Critical Theory risked ossifying into a mere counter-programme without empirical grounding

Evidence

Adorno’s vision of free thought in essay forman analogy with the composer’s self-abandonment to the material of music, or the writer’s self-abandonment to languagewas perhaps a utopia, one which stood the test of time in Adorno’s work to a surprising extent, although with clear limitations. … But more and more depended on successfully overcoming it: for example, whether the content of Critical Theory could continue to be a match for philosophical anthropology, and whether Critical Theory could use historical research, and research on society as a whole, to avoid the danger of ossifying into an attractive-sounding counter-programme that merely rejected everything else. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2287

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The tension between essayistic free thought and organized empirical science — and the risk that pure critique ossifies into reflexive rejection — is a dense, generative formulation of Critical Theory’s central methodological problem.
• XREF: Connects to later debates on whether Critical Theory became a scholastic orthodoxy of its own. — connects to: Critical empiricism failed through fear of diverging from the established research system. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2120; Popper’s philosophy of science implicitly rejected Critical Theory as unscientific — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2411; Critical Theory faced a double dilemma needing two independent yardsticks. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2146 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Critical Theory defined itself through critique of others rather than systematic positive statements #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 186
• Critical theory that identifies reason with domination cannot justify its own critique #complicates (0.80) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 380
• Critical theory ignoring material improvements itself becomes a fetish #expands (0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1417
• Critical theory itself has been captured by immediacy #complicates (0.72) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 22