Impure theorizing in an imperfect world: Politics, utopophobia and critical theory in Geuss’s realism

An “impure” realism that draws extensively on non-philosophical sources has challenged mainstream political theory in recent years. These “new realists” reject the “political moralism” of “ethics-first” approaches, holding that theory should start from disagreement and conflict. My basic thesis is that its focus on “the political” and its utopophobia prevent realism from developing normative foundations that can ground social criticism. Many realists, including one of its primary progenitors, Raymond Geuss, recognize this problem. Interestingly, Geuss turns to critical theory to address this concern. While I welcome realism’s desire to make political theory more relevant to politics, I argue that Geuss’s attempt to address the status quo bias by importing ideology critique from the Frankfurt School is ultimately unsuccessful. In my reading the critical theory of the Frankfurt School thus emerges as a more plausible approach to grounding critique of the pathologies of the present.