Introduction

Abstract

The chapters included in this volume appeared over the course of 11 years, between 1997 and 2008. They reflect two central concerns. The first concern was whether the trajectory that had guided the development of critical theory since the linguistic turn of the early 1970s was as conducive to addressing the most important issues of the late twentieth century as the works of the first generation had been for their time, from the 1930s to the late 1960s. The second concern was how to confront the challenge of reconceiving the thrust and agenda of critical theory as a practically relevant analytical program, in light of societal conditions and trends in the early twenty-first century. The chapters in Part I were driven by the need to provide an accounting of the state of affairs in critical theory that took as its vantage point the program of the early Frankfurt School, rather than the communication-theoretical rendering Habermas has engendered. The chapters in Part II were inspired by the desire to circumscribe the kind of contributions critical theory should and can make to illuminating dilemmas and roadblocks in the social sciences and in social policy in the early twenty-first century that are contributing to a peculiar state of civilizational stasis – dilemmas and roadblocks that most of us have come to take for granted and internalized as integral elements of the fabric of societal life, and which obstruct creative theorizing beyond the social, political, and economic status quo.

Citation

Dahms, H.F. (2011), "Introduction", Dahms, H.F. (Ed.) The Vitality Of Critical Theory (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 28), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. xi-xviii. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-1204(2011)0000028004