The Handbook of Critical Theory brings together for the first time a detailed examination of the state of critical theory today. The fifteen essays provide analyses of the various orientations which critical theory has taken both historically and systematically in recent years, expositions of the new perspectives which have begun to shape the field, and reflections upon the direction of critical theory.

David M. Rasmussen is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Philosophy and Social Criticism (1978- ), the Philosophy and Social Criticism Book Series (1995- ), and Cultural Hermeneutics (1973-7). He is the author of Reading Habermas (1990), Symbol and Interpretation (1974), and Mythic-Symbolic Language and Philosophical Anthropology (1971), editor of Universalism vs. Communitarianism: Contemporary Debates in Ethics (1990) and co-editor of The Narrative Path (1989) and The Final Foucault (1988).