Albrecht Wellmer — Critique of Critical Theory from Within (1969–1985)
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The critic within his own house
Albrecht Wellmer (1933–2018) was a student of both Adorno and Habermas — and became the sharpest critic of both from within. His project: to confront critical theory with the tools of analytic philosophy, without abandoning it. He was thus a border-crosser who opened the Frankfurt School to the Anglo-Saxon tradition.[1]
Wellmer studied in Berlin, Heidelberg, and Frankfurt, where he received his doctorate under Adorno in 1966. After Adorno’s death in 1969, he continued his critique — but in productive transformation. His question: can critical theory redeem its own claims? Or does it fail through performative contradictions that can only be overcome by revising its foundations?
“Critical Theory of Society and Positivism” (1969)
Wellmer’s first major work analyzes the positivism dispute of the 1960s between the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Habermas) and critical rationalism (Popper, Albert).[2] His thesis is nuanced: both sides are right — and both are wrong.
Positivism is wrong because it fails to recognize the social conditioning of knowledge. Science is not neutral but historically situated. The choice of research programs, the definition of problems, the acceptance of solutions — all of this is guided by interests that the positivist scientist fails to reflect upon.
But critical theory is also wrong — in a different way. It claims an “emancipatory interest” that it cannot itself adequately justify. Where does this interest come from? Is it anthropological (human beings by nature strive for freedom)? Is it historical (modernity produces it)? Is it normative (it ought to be so)? Adorno and Habermas oscillate between these options without deciding.
The critique of Adorno
Wellmer’s most important critique concerns Adorno’s Negative Dialectics.[3] He shares Adorno’s skepticism toward the closed system — but he shows that Adorno’s own position leads into a performative contradiction:
Adorno criticizes “identity thinking” — the subsumption of the individual under the universal. But this critique itself subsumes all philosophy under the category “identity thinking.” Adorno uses concepts to argue against concepts. He writes a systematic book against systematicity.
This is not merely a formal inconsistency — it is a deeper problem. Adorno cannot say what should take the place of “identity thinking.” The “non-identical,” which he wants to rescue, remains empty. It is pure negativity, without positive determination.
Wellmer’s solution: instead of exercising total critique against the concept, one should distinguish between different modes of conceiving. There are reductive concepts (which sacrifice the individual to the universal) and integrative concepts (which think the individual as a moment of the universal). Hegel’s dialectic aims at the latter — even if Hegel himself was not always consistent.
The critique of Habermas
Wellmer also criticizes Habermas — though more constructively.[4] His objections concern the foundations of communication theory:
First: Habermas’s distinction between “strategic” and “communicative” action is too sharp. In reality, both are intertwined. Every communication contains strategic elements (I want to persuade), every strategy contains communicative elements (I must be understood). The ideal speech situation is not only counterfactual — it is also problematic as an ideal, because it blanks out the reality of power.
Second: Habermas’s consensus theory of truth is circular. Truth is supposed to be what everyone would agree upon under ideal conditions. But what are “ideal conditions”? Those under which true statements are accepted. The circle cannot be broken.
Third: the four validity claims (truth, rightness, sincerity, comprehensibility) are asserted, not derived. Why exactly four? Why these four? The system remains ungrounded.
The bridge to analytic philosophy
Wellmer’s innovation lay in his reception of analytic philosophy of language. He studied Wittgenstein, Austin, Searle — and showed that their insights could be made fruitful for critical theory.[5]
From Wittgenstein he learned: meaning is use. There is no “deep structure” of language beyond its use. This corrects Adorno’s tendency to look behind concepts for something “authentic” that withdraws from the concept.
From Austin and Searle he learned: language is not only representation but action. Speech acts have “illocutionary force” — they promise, warn, command, not merely describe. This complements Habermas’s communication theory with a more precise analysis of speech acts.
From Davidson he learned: there are no incommensurable “conceptual schemes.” Understanding is always possible, even if difficult. This corrects the cultural relativism lurking in some versions of critical theory.
“On the Dialectics of Modernity and Postmodernity” (1985)
Wellmer’s late work responds to the postmodern challenge.[6] His position is differentiated: postmodernism is right in its critique of the closed system, of teleology, of totalization. But it is wrong when it abandons reason altogether.
Modernity is not finished — it is an “unfinished project” (Habermas). But this project cannot be continued linearly. It must be transformed: from monological to dialogical reason, from totalizing to plural systematicity, from teleological to open history.
Wellmer calls this “postmetaphysical thinking” — a thinking that absorbs the insights of the critique of metaphysics (Nietzsche, Heidegger, postmodernism) without falling into irrationalism. It is possible to think without ultimate foundations — but not without reasons.
Systematic placement
Wellmer represents a position rare in postwar German philosophy: immanent critique without total rejection. He criticized Adorno more sharply than most — but he remained loyal to the Frankfurt School. He criticized Habermas more precisely than most — but he acknowledged his merits.
For the reception of Hegel, Wellmer is important because he shows: the critique of Hegel (identity thinking, closed system, teleology) need not lead to rejection. It can lead to transformation — to a dialectic that reflects on its own limits, that is more plural, more open, more self-critical than Hegel’s own formulation.
What Wellmer does not accomplish: a systematic reconstruction of this transformed dialectic. He remains at the level of critique, correction, supplementation. The positive program — what a postmetaphysical dialectic could look like — remains a desideratum.
On Wellmer’s biography and intellectual development, see: Stefan Müller-Doohm (ed.), Das Interesse der Vernunft. Rückblicke auf das Werk von Jürgen Habermas seit “Erkenntnis und Interesse”, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2000 (contains Wellmer’s self-presentation). ↩︎
Albrecht Wellmer, Kritische Gesellschaftstheorie und Positivismus, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969. The book became the standard work on this dispute. ↩︎
The critique of Adorno is scattered throughout: Albrecht Wellmer, Zur Dialektik von Moderne und Postmoderne: Vernunftkritik nach Adorno, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985, esp. pp. 48–114. ↩︎
The critique of Habermas especially in: Albrecht Wellmer, “Konsens als Telos sprachlicher Kommunikation?”, in: H.-J. Giegel (ed.), Kommunikation und Konsens in modernen Gesellschaften, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1992, pp. 18–30. ↩︎
Wellmer’s reception of analytic philosophy is documented in: Sprachphilosophie. Eine Vorlesung, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2004 (posthumous). The lectures show his sovereign command of both traditions. ↩︎
Albrecht Wellmer, Zur Dialektik von Moderne und Postmoderne, op. cit. The book was received internationally and showed a more differentiated engagement with postmodernism than Habermas’s blanket rejection. ↩︎