The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School Book

This small book has several virtues and several problems. It has three chapters, the first on Ideology, the second on Interests, and the third on Critical Theory. It deploys much of the rigor and attention to conceptual analysis characteristic of analytic philosophy to ideas developed first by Marx, and subsequently by members of the Frankfurt School. This is a great virtue, and the book is generally clear and thorough in making distinctions between different senses of ideology, relating interests to needs and desires, and exploring the different ways in which critical theory might bring enlightenment and emancipation by attacking ideology. But the book is relentlessly dry and abstract and it is not at all clear how useful the careful conceptual work is to getting deeply into the very interesting issues surrounding this subject.