Immanent Critique

On the Method of Critical Theory

Abstract

The concept of immanent critique (understood as a critique of a reality based on parameters already elucidated within it, and not according to external parameters) was conceptualized in the works of Hegel and those of other leftist­thinking Hegelians, especially Karl Marx. It came to constitute what we might call the methodology of the Critical Theory associated with the Frankfurt School. This article presents an approach to the question of the current state of this mode of criticism in social philosophy and ongoing political debates. Based on considerations from Hegel, Marx and other authors in the field of Critical Theory, it first expounds the specific bases of the procedure of immanent critique, before continuing on to propose a classification of three ways of conceiving immanent critique in the context of Critical Theory from the post­war period up to today, focusing on its potentialities and possible problems.