Does Critical Theory Have a Theoretical Obligation to Engage in Social-Ontological Theorisation?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25365/jso-2025-8728Keywords:
Critical Theory, Critical Social Ontology, Jürgen HabermasAbstract
Recent scholarship on the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and social ontology suggests that the two fields can engage in a mutually enriching dialogue. In particular, it has been argued that because critical theory necessarily makes social-ontological assumptions, it can draw on resources from social ontology to articulate these assumptions more explicitly. While I am sympathetic to this intellectual cross-pollination, I argue that although critical theory necessarily relies on social-ontological assumptions, it is theoretically obligated to engage in social ontology only when failing to do so hinders the attainment of its stated aims. In this article, I distinguish between internally relevant and externally relevant social-ontological theorisation. The former is warranted by the critical-theoretical account itself, whereas the latter, while potentially yielding valuable insights, is not essential to it. This distinction is illustrated and developed through an analysis of Jürgen Habermas’s colonisation thesis and its ancillary theses on rationalisation and integration. The analysis of Habermas’s ideas also serves to construct a criteria framework for determining when critical theory is theoretically obligated to engage in social-ontological theorisation.
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