Abstract

MELO, Rúrion. Critical theory and the senses of emancipation. Cad. CRH [online]. 2011, vol.24, n.62, pp. 249-262. ISSN 0103-4979.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0103-49792011000200002.

The tradition of thought known as Critical Theory, which has the names of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and Habermas, among many others, is comprised of various critical models. We find, in the same generation or even in the same author, different formulations of social criticism supported by renovated time diagnostics. This paper seeks to consider the conditions for renovation of the diagnoses from which the obstacles to emancipation and emancipatory potential, when present in a given society, are considered and analyzed critically. This renovation involves untying the normative foundation of the critique of the "productivist paradigm" and to conceive the emancipatory struggles in the plurality of their senses.

Keywords : critical theory; emancipation; new social movements; democracy.