Abstract

This dissertation conducts an investigation into the justifications and claims of the 'paradigm shift' in critical theory championed by Jurgen Habermas. Frankfurt School critical theory--especially that of Theodor W. Adorno--is criticized by Habermas for its underlying philosophical concern with consciousness and a subjectivity oriented to knowing and acting in the world. Under the paradigmatic limitations of 'consciousness Philosophy,' Habermas argues, critical theory is led into dead ends in the social theory of late capitalism and with respect to its practical-political aims. Habermas's theory of communicative action achieves a wholesale theoretical shift to the philosophy of language and the relations and orientation of intersubjectivity, which overcomes the subjective orientation dogging the former-approach. The dissertation traces the accomplishments of Habermas's critical theory in relation to the paradigm shift and documents its failures regarding what must be abandoned with this move. These shortcomings are compared with the advantages of some central social-theoretic theses Adorno develops. The dissertation concludes that too much has been sacrificed from the critical spirit and content of Frankfurt critical theory in order to secure the paradigm shift to the theory of communicative action. A reconsideration of an alternative path indicated by those such as Adorno is suggested by way of a defense of Adorno against Habermasian charges