Titus Stahl

University of Groningen

Ideals without Idealization: Why Critical Theories Need a Reference to an Ideal Society

3 May 2022, 17h00 (Lisbon Summer Time — GMT+1)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy) | School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

In contemporary liberal political theory, “ideal theorists” argue that we can only fix the meaning of our most important political concepts by reference to an imagined ideal state of affairs, and that we therefore, to some extent, have to engage in Utopian thinking. Traditionally, critical theories from Marx to the Frankfurt School as well as some contemporary critical theorists like Charles Mills, are highly skeptical towards this affirmative use of idealization, using arguments that often seem similar to those of current political realists. In my paper, I make three arguments: First, I show that the critical theory tradition offers a range of anti-Utopian arguments that draw on the historical situatedness of our political reason which do not coincide with those of political realism. Second, I argue that most of the arguments of critical theorists fail to make a principled case only against context-free idealization, but not against ideal theorizing as such. Third, I argue that the method of immanent critique that is specific to critical theory, allows for a conception of an ideal state of affairs that emerges from its diagnosis of social contradictions. On the basis of these three arguments I argue that critical theories can (and should) incorporate some aspects of ideal theorizing and its Utopian reference to a better society.