Critical Theory needs a criterion independent of both moral feeling and instrumental reason.

Evidence

On the one hand, there was a need for a yardstick that was independent of a possibly deceptive sense of what was right and wrong, in order to distinguish between the good' and bad’ versions of nature. On the other, there was an equal need for a yardstick that was independent of a form of rationality that was also possibly deceptive, in order to permit rational judgement by someone who had a clear vision of the dialectic of enlightenment and of the fusion of basic repression and surplus repression within civilization. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 529

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The unresolved foundational double-bind of Critical Theory — no criterion can be trusted from either the nature side or the reason side, yet a criterion is required to call anything repressive.