Abstract

The aim of this paper is to offer a reconstruction of the philosophical prehistory of Critical Theory as a critique of the processes of socio-cultural rationalization. To this end, I first expose a philosophical and historical explanation of the processes of social and cultural rationalization that give rise to the emergence of socio-cultural pathologies, as well as a brief definition of these concepts. In the following four section I try to bring to light the way in which Rousseau, Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche evaluate each of these processes and their pathological developments. I conclude that the idea of “cultural pathology” is at least as central as the idea of “social pathology” when it comes to understanding this tradition of thought.