Talk:Critical theory

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Index 1

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by when more than 5 sections are present.

Post Modern Critical Theory

>Postmodern critical theory analyzes the fragmentation of cultural identities in order to challenge modernist-era constructs such as metanarratives, rationality, and universal truths, while politicizing social problems "by situating them in historical and cultural contexts, to implicate themselves in the process of collecting and analyzing data, and to relativize their findings."[5]

The source doesn't say that, and no one in the source is a Critical Theorist. Feels like it's been tact on by someone looking to associate Post Modernism and critical Theory. 203.192.78.82 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 00:02, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This Article Does Not Make Any Sense

I am an intelligent, highly-educated person and I could not make heads nor tails of the content of this article. This paragraph, for example: "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. In these accounts, the embodied, collaborative, dialogic, and improvisational aspects of qualitative research are clarified”.

What? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.69.113.230 (talk) 19:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree--this article is a mess. Is the extensive discussion of the difference between literary critical theory and social critical theory necessary? Need it be so long? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mics 777 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I've been trying to clean it up. DenverCoder9 (talk) 00:01, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Does the Critical Theory article at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy look more clear? For the section discussed in this thread, I doubt it is possible to explain it in 2 or 3 paragraphs. It will need a major expansion to become clear, and even then, it might not be fully accessible to everyone (I struggled with a few of these authors even when studying them formally). --MarioGom (talk) 00:11, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the Stanford article is better written, but still overwhelming. Whatever is written here needs to be accurate, yet it also should be concise enough to be comprehensible or it's useless for the majority of readers. Tgrayson (talk) 21:14, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The article lacks a Criticism section...

... without which it is just an unserious write-up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.53.245 (talk) 11:33, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a criticism.Sdio7 (talk) 06:01, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for doing that. Vorbee (talk) 07:26, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There should probably be some criticism from a right-wing/anti-Marxist perspective, too. I'm sure there are anti-Marxist social theory alternatives to critical theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drbogatyr (talk • contribs) 18:04, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Drbogatyr: Feel free to contribute or propose any reliable source for that. --MarioGom (talk) 21:30, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone got any thoughts about adding some stuff about the so-called Sokal Squared hoax? Frankly I find the attacks on critique by that crowd to be less than convincing, but they did attract a lot of media attention, and in the minds of many now "critical theory" is most closely associated with the caricature versions of queer theory etc. that they created/lampooned. I think a paragraph or so on this episode is warranted. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 01:40, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

more generally, I have just been revisiting Benhabib and Held, and really thinking that this page does not get across some of the key and important elements of critique... Given the relative sparsity of activity on talk I will just assume I can go ahead and start jazzing it up. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 01:52, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with the idea that this article (or any other article) needs a dedicated criticism section. While I agree with Cleopatran Apocalypse that this article should at least mention Sokal squared, I agree with the WP:NOCRIT essay that negative criticism should be woven throughout the article in the appropriate sections. --DavidCary (talk) 03:15, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it really doesn't make sense to have specific criticism sections, since good information and analysis should not really be expressed in normative terms. It doesn't really benefit anyone. The Sokal Squared hoax is a good example of negative reactions to /interpretations of critical theory in the public sphere, so I think it's notable for that reason. But it should be in the context of a broader discussion about the impact and reception of this theoretical approach. I am working on a bunch of articles in the broader genre — i.e. the claimed outgrowth of critical methods. It is a fascinating field. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 08:13, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot possibly be serious that the main page about a major school of thought should not bother to acknowledge that there are critics and opposing views. Wikipedia is not a place for "broader discussion". People come here for facts. It is a fact that critical theory has been criticised by liberals and utilitarians and conservatives, why do you think that these critical facts should be woven into a longer essay? This is nothing short of obscurantist; trying to bury and reframe the criticisms of critical theory in a way that will make it seem to a casual reader hat critical theory is completely accepted and unchallenged. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.144.137.230 (talk) 16:42, 11 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory has an RFC

Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:09, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Phantom quote

The first paragraph here cites Horkheimer as saying Critical theory seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them", referencing his book Critical Theory: Selected Essays, p.244. This quote is cited everywhere (it may be his most famous quote), but having looked through the book it does not seem to actually exist. The closest is on p.246, where he says "its goal is man's emancipation from slavery".

I'm happy to be corrected, but I think this is a phantom quote; i.e. a case of one person having misquoted it, and everyone else copying from that original misquote. If anyone knows differently, please let me know.

Article Scope

This article will confuse readers who encounter critical theory in the broad sense and find here an almost exclusive emphasis on the older narrow sense. For example, it emphasizes Western Marxism at the expense of post-Marxism. For the "broad vs narrow" distinction, see The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This narrow emphasis becomes incoherent when the article (correctly!) list Erich Fromm, hardly a "Western Marxist"! Cerberus (talk) 21:11, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am genuinely confused as to what the difference between the Frankfurt School's CT and the general CT. Are they overlapping, completely different, or was one a successor to the other? Harizotoh9 (talk) 01:05, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I very much agree with the comments above and wonder (I am not an experienced editor) if there is a disambiguation problem here? The problem with this article as it stands is that it tries to deal with both a clearly definable thing (CT) and a completely different thing, if it is a thing at all, which refers to a vast range of different ideas and approaches. The article also has glaring errors, but they would be editable in the normal course of things. There is a Frankfurt School article: Should references to Critical Theory (caps) should be merged there? I have asked admin to take a look at Teahouse. Emmentalist (talk) 09:02, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Emmentalist, the teahouse is certainly a good idea. But admins have no special powers wrt content here. I agree that the CT/CT is a bit confusing here. But it's up to us (here on the talk page, or through WP:BOLD edits to the main article to figure something out :) I also believe that wikipedia's articles on Critical theory and/or the Frankfurt school are a bit lacking given the vast amount of scholarship on that topic...

A way forward? Maybe we can split this article into two? Maybe disambiguate to Frankfurt School? Not sure, but the term is also quite confusing in reality (not so much only here on wikipedia). The SEP is correct Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. “Critical Theory” in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. ... many “critical theories” in the broader sense have been developed. They have emerged in connection with the many social movements that identify varied dimensions of the domination of human beings in modern societies. Mvbaron (talk) 10:36, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm editing the lead, I might make more edits later

The lead section gave me the impression that the lowercase general "critical theory" is not attributable to the Frankfurt School. The source cited in the first section of the lead contradicts this, as does the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry. I plan on researching this further and editing as appropriate. — Retroflexivity［talk ❘ contribs］ 18:14, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]