101551 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Erich Fromm, Antonio Gramsci, Frankfurt School

• School: UWS
• Department: University of Western Sydney
• Course: 101551
• Professor: anon

Document Summary

Critical theory is the reflective assessment and critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities to reveal and challenge power structures. Critical theory has origins in sociology and also in literary criticism. Horkheimer described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks. "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them. " In sociology and political philosophy, the term "critical theory" describes the western marxist philosophy of the frankfurt school, which was developed in germany in the 1930s. This use of the term requires proper noun capitalization, whereas "a critical theory" or "a critical social theory" may have similar elements of thought, but does not stress the intellectual lineage specific to the frankfurt school. Frankfurt school critical theorists drew on the critical methods of karl. Critical theory maintains that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation. Critical theory was established as a school of thought primarily by the frankfurt school theoreticians herbert.