Wie immanent ist die immanente Kritik? Soziologische Einwände gegen Widerspruchs-freiheit als Ideal der Sozialkritik

Abstract

By analyzing the work of contemporary proponents of critical social theory (Honneth, Jaeggi, Stahl), this article shows that the method of immanent critique is not able to fulfill its promise of criticizing a social institution based exclusively on the normative standards that the institution itself has institutionalized. Critical theorists reference either concrete criteria (such as economic equality) or abstract external ideals (such as reflexivity and learning ability) to suggest how an observed normative contradiction might be overcome. Most importantly, the central external ideal that must be affirmed by immanent critique is the standard of normative and structural consistency. In contrast to the approach of immanent critique a broad tradition in sociological theory regards structural contradictions not exclusively as a source of problems and instability, but, at least implicitly, also as a solution to the problems so-cial institutions have to face. This article contributes to this tradition by arguing that the degree to which structural contradictions are beneficial to the institution in question should be conceptualized as a variable that varies, first and foremost, according to the structure of the institution's environment.