1 Introduction: Key Texts and Contributions to a Critical Theory of Society Beverley Best, Werner Bonefeld and Chris O’Kane The designation of the Frankfurt School as a known by sympathisers as ‘Café Marx’. It ‘critical theory’ originated in the United was the first Marxist research institute States. It goes back to two articles, one writ- attached to a German University. ten by Max Horkheimer and the other by Since the 1950s, ‘Frankfurt School’ criti- Herbert Marcuse, that were both published in cal theory has become an established, inter- Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (later Studies nationally recognised ‘brand name’ in the in Philosophy and Social Science) in 1937.1 social and human sciences, which derives The Zeitschrift, published from 1932 to from its institutional association in the 1920s 1941, was the publishing organ of the and again since 1951 with the Institute Institute for Social Research. It gave coher- for Social Research in Frankfurt, (West) ence to what in fact was an internally diverse Germany. From this institutional perspec- and often disagreeing group of heterodox tive, it is the association with the Institute Marxists that hailed from a wide disciplinary that provides the basis for what is considered spectrum, including social psychology critical theory and who is considered to be a (Fromm, Marcuse, Horkheimer), political critical theorist. This Handbook works with economy and state formation (Pollock and and against its branded identification, concre- Neumann), law and constitutional theory tising as well as refuting it. (Kirchheimer, Neumann), political science We retain the moniker ‘Frankfurt School’ (Gurland, Neumann), philosophy and sociol- in the title to distinguish the character of its ogy (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse), culture critical theory from other seemingly non- (Löwenthal, Adorno), musicology (Adorno), traditional approaches to society, including aesthetics (Adorno, Löwenthal, Marcuse) the positivist traditions of Marxist thought, and social technology (Gurland, Marcuse). constructivist idealism, French philoso- In the Weimar Republic, the Institute was phies of structure, events and rhizomes, BK-SAGE-BEST_ET_AL_V1-170402-Chp01.indd 1 5/11/18 4:05 PM 2 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF FRANKFURT SCHOOL CRITICAL THEORY post-colonialism, the abstract negativity of of critical thought. Critical theory is about subjectivism, including the existentialist tra- the conceptuality of a historical reality. It is ditions and contemporary Anthropocene, and both a method of thought and a process of justice-orientated abstract normativism. thinking in and through the social object. It is not a method of organising concepts and of thinking about society. Rather than apply- ing thought to the social object, it argues CRITICAL THEORY: AN OUTLINE2 that conceptuality holds sway within it. This insight formulates the task of critical theory In its original formulation, critical theory is as an immanent critique of society, one that characterised by thinking against the flow of sets out to uncover what is active in objects. the (reified) world. It is an attempt to brush Thus, against positivism, it holds that in its against its grain to reveal its foundation in immediate and direct appearance the whole historically specific social relations. It was of society is untrue. the first serious Marxist attempt to confront Horkheimer’s ‘Traditional and Critical the historical materialism of the orthodox Theory’ argues that in its posited appearance, Marxist tradition. According to the ortho- society presents itself in the form of petri- doxy, labour is a transhistorical objective fied relations, which perpetuate themselves necessity and the various modes of produc- as if by some independent dynamic that is tion present historically specific forms of regulated by invisible forces. This appear- labour economy. In this view, history is ance is real as necessary illusion, which is objectively unfolding towards a ‘higher’ ideology; the ideology of the social object mode of production: socialism. For the ortho- is its appearance as natural. According to doxy, therefore, there can be no such thing as Horkheimer, Marx was the first critical the critique of labour. There can only be a theorist who conceived of capitalist society critique of the capitalist irrationality of labour as an objective illusion.5 That is, the fetish- organisation, leading to the endorsement of ism of commodities is real as the objective socialism as a rational form of labour organi- inversion of the social relations that vanish sation.3 Orthodox Marxism thus conceived of in their appearance as a relationship between capitalism as transition to socialism either economic quantities, which are regulated through reformist struggle for recognition of by an invisible hand that, as Adorno put it, labour rights or revolutionary struggle as takes care of ‘both the beggar and the king’.6 midwife for a centrally planned labour econ- What has vanished cannot be identified nor omy.4 In the 1920s, Frankfurt School critical conceptualised; what remains is the social theory emerged from within the constraints subject as a non-conceptuality.7 Abstract of these positions as well as the deadly hos- things neither posit themselves nor do they tility that existed amongst their respective impose and reproduce themselves according supporters and between the latter and their to some innate objectively unfolding logic. nationalist foes. Rather, it is the social relations, individuals Following Max Horkheimer, the oppo- in and through their social praxis, that ren- site of a critical theory of society is not an der social objectivity valid by bestowing it uncritical theory: it is ‘traditional theory’. For with a consciousness and a will. The verac- Horkheimer, traditional theory is uncritical of ity of this insight is no way challenged by its own social and historical preconditions. the equally valid insight that the subjects act Instead of seeking to establish the social and under the compulsion of social objectivity, on historical constitution of its object, it identi- the pain of ruin and disaster. In this context, fies society as given – mere data. Against ide- critical theory is best seen as an attempt at alism, it holds that positivism is an element conceptualising capitalist social objectivity BK-SAGE-BEST_ET_AL_V1-170402-Chp01.indd 2 5/11/18 4:05 PM INTRODUCTION: KEY TEXTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO A CRITICAL THEORY OF SOCIETY 3 as a definite form of human social practice. and interpretation. The comprehension of Critical theory thus becomes a negative dia- reality is a theoretical effort and the critique lectic of the conceptualised praxis (begriffene of reality is therefore a critique of its theoris- Praxis) of capitalist social relations.8 ing. Reality neither speaks for itself nor by As argued by Horkheimer in ‘Traditional itself. Its critique is fundamentally a theoreti- and Critical Theory’, Marx’s critique of polit- cal critique, which is also a critique of episte- ical economy amounts to a devastating judg- mology and science, that includes philosophy ment on existence, not just of the economic and political economy. As a critical theory, sphere but of society as a whole, as a totality. therefore, materialism is ‘a dissolution of Totality is a negative concept of the wrong things understood as dogmatic’.11 In this state of things. For Horkheimer, Marx’s cri- context, Lukács’ notion of ‘false conscious- tique of political economy is social critique. ness’, which he developed most clearly in his It is critique of the economic categories as History and Consciousness, is unhelpful. In the valid categories of a ‘false’ society. For the ‘enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world’ Adorno, Marx’s critical theory is character- of capitalist social relations, thought too is ised by its resistance to substituting the truth enchanted, perverted and topsy-turvy. Critical content of thought for its ‘social function and theory is here characterised as an effort of its conditioning by interests’. Traditional the- critique, making thought work, which entails ory, says Adorno, ‘refrains from a critique’ of confrontation of the cogitative account of social contents, and ‘[remains] indifferent to society with its experience. Critical theory it’.9 It classifies and defines social phenom- holds that the theoretical concept of society ena but does not look into them. The purpose is fundamentally an experienced concept and of critical theory as a critique of ideology is to vice versa.12 Traditional theory might want uncover what is active in things to reveal the to analyse society on the basis of algorithmic socially constituted principle of compulsion, data. It can do this because it has no expe- that power of society as a whole, in which rience of society. What counts are numbers; the social subject, Man in her social relations, whether numbers inflate or deflate is, how- appears as a mere character-mask (Adorno) ever, of no concern to the numbers them- or personification (Marx) of reified relations selves. It is a concern for the social subject, between seemingly natural social things. It and the validity of inflation or deflation is is of course true, as traditional theory rec- therefore a social validity. For traditional the- ognises, that the ‘life of all men hangs’ by ory, experience is not a scientific category. It the profitable extraction of surplus value.10 therefore excludes what is vital from its ana- Time really is money and money is money lytical gaze. Nevertheless, the development,