“Critical theory” refers to a tradition of philosophical reflection that is characterized by close engagement with the social sciences, combined with a rejection of methodological value-neutrality in favour of a style of enquiry governed by what Jürgen Habermas once referred to as the “emancipatory interest” of human reason. In Habermas's early work on historical materialism and Marxian crisis theory this emancipatory interest was not difficult to discern. However, as his work in social and legal theory became more technical, and the systematic ambitions of his project more extensive, many of his readers began to wonder what had become of these critical impulses. Particularly with the publication of The Theory of Communicative Action, where Habermas shifts to a set of theoretical commitments that are more Weberian than Marxist, the question began to seem increasingly pressing.

The answer, however, is not that difficult to find. While Habermas abandons his earlier claim that the class structure of capitalist societies gives rise directly to crisis tendencies, which may or may not be successfully diffused, he replaces this with the view that the pathologies of late capitalism are caused by the “colonization of the lifeworld” by “the system”. Thus the distinction between system and lifeworld, which is drawn somewhat casually in earlier work such as Legitimation Crisis, acquires increased prominence in The Theory of Communicative Action. Indeed, the final three chapters of the latter work are essentially an extended reflection on the dynamics of system and lifeworld, along with the role that this distinction can play in reconceptualizing the basic terms of the Marxian and first-generation Frankfurt School critique of capitalism.