against which Horkheimer defined critical theory.

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