To interpret and to change the world: Critical Theory as theory with practical intent (Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Juergen Habermas)

This thesis is concerned with the status of Critical Theory as a theory with practical intent. The exemplar of theory which seeks both to understand and to transform the world is Marxism. Since Marx undertook the task of standing Hegel's dialectic on its feet again and transformed Geist into the proletariat, it has been assumed that theory with practical intent must identify and address a revolutionary subject. The refusal of the critical theorists to accord the proletariat such a role, as well as a more fundamental ambivalence about, if not outright rejection of, the notion of a revolutionary subject, has cast doubt on the claims of Critical Theory to be a theory with practical intent.; The works of the four most prominent critical theorists--Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Jurgen Habermas--are examined in order to explicate not only each theorist's treatment of the notion of the revolutionary subject, but also to spell out the implications of their efforts for radical politics. Identification of the fundamental assumptions about human actors and human history which underlie their analyses of contemporary conditions allows their positions concerning the possibilities for radical social change, as well as their views on the issues of agents and actions of such change, to be clarified and assessed.; To the extent that the critical theorists abandon the notion of a revolutionary subject, their work points to new conceptualization of radical politics. Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse, however, never fully extricate themselves from the framework of subject-object dualism which makes a (collective) revolutionary subject necessary to the project of theory with practical intent. Habermas's transposition of Critical Theory onto new foundations extricates it from the subject-object framework of the philosophy of consciousness but also fundamentally alters the way in which we look at radical politics and think about theory with practical intent.; Given the growing dissatisfaction with the subject-object dichotomy in social theory, change in the meaning of theory with practical intent (as well as conceptions of agency and social transformation) must be expected. So, too, must the standards for evaluating theory with practical intent be reassessed.