Neumann grounded legal criticism in natural law’s normative rationality

Evidence

In short, of all the theories of natural law - and Neumann discussed several others, such as the Thomist and the constitutionalist - he found most congenial the one that corresponded to the isonomy of positive freedom, implying the identity of rulers and ruled. Accordingly, he rejected the argument that political power and state authority were inherently wicked, at least in the period before the perfect identity of particular and universal interests had been achieved. Here he agreed with the general assumption of Critical Theory that the one authority, legal as well as political, that men should follow was that of reason. And accordingly, because natural law theories were rooted in a normative rationality, they were necessarily critical of prevailing legal conditions. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 469

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: German idealism legitimated knowledge by unifying truth and justice in a single subject — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 268; Neumann tied legal theory to progressive social function under prevailing conditions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 932

Broader Connections

• German idealism legitimated knowledge by unifying truth and justice in a single subject #expands (0.75) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 268