When considered in light of the history of the philosophy of the social sciences, Critical Theory occupies a distinctive place. It has long sought to distinguish its aims, methods, theories, and forms of explanation from standard understandings in both the natural and the social sciences. Instead, it has claimed that social inquiry ought to combine, rather than separate or eliminate, the poles of explanation and understanding, structure and agency. Such an approach, Critical Theorists argue, permits their enterprise to be practical in a distinctive sense. They do not aim at some independent goal, but rather (as in Horkheimer's famous definition) seek "to liberate human beings from all circumstances that enslave them" (Horkheimer 1982:244). This task requires the interplay between philosophy and social science as well as multidimensional and interdisciplinary social research .
If it is to address all such circumstances, it must employ explanations and interpretations from a variety of perspectives. Sometimes the critic who has this aim must employ practical knowledge in adopting a stance that goes beyond the limits of agents' local practical knowledge. Such a stance is often called "objective." Most proponents of Critical Theory in the broad sense of the term (both inside and outside the Frankfurt School) now see this claim to be misleading at best, given the epistemic situation of the critic as simply one practical agent among others. The question then is not only how inquiry can be both interpretive and explanatory but also descriptive and normative at the same time. This alternative avoids both a pure "insider's" and participant's standpoint (in the manner of hermeneutics) and a pure "outsider's" or observer's standpoint (in the manner of naturalistic social theories). The distinctively normative standpoint characteristic of critical social inquiry has been called the "perspective of a critical-reflective participant" McCarthy and Hoy 1994:81). As the hyphen indicates, this is not some particular perspective or the exclusive domain of the social theorist, but a combination of various perspectives at different levels.