Critical Theory, the Imagination, and the Critique of Judgment: Horkheimer's Vision Reconsidered ^*

Abstract

Critical Theory was, more than anything else, a determined effort to keep alive the notion that there were alternatives to the existing cognitive order, one that seemed to find necessity in the contingent (and irrational) order of mature capitalism. Herbert Marcuse famously paid tribute to the power of the Imagination to destroy the illusion of the absence of alternatives to the existent, developing both an esthetic social theory and a social theory of esthetics. Yet the founder of Critical Theory, Max Horkheimer, was always suspicious of the Imagination, seeing it as predominantly a reproductive and not productive faculty – something that strengthened the hold of the existent on us, not the reverse. I argue that some of Horkheimer's interpretation of the role of the Imagination is rooted in his early work on Kant's Third Critique, which was conducted under the imprimatur of Gestalt psychologist Hans Cornelius. Thus suggests that there may be more connection between Horkheimer's early Gestalt-influenced thinking and his later work, and may even suggest possible directions for a post-Freudian critical theory.

Citation

Martin, J.L. (2021), "Critical Theory, the Imagination, and the Critique of Judgment: Horkheimer's Vision Reconsidered ^* ", Dahms, H.F. (Ed.) Society in Flux (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 37), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 59-87. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-120420210000037002