critical theory

is the social and individual emancipation from the political power and economic forces found in advanced class systems.

the social and individual emancipation from the political power and economic forces found in advanced class systems.

is theory that is 'critical' in that it seeks human emancipation.

a 'critical' theory may be distinguished from a 'traditional' theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human emancipation, 'to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them' (Horkheimer 1982, 244).

is attractive in that it offers one the possibility to usurp the place of the author without having had to produce a primary text.

The attraction of critical theory: One can usurp the place of the author without having had to produce a primary text.

is tasked to give agents a kind of knowledge inherently productive of enlightenment and emancipation.

Poststructuralism, then, is a type of critical theory that shares with its genus the aspiration of achieving the kind of knowledge that, as Raymond Geuss explains of critical theory more generally, “gives agents a kind of knowledge inherently productive of enlightenment and emancipation” (1981:2).

critical theory, n.All

critical theory