From Marx to the Frankfurt School: discourse, ideology, and critical theory

Chad Kautzer

Chapter 4 in Handbook of Political Discourse, 2023, pp 50-65 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter focuses on social theories of Karl Marx and the Frankfurt School (Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and, most notably, Habermas), particularly their take on the notion of critique, the resulting methodologies and the role of discourse and discourse study in these methodologies. It starts with Marx and his understanding of ideology as untruth, the immanent nature of his social critique, as well as his materialist methodology, including its motivating interests and epistemological commitments. The discussion shows that Marx’s critical theories of power, history, class, and emancipation as well as his methods have had a significant influence on (socio-political) discourse analysis, from those who engage in multidisciplinary social critique, to those who advocate a structuralist approach. The second part of the chapter describes how Marx’s theories were taken up by thinkers of the Frankfurt School, bringing the recognition that language and discourse played a more active and autonomous role in processes of social formation and reproduction, and as a normative ground for critique, than previously thought. This new perspective is best seen in the communicative turn in Habermas’ work, which has influenced critical discourse studies generally and the discourse-historical approach in particular.

Keywords: Politics and Public Policy Research Methods; Sociology and Social Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781800373570/9781800373570.00012.xml (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:20092_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().