Critical theory investigates both social relations and the production of knowledge within them, rather than simply describing society as an external object. Horkheimer’s 1937 distinction challenges traditional theory’s treatment of specialized intellectual activity as independent of the social division of labour. Theory belongs to the world it seeks to explain.
Criticism here does not mean issuing negative judgments about everything. It examines tensions between institutions’ promises of freedom, equality, or reason and their operation. Asking which economic dependencies shape a contract between legally free parties requires examining legal forms alongside social conditions.
Horkheimer’s interdisciplinary program connects philosophy with economics, sociology, and psychology. Concepts cannot replace empirical research, while data cannot alone determine why a question matters. Researchers must examine their categories’ historical conditions and practical consequences.
Later Frankfurt approaches do not simply repeat one program. Adorno’s critique of identity, Habermas’s communicative rationality, and Honneth’s theory of recognition employ different critical strategies. Their shared designation does not dissolve genuine disagreements into a single doctrine.