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CRITICAL THEORY
A sociology developed by the Frankfurt school that is influenced by divergent intellectual ideas, including Marxism and psychoanalysis. It starts from two principles: opposition to the status quo and the idea that history can be potentially progressive. Together these principles imply a position from which to make judgments of human activity (rather than just describing) and provide the tools for criticism. Sometimes associated with highlighting the ‘dark side’ of modernity, critical theory attacks social ideas and practices which stand in the way of social justice and human emancipation (the rational organization of society as an association of free people). Critical theory is opposed to ‘bourgeois liberalism’.

Last updated 2002--0-9-

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Athabaca University ICAAP

© Robert Drislane, Ph.D. and Gary Parkinson, Ph.D.
The online version of this dictionary is a product of
Athabasca University and
ICAAP

*This social science dictionary has 1000
entries covering the disciplines of sociology, criminology, political
science and women's study with a commitment to Canadian examples and
events and names