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Critical theory
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In the humanities and social sciences, critical theory is the examination and critique of society and literature, drawing from knowledge across social science and humanities disciplines. Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism Modernism describes an array of Cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Postmodernity (also spelled post-modernity or the pejorative postmodern condition) is generally used to describe the economic and/or cultural state or condition Postchristianity, postChristendom or postChristianism are variants of a term used to describe a contemporary cultural attitude strictly linked to Postmodernism Postmodern philosophy' is a philosophical direction which is critical of the foundational assumptions and structures of philosophy Postmodern architecture was an international style whose first examples are generally cited as being from the 1950s and which continues to influence present-day Architecture Postmodern art is a term used to describe art which is thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of Modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath Postmodernist film describes the articulation of ideas of Postmodernism through the cinematic medium. The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post- World War II literature Postmodern music is music which follows the postmodern ideology Postmodern theatre is a recent phenomenon in world Theatre, coming as it does out of the postmodern Philosophy that originated in Europe in the Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones Consumerism is the equation of personal Happiness with the purchase of material possessions and consumption. The humanities are academic disciplines which study the Human condition, using methods that are primarily Analytic, Critical, or Speculative The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups and individuals including Anthropology, Communication studies A society is a Population of Humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive Culture and Institutions Literature is the Art of written works Literally translated the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter The term has two quite different meanings with different origins and histories, one originating in social theory and the other in literary criticism. Social theory is an essential tool used by scholars in the analysis of society through the use of theoretical frameworks social structures and phenomena are analyzed and placed in context Literary criticism is the study discussion evaluation and interpretation of Literature. Though until recently these two meanings had little to do with each other, since the 1970s there has been some overlap between these disciplines. This has led to "critical theory" becoming an umbrella term for an array of theories in English-speaking academia. This article focuses primarily on the differences and similarities between the two senses of the term critical theory.

Contents

Critical theory (social theory)

Main article: Frankfurt School

The first meaning of the term critical theory was that defined by Max Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School of social science in his 1937 essay Traditional and Critical Theory: Critical theory is social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only to understanding or explaining it. The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist Critical theory, Social research, and Philosophy. Max Horkheimer (February 14 1895 &ndash July 7 1973 was a German Philosopher and Sociologist, and a founder and guiding thinker of Critical The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist Critical theory, Social research, and Philosophy. Horkheimer wanted to distinguish critical theory as a radical, emancipatory form of Marxian theory, critiquing both the model of science put forward by logical positivism and what he and his colleagues saw as the covert positivism and authoritarianism of orthodox Marxism and communism. Note Marxian economics is not restricted to Marxist economics as it includes the economic thought of those inspired by Marx's works who do not identify with Logical positivism (later and more accurately called logical empiricism) is a school of philosophy that combines Empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based Core concepts are: (1) That critical social theory should be directed at the totality of society in its historical specificity (i. e. how it came to be configured at a specific point in time), and (2) That Critical Theory should improve understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology. Although this conception of critical theory originated with the Frankfurt School, it also prevails among other recent social scientists, such as Pierre Bourdieu, Louis Althusser and arguably Michel Foucault and Bryan Reynolds, as well as certain feminist theorists and social scientists. Pierre Bourdieu ( August 1, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French Sociologist and writer known for his Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation altuˡseʁ ( October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Bryan Reynolds (born 1965 is an American critical theorist, performance theorist, and Shakespeare scholar who developed the combined social theory Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate

This version of "critical" theory derives from Kant's (18th-Century) and Marx's (19th Century) use of the term "critique", as in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Marx's concept that his work Das Kapital (Capital) forms a "critique of political economy". Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg The term critique derives from the Greek term kritik, meaning "disgusting judgment" usually of the value of something The Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is one For Kant's transcendental idealism, "critique" means examining and establishing the limits of the validity of a faculty, type, or body of knowledge, especially through accounting for the limitations imposed by the fundamental, irreducible concepts in use in that knowledge system. Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Early on, Kant's notion associated critique with the disestablishment of false, unprovable, or dogmatic philosophical, social, and political beliefs, because Kant's critique of reason involved the critique of dogmatic theological and metaphysical ideas and was intertwined with the enhancement of ethical autonomy and the Enlightenment critique of superstition and irrational authority. Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective Metaphysics is the branch of Philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science The Age of Enlightenment or The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century Marx explicitly developed this notion into the critique of ideology and linked it with the practice of social revolution, as in the famous 11th of his "Theses on Feuerbach," "Philosophers have only interpreted the world in certain ways; the point is to change it". The " Theses on Feuerbach " are eleven short philosophical notes written by Karl Marx in 1845. [1]

In the 1960's, Jürgen Habermas raised the epistemological discussion to a new level in his Knowledge and Human Interests, by identifying critical knowledge as based on principles that differentiated it either from the natural sciences or the humanities, through its orientation to self-reflection and emancipation. Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of Knowledge is defined ( Oxford English Dictionary) variously as (i expertise and skills acquired by a person through experience or education the theoretical or practical understanding In Science, the term natural science refers to a naturalistic approach to the study of the Universe, which is understood as obeying rules or law of The humanities are academic disciplines which study the Human condition, using methods that are primarily Analytic, Critical, or Speculative

The term critical theory, in the sociological or philosophical and non-literary sense, now loosely groups all sorts of work, e. g. that of the Frankfurt School, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and feminist theory, that has in common the critique of domination, an emancipatory interest, and the fusion of social/cultural analysis, explanation, and interpretation with social/cultural critique. Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Pierre Bourdieu ( August 1, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French Sociologist and writer known for his Feminist theory is the extension of Feminism into theoretical or philosophical, ground

Critical theory (literary criticism)

Main article: Literary theory

The second meaning of critical theory is that of theory used in literary criticism ("critical theory") and in the analysis and understanding of literature. Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of Literature and of the methods for analyzing literature This is discussed in greater detail under literary theory. Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of Literature and of the methods for analyzing literature This form of critical theory is not necessarily oriented toward radical social change or even toward the analysis of society, but instead specializes on the analysis of texts and text-like phenomena. It originated among literary scholars and in the discipline of literature in the 1960s and 1970s, and has really only come into broad use since the 1980s, especially as theory used in literary studies became increasingly influenced by European philosophy and social theory and thereby became more "theoretical".

This version of "critical" theory derives from the notion of literary criticism as establishing and enhancing the proper aesthetic understanding and evaluation of literature, as articulated, for example, in Joseph Addison's notion of a critic as one who helps understand and interpret literary works: "A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation. Aesthetics or esthetics ( also spelled æsthetics) is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values sometimes called Joseph Addison (May 1 1672 – June 17 1719 was an English essayist and Poet. " [2] This notion of criticism ultimately goes back to Aristotle's Poetics as a theory of literature.

This meaning of "critical theory" originated entirely within the humanities. There are works of literary critical theory that show no awareness of the sociological version of critical theory.

Relationship between the two versions

These two meanings of critical theory derive from two different intellectual traditions associated with the meaning of criticism and critique, both of which derive ultimately from the Greek word kritikos meaning judgment or discernment and in their present forms go back to the 18th century. While they can be considered completely independent intellectual pursuits, increasingly scholars are interested in the areas of critique where the two overlap.

To use an epistemological distinction introduced by Jürgen Habermas in 1968 in his Erkenntnis und Interesse (Knowledge and Human Interests), critical theory in literary studies is ultimately a form of hermeneutics, i. Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of Theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts e. knowledge via interpretation to understand the meaning of human texts and symbolic expressions, while critical social theory is, in contrast, a form of self-reflective knowledge involving both understanding and theoretical explanation to reduce entrapment in systems of domination or dependence, obeying the emancipatory interest in expanding the scope of autonomy and reducing the scope of domination. From this perspective, much literary critical theory, since it is focused on interpretation and explanation rather than on social transformation, would be regarded as positivistic or traditional rather than critical theory in the Kantian or Marxian sense. Note Marxian economics is not restricted to Marxist economics as it includes the economic thought of those inspired by Marx's works who do not identify with Critical theory in literature and the humanities in general does not necessarily involve a normative dimension, whereas critical social theory does, either through criticizing society from some general theory of values, norms, or oughts, or through criticizing it in terms of its own espoused values. Normative has specialized meanings in several academic disciplines A personal and cultural value is a Relative ethic value, an assumption upon which implementation can be extrapolated

Overlap between the two versions of critical theory

Nevertheless, a certain amount of overlap has come about, initiated both from the critical social theory and the literary-critical theory sides. It was distinctive of the Frankfurt School's version of critical theory from the beginning, especially in the work of Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, and Leo Lowenthal, because of their focus on the role of false consciousness and ideology in the perpetuation of capitalism, to analyze works of culture, including literature, music, art, both "high culture" and "popular culture" or "mass culture. Max Horkheimer (February 14 1895 &ndash July 7 1973 was a German Philosopher and Sociologist, and a founder and guiding thinker of Critical Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno ( September 11, 1903 &ndash August 6, 1969) was a German -born international sociologist Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( July 15, 1892 &ndash September 27, 1940) was a German - Jewish Marxist Herbert Marcuse ( July 19, 1898 &ndash July 29, 1979) was a German philosopher and sociologist, and a member of Leo Löwenthal (November 3 1900 &ndash January 21 1993 was a German Sociologist usually associated with the Frankfurt School. Theory The concept flows from the theory of Commodity fetishism &mdash that people experience social relationships as value relations between things e An ideology is a set of beliefs aims and Ideas especially in politics Capitalism is the Economic system in which the Means of production are owned by private Persons and operated for Profit and where High culture is a term now used in a number of different ways in Academic discourse whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products mainly in the Popular culture (or pop culture) is the Culture — patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance — " Thus it was to some extent a theory of literature and a method of literary criticism (as in Walter Benjamin's interpretation of Baudelaire and Kafka, Leo Lowenthal's interpretations of Shakespeare, Ibsen, etc. William Shakespeare ( baptised "Ibsen" redirects here For other people named Ibsen see Ibsen (disambiguation. , Adorno's interpretations of Kafka, Valery, Balzac, Beckett, etc. Valery or Valéry is a given name or surname and may refer to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, French politician Paul Valéry, French ) and (see below) in the 1960s started to influence the literary sort of critical theory.

Within social theory

In the late 1960s Jürgen Habermas of the Frankfurt School, redefined critical theory in a way that freed it from a direct tie to Marxism or the prior work of the Frankfurt School. Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of In Habermas's epistemology, critical knowledge was conceptualized as knowledge that enabled human beings to emancipate themselves from forms of domination through self-reflection and took psychoanalysis as the paradigm of critical knowledge. This expanded considerably the scope of what counted as critical theory within the social sciences, which would include such approaches as world systems theory, feminist theory, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, performance studies, transversal poetics, queer theory, social ecology, the theory of communicative action (Jürgen Habermas), structuration theory, psychoanalysis and neo-Marxian theory. World system approach is a Post-Marxist view of world affairs one of several historical and current applications of Marxism to International relations. Feminist theory is the extension of Feminism into theoretical or philosophical, ground Postcolonialism ( postcolonial theory, post-colonial theory) is an intellectual discourse that holds together a set of theories found among the texts and Critical Race Theory (CRT is the branch of Critical legal studies concerned with issues of Racism and racial subordination and Discrimination. Performance studies has been growing as an academic specialty since the 1970s Bryan Reynolds (born 1965 is an American critical theorist, performance theorist, and Shakespeare scholar who developed the combined social theory Queer theory is a field of Gender Studies that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of gay and Lesbian studies and feminist studies Social Ecology is a philosophy developed by French geographer and anarchist Élisée Reclus and revived by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of The theory of structuration, proposed by Anthony Giddens ( 1984) in The Constitution of Society (mentioned also in Central Problems of Social Theory Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior

Within literary theory

From the literary side, starting in the 1960s literary scholars, reacting especially against the New Criticism of the previous decades, which tried to analyze literary texts purely internally, began to incorporate into their analyses and interpretations of literary works initially semiotic, linguistic, and interpretive theory, then structuralism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and deconstruction as well as Continental philosophy, especially phenomenology and hermeneutics, and critical social theory and various other forms of neo-Marxian theory. New Criticism was a dominant trend in English and American Literary criticism of the mid twentieth century from the 1920s to the early 1960s Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes (semiosis or signification and communication signs and Symbols both Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields For the use of structuralism in biology see Structuralism (biology Structuralism is an approach to the human sciences that attempts to analyze Post-structuralism encompasses the intellectual developments of continental philosophers and critical theorists who wrote with tendencies of twentieth-century Deconstruction is a term used in Philosophy, Literary criticism, and the Social sciences, popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida in Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of Theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts Thus literary criticism became highly theoretical and some of those practicing it began referring to the theoretical dimension of their work as "critical theory", i. e. philosophically inspired theory of literary criticism. And thus incidentally critical theory in the sociological sense also became, especially among literary scholars of left-wing sympathies, one of a number of influences upon and streams within critical theory in the literary sense.

Furthermore, along with the expansion of the mass media and mass/popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s and the blending of social and cultural criticism and literary criticism, the methods of both kinds of critical theory sometimes intertwined in the analysis of phenomena of popular culture, as in the emerging field of cultural studies, in which concepts deriving from Marxian theory, post-structuralism, semiology, psychoanalysis and feminist theory would be found in the same interpretive work. Cultural studies is an academic discipline which combines Political economy, Communication, Sociology, Social theory, Literary theory Note Marxian economics is not restricted to Marxist economics as it includes the economic thought of those inspired by Marx's works who do not identify with Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior Feminist theory is the extension of Feminism into theoretical or philosophical, ground Both strands were often present in the various modalities of postmodern theory. Postmodern philosophy' is a philosophical direction which is critical of the foundational assumptions and structures of philosophy

Language and construction

The two points at which there is the greatest overlap or mutual impingement of the two versions of critical theory are in their interrelated foci on language, symbolism, and communication and in their focus on construction.

Language and communication

From the 1960s and 1970s onward, language, symbolism, text, and meaning became foundational to theory in the humanities and social sciences, through the short-term and long-term influences of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ferdinand de Saussure, George Herbert Mead, Noam Chomsky, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and other thinkers in the traditions of linguistic and analytic philosophy, structural linguistics, symbolic interactionism, hermeneutics, semiology, linguistically oriented psychoanalysis (Jacques Lacan, Alfred Lorenzer), and deconstruction. Ferdinand de Saussure (fɛʁdinɑ̃ də soˈsyːʁ ( November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Swiss linguist George Herbert Mead ( February 27, 1863 – April 26, 1931) was an American Philosopher, Sociologist and Psychologist Avram Noam Chomsky (noʊm ˈtʃɑmski born December 7 1928 is an American linguist, Philosopher, cognitive scientist, Political Hans-Georg Gadamer (ˈgaːdamɐ February 11, 1900 &ndash March 13, 2002) was a German Philosopher of the continental Roland Barthes ( November 12, 1915 &ndash March 25, 1980) (ʀɔlɑ̃ baʀt was a French Literary critic, literary Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan (French ʒak lakɑ̃ ( April 13, 1901 &ndash September 9, 1981) was a French Psychoanalyst Alfred Lorenzer ( Ulm, April 8 1922 - Perugia, June 26 2002 was a German Psychoanalyst and Sociologist. When, in the 1970s and 1980s, Jürgen Habermas also redefined critical social theory as a theory of communication, i. Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of e. communicative competence and communicative rationality on the one hand, distorted communication on the other, the two versions of critical theory began to overlap or intertwine to a much greater degree than before.

Construction

Both versions of critical theory have focused on the processes of synthesis, production, or construction by which the phenomena and objects of human communication, culture, and political consciousness come about. The politics of consciousness Consciousness typically refers to the idea of a being who is self-aware Whether it is through the transformational rules by which the deep structure of language becomes its surface structure (Chomsky), the universal pragmatic principles through which mutual understanding is generated (Habermas), the semiotic rules by which objects of daily usage or of fashion obtain their meanings (Barthes), the psychological processes by which the phenomena of everyday consciousness are generated (psychoanalytic thinkers), the episteme that underlies our cognitive formations (Foucault), and so on, there is a common interest in the processes (often of a linguistic or symbolic kind) that give rise to observable phenomena. In Linguistics, and especially the study of Syntax, the deep structure of a linguistic expression is a theoretical construct that seeks to unify several related structures In the field of Linguistics, specifically in Syntax, surface structure (abbreviated 'SS' and often called 'S-structure' refers to the mental representation of a linguistic Distinguished from Techne, the word ἐπιστήμη is Greek for Knowledge or Science, coming from the verb Here there is significant mutual influence among aspects of the different versions of critical theory. Ultimately this emphasis on production and construction goes back to the revolution wrought by Kant in philosophy, namely his focus in the Critique of Pure Reason on synthesis according to rules as the fundamental activity of the mind that creates the order of our experience. Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg The Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is one

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Dictionary

critical theory

-noun

  1. The examination and critique of society and literature, drawing from knowledge across social science and humanities disciplines.
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