Critical Theory Critical Theory There does not have to be an antagonism between positivism and hermeneutical inquiry. An interest in technical control and a hermeneutic interest are not mutually exclusive. Some positivists have been hermeneutically oriented to some degree in order to interpret the meaning scientific data. They have been mutually antagonistic.
Critical theory is interested in reflection on modes of knowing in themselves.
Such a theory draws attention to methods of communicative interaction in order to discover how and why we organize our experiences in a particular way. It goes beyond hermeneutics in expressing an interest in emancipation. First, it tries to make language as transparent and as clear as possible, so that it can be understandable. Second, it works to undermine the legitimacy Of those social institutions that help to organize the means of exploitation or injustice Though we can never understand physical reality directly, we can, potentially, understand language completely, for the structure of language is wholly produced by us and by our modes of interaction. What creates artificial barriers among humans and what works to sustain the legitimacy of relations of authority that are intrinsically unjust from this perspective is not the Inevitability of class, caste, or racial distinctions, but the opaqueness of language itself.