HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Critical theory is a philosophical and social framework that aims to understand and critique oppressive power structures in society. It examines the relationship between power, culture, and social inequality, focusing on how dominant ideologies maintain and perpetuate systems of injustice to foster social transformation and liberation.
INTRODUCTION
The term “critical theory” was first coined in 1937 after most of the Institute’s members had already immigrated to the United States following the triumph of Hitler. For many years, “critical theory” stood as a codeword for the Institute’s Marxism.
DEFINITION OF CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES
According to Black’s Law Dictionary
A school of thought advancing the idea that the legal system perpetuates the status quo in terms of economics, race, and gender by using manipulability concepts and by creating an imaginary world of social harmony regulated by law.
CHARACTERISTICS OF CRITICAL THEORY
The characteristics of the critical theory are the following.
1. IT INVOLVES THE ATTEMPTS OF INDIVIDUALS
The critical theory project initially involved attempts of individuals from various disciplines to work together collectively to develop a historical and systematic theory of contemporary society rather than just bringing individuals from separate disciplines together to chat or assigning various specialists different topics for research and inquiry.
2. THEORY OF SOCIETY
The critical theory insists that one nan approach to the grounded theory of capitalism to make sense of socio-historical processes and developments because the dynamics of capitalism play such a constitutive role in social life.
3. IT UTILIZES TOTALITY
Critical theory utilizes totalizing concepts to describe a totalizing capitalist system that attempts to impose its values, structures, and practices throughout social life.
4. SYSTEMATIC NATURE
Critical theory is thus systemic, totalizing, integrating, and global. Therefore, social theory mediates critical theorists, integrating science and philosophy and mediating between research and theoretical construction and presentation.
5. ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy’s role in critical theory is to analyze the presuppositions of a critical social theory and criticize competing theories’ presuppositions and effects.
6. SELF-REFLEXIVE AND SELF-ANALYSIS
Critical theory is intensely self-reflexive and self-critical, forcing critical theorists to continually concern themselves with reflections on the method and the nature and effects of a critical social theory.
7. SUBSTANTIVE SOCIAL THEORY
Critical theory strives to provide a substantive soviewheory of the present age. On one hand, critical theory contains a set of ways of looking at the world and a set of investigative, research, textual, and political practices.
Yet, the critical theory also provides a substantive, comprehenviewheory of the present age in addition to its methodological orientation for doing social theory and research and relating theoretical work to radical politics.
8. NEW FORMS OF TECHNOLOGY
According to many critical theorists, new forms of technology, new modes of organizing production, new configurations of class, and new methods of social control were producing a “one-dimensional” society without opposition.
It also seemed that new political, social, and primarily cultural conformity forms were becoming institutionalized. A crisis of critical theory emerged with its fragmentation after World War II.
CRITICISM FACED BY CRITICAL THEORISTS
The reasons for the failure of most critical theorists to update and develop their substantive social theory are many and complex.
In Germany and the United States, most of the work in critical theory during the last decade has followed Habermas’s attempt to develop more adequate philosophical foundations for critical theory or to delineate philosophical aspects of critical theory. Thus, there has been a deficit in social research and the elaboration of new ethical perspectives in social theory.
Suppose critical theory wishes to meet the postmodern challenge and win back its role as the cutting-edge radical social approach. In that case, it must seek new directions and provide theoretical accounts of contemporary developments in various.
POSTMODERN CRITICAL THEORY
Postmodern critical theory politicizes social problems “by situating them in historical and cultural contexts, to implicate themselves in collecting and analyzing data, and to relativize their findings. The focus of research is centred on local manifestations rather than broad generalizations.
Postmodern critical research is also characterized by the crisis of representation, which rejects the idea that a researcher’s work is an “objective depiction of a stable other.” Instead, many postmodern scholars have adopted “alternatives that encourage reflection about the ‘politics and poetics’ of their work. These accounts clarify qualitative research’s embodied, collaborative, dialogic, improvisational aspects”.
CONCLUSION
The critical social theory should be directed at the totality of society in its historically specific city, i.e. how it came to be configured to a particular point in time. Critical theory should improve understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including geography, economics, sociology, and history: political science, anthropology, and psychology.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What do you understand by the critical theory? Explain it concerning its criticism.
(2019-A Special Exam, 2017-A)
Explain critical theory with the help of illustrations.
(2019-A)
Explain Critical Theory and highlights its salient features.
(2017-8)
REFERENCES
- Jurisprudence
- N-Series by M.A. Chaudhary
- Black’s Law Dictionary
