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The main difference between critical theory and others, as famously outlined by Horkheimer, is its critical aim: as opposed to "traditional" theories that mainly try to understand or even explain society, critical theory wants to overcome the current state of society and help erect a more "reasonable" society without exploitation, alienation and unnecessary suffering. However, culture has not always been the central interest of critical theory. The initial approach of Karl Marx rather stressed economic structures and political struggles, whereas later thinkers such as Habermas and Honneth almost exclusively focused on social norms. The focus shifted from political economy to psychoanalysis and culture in the first generation of the Frankfurt School, and further on to moral and legal philosophy in the second generation. This chapter mainly focuses on these theories, in particular on the works of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. In order to frame these approaches, the chapter starts with an overview of Marxian critical theory and ends with an outlook on the normativist stance of later theories.

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-55801-5_12

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