Practice-based immanent critique: a model of critical theory
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/1677-2954.2025.e108066Keywords:
Critical Theory, Immanent Critique, Social Practices, Habermas, HonnethAbstract
The article offers a historical-conceptual reconstruction of the theoretical foundations of practice-based immanent critique, tracing its genealogy from Weber’s theory of action to formulations in the second and third generations of the Frankfurt School. Starting from Weber’s theory of social action, the article investigates how social practices emerge from coordinated actions that acquire stability through temporal repetition and social recognition; analyzes the praxeological turn in social theory during the 1970s, which conferred centrality on the concept of social practice; and examines how Habermas and Honneth incorporate elements of this praxeological turn into their respective theories. From this reconstruction, the article defines social practice as a set of coordinated actions that involve material, bodily, and mental elements, that is intrinsically normative and socially constructed. Based on this concept, it argues that a practice-based immanent critique can identify normative potentials within the structures and modes of social interaction themselves, without relying exclusively on reinterpretations of already accepted norms or ideal constructions.
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