2023/04/19 by Iaan Reynolds
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Critical Theory and Philosophy #Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy #Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics
paper · doi:10.1177/09526951221146657
openalex publication_date 2023/04/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This article examines the differences and affinities between Karl Popper's critical rationalism and Theodor Adorno's critical theory through renewed attention to the original documents of their 1961 debate. While commentaries often describe the Popper–Adorno encounter as a theoretical disappointment, I reveal a confrontation between conceptually opposed programs of social research. Though both theorists are committed to critique as a political and epistemological struggle for human freedom, their conceptions of this struggle are starkly different. In the original seminar papers, we find a conflict between critique as a practice of social rationality (Popper) and a critique of social rationality itself (Adorno). The versions of critical rationalism and critical theory meeting in this debate thus emphasize opposite dimensions of a reflexive practice of immanent critique. In closing, I suggest dissolving this conceptual tension by recovering the educational orientation of critique.