Situated, Not Located: The Institute for Social Research as Impossible Place for Critical Theory [in German]

Abstract

The Institute for Social Research is the impossible place of critical theory. It is tasked to act as the centre at which critical theory is programmatically advanced and on which its future depends – while at the same time everyone is aware that there can be no such centre. For critical theory is not centrally located, but situated in many different ways. This thesis is developed historically and systematically in the article before two consequences are considered: the necessity to reflect on one’s critical theory’s social conditions of existence and how it can deal with inevitably aroused but unrealisable expectations.