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Amy Allen

Amy Allen is an American philosopher specializing in 20th-century Continental philosophy, Frankfurt School critical theory, feminist theory, and social and political theory.^[1]^[2] She holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Advancement, and previously headed the Department of Philosophy.^[1]^[3]^[4] Allen's research critiques traditional feminist conceptions of power, extending them to broader applications in autonomy and gender, while challenging Eurocentric progress narratives in critical theory through decolonizing lenses informed by postcolonial thought.^[1]^[5] Her major works include The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity (1999), which analyzes power in feminist contexts; The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory (2008), exploring self-formation under power structures; The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016), arguing against teleological views of historical progress; and Critique on the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis (2020), defending psychoanalysis as a corrective to critical theory's rationalist excesses.^[6]^[5]^[7] With over 7,500 citations across her publications, Allen's scholarship has influenced debates on emancipation, neoliberalism, and intersubjectivity, including co-edited volumes on thinkers like Wendy Brown and Enrique Dussel.^[8]^[9]^[1]

Early Life and Education

Childhood and Formative Influences

Allen completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1992, graduating magna cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, which reflected her early aptitude for philosophical inquiry.^[1] Details regarding her pre-collegiate childhood and family background remain undocumented in public sources. Her formative intellectual development during undergraduate and early graduate years centered on critical theory and feminist perspectives on power. Allen's doctoral dissertation at Northwestern University, completed in 1996 under the supervision of Nancy Fraser, examined feminist theories of power, marking an initial synthesis of Foucauldian and Habermasian frameworks that would define her later work.^[10] Key early influences included the first-generation Frankfurt School's Dialectic of Enlightenment by Horkheimer and Adorno, which prompted her sustained engagement with critiques of Enlightenment progress and the bourgeois rational subject informed by Nietzschean genealogy.^[11] She also drew from Jürgen Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interests, using it to interrogate the interplay between emancipatory reason and relations of power in social theory.^[11] These texts fostered a methodological commitment to balancing normative critique with genealogical analysis of domination, evident in her subsequent publications.

Academic Training

Allen received her Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1992, graduating magna cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.^[12] She then pursued graduate studies at Northwestern University, where she earned a Master of Arts in philosophy in 1994.^[1] Allen completed her Doctor of Philosophy in philosophy at Northwestern in 1996, with a dissertation titled "Toward a Feminist Theory of Power."^[12] The dissertation committee was chaired by Nancy Fraser, with Thomas McCarthy and Jane Mansbridge serving as additional advisors.^[12] During her time at Northwestern, she held university fellowships for the academic years 1992–1993 and 1995–1996.^[12]

Academic Career

Early Positions and Dartmouth Years

Following her PhD in philosophy from Northwestern University in 1996, Allen held her first academic position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Grinnell College from 1996 to 1997.^[12]^[13] In 1997, Allen joined Dartmouth College as Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy, a role she held until 1999.^[12] She was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1999 and served in that capacity until 2004, after which she advanced to Associate Professor with tenure in 2004, remaining in that position until 2009.^[12] During her Dartmouth tenure, Allen also held a visiting appointment as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh in fall 2006.^[12]^[13] Allen was elevated to full Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies at Dartmouth in 2009, a position she maintained until her departure in 2015; concurrently, she served as Parents Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities from 2009 to 2015.^[12]^[14] In administrative roles, she chaired the Department of Philosophy from 2006 to 2012 and the Women's and Gender Studies Program from 2014 to 2015.^[12]^[10] These leadership positions underscored her influence in shaping departmental priorities in philosophy and interdisciplinary gender studies during a period of faculty expansion and curricular development at Dartmouth.^[10]

Penn State Tenure and Leadership Roles

Amy Allen joined Pennsylvania State University in July 2015 as head of the Department of Philosophy and professor of philosophy and women's, gender, and sexuality studies, moving from a similar tenured professorship at Dartmouth College.^[15]^[14] In this capacity, she has overseen departmental operations, faculty hiring, and curriculum development in philosophy, while maintaining a joint appointment in women's, gender, and sexuality studies to support interdisciplinary work in critical theory and feminist philosophy.^[1] Allen holds the rank of Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a recognition of sustained scholarly excellence and impact within the College of the Liberal Arts.^[1] She also serves as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Advancement in the College of the Liberal Arts, where her responsibilities include mentoring faculty, promoting professional development, and advancing policies on promotion, tenure, and equity.^[1]^[16] This administrative role builds on her prior experience leading academic units and has involved initiatives to enhance faculty retention and research productivity.^[17] During her tenure at Penn State, Allen has received institutional honors, including the 2021 Faculty Scholar Medal for outstanding achievement in liberal arts scholarship.^[18] In June 2024, she was selected as a Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Mellon Academic Leadership Fellow, acknowledging her contributions to faculty governance and leadership in higher education.^[16] These roles and awards reflect her influence in shaping philosophical inquiry and administrative practices at the university, with a focus on critical theory's applications to power, autonomy, and social justice.^[1]

Philosophical Contributions

Theories of Power and Feminist Theory

Amy Allen's engagement with theories of power in feminist theory centers on the need to conceptualize power in ways that illuminate both its oppressive and transformative potentials, particularly in addressing gender domination. In her 1999 book The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity, Allen critiques earlier feminist approaches for bifurcating power into purely negative (as patriarchal control) or positive (as empowerment) categories, which she argues obscures the relational and constitutive dimensions of power in shaping subjects and social structures.^[19] For instance, she examines radical feminist views that equate power with masculine domination, rendering women's resistance as mere victimhood, and standpoint theories, such as Nancy Hartsock's, which privilege epistemic power from marginalized standpoints but undervalue broader mechanisms of coercion.^[10] Allen contends that these frameworks inadequately theorize how power operates as a medium of both subjugation and agency, drawing on empirical observations of women's lived experiences under intersecting oppressions like sexism and class inequality.^[20] To address these limitations, Allen develops a tripartite framework of power relations tailored to feminist analysis, integrating disciplinary/normalizing power (as domination), resistive power, and solidaristic power (as collective action).^[21] Influenced by Michel Foucault's microphysics of power—which posits power as productive and diffused through discourses and institutions rather than solely repressive—Allen extends this to show how gendered subjects are formed through technologies of normalization, yet retain capacities for subversion.^[19] She complements Foucault with Hannah Arendt's distinction between power as coordinated action among equals and violence or rule, arguing that feminist solidarity emerges not despite domination but through strategic coalitions that harness power's relational dynamics.^[19] This model avoids zero-sum views of power as a scarce resource, instead treating it as expandable in non-hierarchical contexts, enabling analysis of resistance movements like women's networks that challenge but do not escape power's constitutive role.^[22] Allen's approach underscores power's ambiguity: it enables domination through internalized norms (e.g., gendered expectations enforced via surveillance and discourse) but also fuels resistance and solidarity when actors reflexively repurpose these mechanisms.^[20] By synthesizing Foucault's emphasis on subjection with Arendtian action, she provides tools for feminists to critique systemic inequalities without romanticizing autonomy or denying power's inescapability, a theme she later refines in works reconciling Foucauldian insights with Habermasian norms.^[19] This framework has implications for understanding real-world phenomena, such as how women's groups leverage institutional power for advocacy while navigating co-optation risks, prioritizing causal mechanisms over ideological binaries.^[21]

Autonomy, Recognition, and the Self

In The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory (2008), Amy Allen develops a framework for understanding the self as simultaneously constituted by power relations and capable of autonomy, challenging the perceived incompatibility between Foucauldian and Habermasian perspectives in critical theory. Drawing on Michel Foucault's analysis of disciplinary power as productive of subjectivity, Allen contends that the self emerges through subjection to power, yet this same process enables resistive practices that foster autonomy. She critiques Foucault for underemphasizing intersubjective dimensions, incorporating Jürgen Habermas's discourse ethics and Axel Honneth's recognition theory to argue that autonomy requires mutual recognition and reciprocity alongside power analytics. This synthesis posits the self not as a sovereign agent but as relationally formed, where autonomy manifests in critical reflection on and navigation through power-infused social interactions.^[23]^[24] Allen's account of recognition emphasizes its role in self-formation while cautioning against overly optimistic views that overlook power asymmetries and human fallibility. In Justice, Fallibility, and the Ethics of Recognition (2008), she refines Honneth's recognition paradigm by introducing fallibilism, arguing that recognitive struggles for justice are inherently limited by cognitive and motivational shortcomings, necessitating a modest, ongoing ethic rather than guarantees of progress toward undistorted recognition. The self, on this view, achieves partial autonomy through intersubjective recognition that acknowledges misrecognition's persistence, integrating psychoanalytic insights into unconscious drives that complicate rational self-determination. This approach avoids reducing the self to either power's passive product or recognition's idealized outcome, instead viewing it as dynamically shaped by both, with implications for feminist critiques of gendered subjection.^[25] Applied to gender, Allen's theory illuminates how patriarchal power structures constitute feminine selves through norms of subjection, yet enable autonomous resistance via recognitive claims for equality, as seen in her analysis of feminist agency within disciplinary discourses. She warns that neglecting power in recognition theories risks idealizing the self, while ignoring recognition in power analyses undermines critical theory's emancipatory potential. This balanced conception underscores causal realism in self-development: autonomy arises causally from power's enabling constraints, not despite them, fostering a pragmatic critical practice attuned to empirical social pathologies.^[26]^[27]

Critique of Progress in Critical Theory

In her 2016 monograph The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory, Amy Allen critiques the Frankfurt School's longstanding commitment to a philosophy of historical progress, arguing that it perpetuates Eurocentric assumptions incompatible with the tradition's emancipatory aspirations.^[5] She targets the second- and third-generation thinkers, including Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Rainer Forst, for their reliance on developmental historicism—a left-Hegelian framework positing modernity as the culmination of rational progress—which she contends mirrors colonial logics by framing non-European societies as temporally "behind" and in need of advancement toward Western norms.^[28] This historicist orientation, Allen maintains, undermines critical theory's critique of domination by implicitly endorsing a teleological narrative that justifies interventionist policies under the guise of universal emancipation.^[29] Allen draws on post- and decolonial theorists such as Enrique Dussel to expose how critical theory's normative foundations encode a "colonial difference," where progress is measured against European standards, rendering alternative modernities invisible or inferior.^[30] Yet she avoids wholesale rejection of critical theory, proposing instead a "decolonization from within" that discards the historical metaphysics of progress while preserving progress as a regulative political ideal oriented toward reducing domination in the present, rather than a guaranteed historical trajectory.^[5] This approach, she argues, allows critical theory to engage productively with decolonial critiques without succumbing to cultural relativism or abandoning its commitment to universalist elements like human dignity.^[28] Her analysis highlights tensions in Habermas's discourse ethics and Honneth's recognition theory, which presuppose a directional arrow of history that Allen traces back to early Frankfurt figures like Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, albeit in attenuated form.^[31] By integrating Fanonian insights on the psychological dimensions of colonial power, Allen extends her critique to show how progress narratives foster a paternalistic rationality that pathologizes resistance from the Global South.^[32] Ultimately, Allen envisions a post-progressive critical theory capable of addressing contemporary global injustices, such as neocolonial exploitation, without the ideological blinders of Eurocentric teleology.^[33] This intervention has been praised for bridging Frankfurt School traditions with decolonial thought, though some reviewers note its selective engagement with Habermas's later work risks overstating the persistence of historicism.^[28]^[34]

Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory

Amy Allen has argued that contemporary critical theory requires a renewed engagement with psychoanalysis to address its overreliance on rationalistic and idealistic assumptions about human subjectivity and emancipation. In her 2020 monograph Critique on the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis, Allen contends that psychoanalysis, particularly through its emphasis on unconscious drives, ambivalence, and the non-rational dimensions of the psyche, offers a more empirically grounded anthropology of the subject than the normative models dominant in later Frankfurt School thought.^[7] She draws on thinkers like Sigmund Freud and Axel Honneth to illustrate how psychoanalytic insights into the death drive and repetitive self-undermining behaviors can explain failures of progressive social transformation, challenging the optimism of purely discursive or recognitive paradigms.^[11] Central to Allen's intervention is the claim that psychoanalysis serves as a methodological corrective for critical theory, enabling a form of immanent critique that accounts for the subject's internal conflicts rather than assuming unhindered rational agency. In her 2016 article "Psychoanalysis and the Methodology of Critique," she posits that Freudian techniques of uncovering hidden motivations can model how critical theorists interrogate ideological distortions without presupposing transparent self-knowledge.^[35] This approach counters what Allen sees as the post-Habermasian drift toward proceduralism, where emancipation is reduced to communicative consensus, by integrating psychoanalytic realism to reveal how power operates through unconscious attachments and regressions.^[36] Allen extends this framework beyond Freud to post-Freudian traditions, including object relations theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis, to enrich critical theory's understanding of affect, attachment, and intersubjectivity. Co-editing Transitional Subjects: Critical Theory and Object Relations (2019) with Brian O'Connor, she explores how Melanie Klein's concepts of splitting and projective identification illuminate the psychosocial dynamics of domination and resistance in late capitalism.^[37] Similarly, in her dialogic exchange with Mari Ruti, Critical Theory Between Klein and Lacan (2022), Allen advocates bridging Frankfurt School traditions with these psychoanalytic strands to develop a non-reductive theory of the self capable of addressing both normative aspirations and empirical pathologies.^[38] These efforts underscore her view that psychoanalysis prevents critical theory from succumbing to what she terms "progressivist meliorism," instead fostering a decolonial and self-critical orientation attuned to historical regressions.^[39]

Publications and Editorial Work

Major Monographs

Allen's first major monograph, The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity, published in 1999 by Westview Press, examines the concept of power within feminist theory through engagement with Michel Foucault's ideas on power as relational and productive rather than merely repressive. In it, she argues that feminist practices of resistance and solidarity can be understood as micro-political strategies that both challenge and are constituted by power relations, drawing on empirical examples from women's movements to illustrate how power enables agency even amid domination.^[40] The book critiques overly optimistic views of resistance in postmodern feminism, emphasizing the need for a nuanced account that avoids essentialism while recognizing structural constraints on solidarity. Her second monograph, The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory, released in 2007 by Columbia University Press, integrates Foucauldian power analytics with Habermasian discourse ethics to reconceptualize autonomy as inherently relational and power-laden.^[41] Allen contends that traditional liberal and Kantian notions of autonomy fail to account for the ways in which power shapes self-formation, proposing instead a "psychoanalytic" understanding of the self as divided and dependent on recognition from others, supported by analyses of gender dynamics in critical theory.^[42] This work challenges the binary oppositions in debates between postmodernism and critical theory, advocating for a hybrid approach that preserves normative critique without presuming sovereign subjects. In The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory, published in 2016 by Columbia University Press, Allen critiques the Eurocentric progress narratives embedded in Frankfurt School critical theory, particularly in Jürgen Habermas's work, by contrasting them with postcolonial thinkers like Enrique Dussel.^[43] She argues that while critical theory's emancipatory ideals are valuable, their reliance on a teleological view of history as advancing toward greater rationality justifies colonial domination, urging a decolonized alternative that treats progress as a regulative idea rather than historical inevitability, evidenced through historical analyses of European modernity's underside.^[44] The monograph calls for critical theory to incorporate non-Western perspectives without relativism, maintaining normative commitments grounded in struggles against domination.^[45] Allen's most recent monograph, Critique on the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis, issued in 2020 by Columbia University Press, defends the integration of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis into critical theory to address its rationalist excesses and neglect of unconscious dimensions of power. Drawing on thinkers like Herbert Marcuse and Axel Honneth, she posits that psychoanalysis reveals the libidinal investments in domination and the ambivalence in emancipatory desires, using clinical concepts like the death drive to explain persistent attachments to suffering, thereby enriching critical theory's diagnostic power without reducing it to therapy.^[46] The book critiques overly cognitive models of critique, arguing that acknowledging subjectivity's opacity enables more realistic assessments of social transformation.^[1]

Edited Volumes and Series

Allen has co-edited multiple volumes centered on key thinkers in critical theory, often in collaboration with Eduardo Mendieta, as contributions to the Penn State Series in Critical Theory, which she co-edits with Mendieta to advance Frankfurt School traditions through engagement with contemporary issues such as neoliberalism, decolonization, and emancipation.^[1]^[47] In Justification and Emancipation: The Critical Theory of Rainer Forst (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019), co-edited with Mendieta, the collection includes original essays appraising Forst's theories of justificatory power and emancipatory critique, structured for pedagogical use with critical responses to his corpus.^[48]^[48] Power, Neoliberalism, and the Reinvention of Politics: The Critical Theory of Wendy Brown (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022), also co-edited with Mendieta, compiles essays on Brown's analyses of neoliberalism's transformation of political subjectivity, democratic erosion, and resistance strategies within critical theory.^[49]^[1] Decolonizing Ethics: The Critical Theory of Enrique Dussel (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2021), co-edited with Mendieta, features Dussel's writings on ethics from the periphery, intersubjectivity, and critiques of Eurocentric modernity, alongside responses addressing his philosophy of liberation.^[9]^[1] Beyond the series, Allen co-edited Transitional Subjects: Critical Theory and Object Relations (Columbia University Press, 2019) with Brian O'Connor, which examines psychoanalytic object relations theory's implications for critical theory's conceptions of subjectivity, autonomy, and social critique.^[50]

Reception and Influence

Impact Within Critical Theory

Amy Allen's critique of progress narratives has reshaped debates within contemporary Frankfurt School critical theory by exposing its Eurocentric normative foundations and advocating for decolonization. In The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016), she argues that third- and fourth-generation thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Rainer Forst perpetuate a "backward-looking" developmental historicism that justifies Western modernity's superiority, as seen in Habermas's reconstruction of norms from "competent members of modern societies" rather than universal principles.^[28] Drawing on Theodor Adorno's immanent critique and Michel Foucault's contextualism, Allen proposes rejecting progress as an accomplished historical fact—linked to colonial legacies—while retaining it as a political imperative for emancipation, thereby preserving critical theory's diagnostic power without foundationalist illusions.^[5] This intervention has influenced scholars to reevaluate the field's historicist assumptions, fostering a more reflexive approach that integrates postcolonial concerns without abandoning its emancipatory aims.^[28] Her integration of psychoanalysis into critical theory addresses its longstanding rationalist biases, offering tools to analyze non-rational dimensions of subjectivity and resistance. In Critique on the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis (2020), Allen contends that the tradition's emphasis on normative idealism and utopianism overlooks affective and unconscious processes, proposing Melanie Klein's concepts—like the paranoid-schizoid position—to reframe critique and advocate "democratic politics in a depressive mode" that acknowledges ambivalence in social struggles.^[39] This has contributed to broadening critical theory's methodological scope, countering its developmental optimism (e.g., Habermas's societal evolution) with a non-Eurocentric realism suited to contemporary crises, such as populist backlashes, though reviewers note the need for further empirical integration.^[39]^[51] As general editor of Columbia University Press's New Directions in Critical Theory series since 2010, Allen has steered the field's evolution by prioritizing works on intersections of power, gender, race, and class, renewing its focus on theorizing lived struggles amid global inequalities.^[16] Her synthesis of Foucauldian genealogy with Habermasian discourse ethics, evident in earlier works like The Politics of Our Selves (2008), has informed post-Foucauldian efforts to reconcile power's pervasiveness with autonomy, positioning her as a pivotal figure in fourth-generation critical theory's genealogical turn.^[52]^[24]

Engagement with Postcolonial and Decolonial Thought

Allen critiques the Frankfurt School's reliance on Enlightenment-derived notions of historical progress, which she contends encode Eurocentric assumptions that marginalize colonial histories and non-Western temporalities. In The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016), she integrates insights from decolonial thinkers including Walter Mignolo, Aníbal Quijano, and Dipesh Chakrabarty to expose progress as a "fact" of historical development that rationalizes colonial modernity's violence, while distinguishing it from progress as a moral imperative against domination.^[43] ^[30] Drawing on Frantz Fanon's analysis of colonial psychology and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's concept of catachresis, Allen advocates a "metacritical" methodology that combines Theodor Adorno's dialectical negativity with Michel Foucault's genealogy to interrogate critical theory's own normative presuppositions.^[53] This approach seeks to decolonize critical theory from within by acknowledging modernity's "dark side"—its inextricable link to imperialism—without abandoning its emancipatory core, reframed as contextual immanent critique rather than universalist teleology.^[32] Allen's work has prompted scholarly dialogue on hybridizing European critical traditions with decolonial epistemologies, positioning her as a key figure in addressing Frankfurt School Eurocentrism, though some analyses question whether her retention of core normative elements achieves full epistemic decolonization or merely tempers internal inconsistencies.^[30] ^[53]

Criticisms and Debates

Internal Critiques from Frankfurt School Tradition

Critiques from within the Frankfurt School tradition have primarily targeted Amy Allen's arguments in The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016), where she seeks to purge critical theory of Eurocentric progressivist assumptions while preserving its emancipatory potential through a contextualized, immanent universalism.^[5] These responses, often from third-generation figures, contend that her approach inadvertently erodes the tradition's normative robustness and risks relativistic drift, thereby compromising its capacity for transcendent critique of domination. Rainer Forst, a key proponent of justificatory universalism in contemporary Frankfurt School thought, directly engages Allen's position in his reply within Justification and Emancipation: The Critical Theory of Rainer Forst (2019), edited by Allen and Eduardo Mendieta. Forst defends a conception of "true progress" as the negative expansion of justificatory equality against relations of domination, arguing that Allen's rejection of any normative commitment to progress—framed as an imperative rather than mere historical fact—leads to contextualism that could justify paternalism or indifference toward non-Western normative orders.^[48] He reverses her accusation of Eurocentric transcendence, asserting that her metanormative privileging of decolonial critique itself imposes context-transcending standards, potentially undermining the universal right to justification essential for assessing power across cultures without foundationalism.^[54] Forst maintains that this universalism remains fallible and immanent in practice, avoiding the "view from nowhere" while enabling consistent emancipatory claims, in contrast to Allen's framework, which he views as insufficiently equipped to distinguish genuine advances from regressive impositions.^[55] In a 2018 symposium in Contemporary Political Theory debating The End of Progress, contributors affiliated with critical theory traditions further elaborate these tensions. Albena Azmanova argues that Allen's decolonizing maneuver severs the normative grounding necessary for emancipation, as the abandonment of progress discourse diminishes the role of situated political judgment in fostering transformative critique, potentially leaving critical theory without a forward-oriented horizon for social change.^[56] Martin Saar, drawing on Frankfurt School historical materialism, critiques Allen's heavy reliance on Foucauldian genealogy as diluting the tradition's emphasis on structural analysis, particularly the critique of capitalism; he posits that her anti-progressive stance risks sidelining immanent potentials for systemic overhaul in favor of a fragmented, power-focused diagnostics that lacks the tradition's dialectical depth.^[56] These interventions highlight an internal divide: while acknowledging Allen's push against Eurocentrism, they warn that her revisions may hollow out critical theory's ability to articulate binding norms for global justice without reverting to the very universalisms she seeks to contextualize.

External Philosophical Objections

Philosopher John Davenport has objected to Amy Allen's characterization of historical progress narratives in critical theory as inherently Eurocentric and colonialist, arguing that a descriptive thesis about cumulative advancements—such as the abolition of slavery or expansions of civil rights—does not logically entail their normative misuse to justify imperialism.^[31] He contends that Allen conflates valid historical assessments of "backward-looking" progress with ideological distortions, using the analogy of social Darwinism's abuse to illustrate that empirical misuse does not invalidate underlying conceptual validity.^[31] Davenport further criticizes Allen's proposed alternative of a purely contextualist, genealogical approach—drawing from Adorno and Foucault—as philosophically deficient, positing that it risks normative relativism by undermining universal standards for critiquing oppressive practices, such as non-Western toleration of slavery or gender hierarchies, without a transhistorical basis in practical reason.^[31] In defending Rainer Forst's universalist framework against Allen's charges, Davenport maintains that grounding normativity in reciprocal jus tification avoids progress-based teleology while preserving critical theory's emancipatory potential, countering Allen's view that such approaches perpetuate "neo-Kantian imperialism."^[31] Martin Jay has raised concerns about the internal consistency of Allen's decolonizing methodology, noting that her reliance on European thinkers like Adorno, Foucault, and Heidegger to dismantle Eurocentric progress in Habermas, Honneth, and Forst replicates the very contextual limitations she attributes to her targets, as these figures remain embedded in a Western intellectual tradition.^[34] He argues that this selective invocation fails to genuinely escape ethnocentrism, questioning why acknowledgment of historicity exempts Allen's preferred genealogists from the epistemic critiques leveled at developmentalist positions.^[34] Jay also objects to Allen's invocation of an idealized "non-European other" as a corrective to Western norms, suggesting it abstracts from concrete postcolonial realities—such as genocides in Rwanda or authoritarian movements like ISIS—potentially rendering her advocated "epistemic humility" paralyzing for philosophical intervention against non-Western injustices.^[34] This approach, in his view, prioritizes theoretical symmetry over substantive moral discernment, limiting critical theory's applicability beyond deconstructive critique.^[34]

Empirical and Causal Realist Challenges

Critics of Amy Allen's decolonial critique of progress narratives in critical theory, particularly in The End of Progress (2016), have invoked empirical evidence to argue that her genealogical approach overlooks measurable advancements tied to the global diffusion of modern institutions. John Davenport contends that the spread of legal systems and markets—empirically observable in the priorities of less developed countries via frameworks like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals—has facilitated economic growth and human welfare improvements, challenging Allen's portrayal of such developments as inescapably imperialistic.^[31] This causal mechanism, where institutional adoption correlates with reduced poverty and increased life expectancy in postcolonial states, suggests progress is not merely a Eurocentric fiction but a contingent outcome of historical entanglements, as supported by data from sources like the World Bank's human development indicators.^[31] Historical facts further complicate Allen's thesis that notions of progress are inherently colonialist. Slavery and exploitative practices predated European conquests in regions such as Moorish Spain and North Africa, indicating that hierarchical domination is a cross-cultural phenomenon rather than a unique Western export.^[28] Similarly, non-Eurocentric milestones like the Axial Age transitions toward monotheistic ethics across Eurasia around 800–200 BCE demonstrate recurrent patterns of normative evolution independent of modern colonialism, undermining the causal link Allen draws between progress discourse and imperialist justification.^[28] From a causal realist standpoint, reviewers emphasize geographical and environmental contingencies over moral narratives in explaining Western ascendancy. Citing Jared Diamond's analysis, Davenport argues that Eurasia's east-west axis enabled faster agricultural and technological diffusion by the 1500s, yielding advantages like steel and immunity to Old World diseases—factors that causally enabled expansion without retroactively validating ethical claims of superiority.^[31] This realist framing prioritizes verifiable chains of causation (e.g., biogeographical determinism) over Allen's focus on discursive power, which critics see as insufficiently grounded in such mechanisms. Empirical psychology also counters her skepticism of universal moral motives; studies showing innate fairness sensitivities in young children across cultures support foundational assumptions in thinkers like Rainer Forst, whom Allen critiques as overly rationalistic.^[28] Political realists challenge Allen's advocacy for epistemic humility and contextualist normativity as practically paralyzing in confronting causal drivers of contemporary conflicts. Martin Jay highlights how her decolonial reticence risks moral equivocation toward atrocities like the Rwandan genocide or ISIS's actions, where realist analysis demands judging power imbalances based on their observable effects rather than suspending critique to avoid Eurocentrism.^[34] Davenport echoes this by questioning how Allen's immanent norms could causally justify interventions against practices like slavery in Syria, absent transcendent standards informed by historical outcomes.^[31] These objections underscore a broader tension: while Allen seeks to infuse critical theory with realism against idealism, empirical and causal lenses reveal her framework's vulnerability to charges of underdetermining actionable responses to real-world causal processes.^[34]^[28]

References

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Amy Allen - Department of Philosophy
Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Advancement, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
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Amy Allen - Marx 13/13 - Columbia University
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Amy Allen - Pennsylvania State University - Academia.edu
Amy Allen is Liberal Arts Research Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the ...
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Amy Allen, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Advancement, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
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Critical theory, according to Allen, is the best resource we have for achieving emancipatory social goals. In reimagining a decolonized critical theory after ...
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Amy Allen is assistant professor of philosophy at Dartmouth College. Her articles have appeared in Hypatia,Constellations, and the Journal of Value Inquiry ...
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Does critical theory still need psychoanalysis? In Critique on the Couch, Amy Allen offers a cogent and convincing defense of its ongoing relevance.
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The Pennsylvania State University Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Head of Philosophy Department
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Jan 6, 2015 · Amy Allen, currently Parents Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies at Dartmouth College,
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The college's Office of Faculty Affairs and Advancement exists to support and enhance the professional development of Liberal Arts faculty.
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Six Penn State faculty members have received 2021 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding Achievement. They are Amy Allen, liberal arts ...Missing: positions | Show results with:positions<|control11|><|separator|>
[19]
The power of feminist theory: domination, resistance, solidarity
In "The Power of Feminist Theory," Amy Allen diagnoses the inadequacies of previous feminist conceptions of power, and draws on the work of a diverse group of ...Missing: summary | Show results with:summary
[20]
The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity
In stock Free deliveryThe conception of power developed in this book enables readers to theorize domination, resistance, and solidarity, and, perhaps more importantly, to do so in a ...
[21]
Book review: Amy Allen "The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination ...
Book review: Amy Allen "The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity" ... Allen concludes with a tripartite analysis of power relations ...
[22]
The Power of Feminist Theory | Amy Allen - Taylor & Francis eBooks
Mar 5, 2018 · The conception of power developed in this book enables readers to theorize domination, resistance, and solidarity, and, perhaps more importantly ...
[23]
The Politics of Our Selves | Columbia University Press
In particular, Allen discusses in detail how the normative aspirations of Habermasian critical theory need to be recast in light of Foucault's and Butler's ...Missing: critique | Show results with:critique
[24]
The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in ...
May 16, 2008 · In Chapters 2 and 3, Allen aims to show that Foucault's analysis of power has been (largely) misunderstood as the repudiation of critique ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[25]
Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory - jstor
In her bold new book, Amy Allen argues that the capacity for autonomy is rooted in the very power relations that constitute the self. Allen's theoretical ...
[26]
[PDF] REVIEW - Amy Allen, The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy ...
But she argues that he fails to provide an adequate account of social life, one that includes mutual recognition and reciprocity. For this, she turns to ...
[27]
The Politics of Our Selves. Amy Allen. New York
Mar 25, 2020 · Allen describes her own concepts—power and autonomy, intersubjectivity and recognition—as “tools” to be taken up pragmatically on behalf of ...
[28]
The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of ...
Oct 1, 2016 · Amy Allen identifies two main goals for her book. The first is to critique Habermas and two of his main successors -- Axel Honneth and ...Missing: summary | Show results with:summary
[29]
Book Review: The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative ...
May 26, 2017 · Amy Allen challenges the continued reliance on ideas of progress and development found in the work of those such as Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth and Rainer ...Missing: summary | Show results with:summary
[30]
[PDF] On Amy Allen's The End of Progress - IU ScholarWorks
In The End of Progress, Amy Allen connects post- and decolonial concerns about the implications of the concept of progress to contemporary critical theory.Missing: summary | Show results with:summary
[31]
Review of Amy Allen, The End of Progress. Complete version of the ...
It was in this charged context that Amy Allen wrote The End of Progress, in which she argues that Habermas and his left-Hegelian successors remain too ...Missing: childhood | Show results with:childhood
[32]
The End of Progress and the Future of Critical Theory: An Interview ...
Feb 14, 2017 · Around this time last year Amy Allen published her third book, The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory.
[33]
Inheriting Critical Theory: A Review of Amy Allen's the End of Progress
This review of Amy Allen's book, The End of Progress (2016), first addresses the structure of the book and focuses on specific points made in individual ...Missing: summary | Show results with:summary<|separator|>
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Martin Jay reviews The End of Progress – Critical Inquiry
Apr 11, 2018 · It is into this maelstrom that Amy Allen plunges by questioning the attempts of the second and third generations of the Frankfurt School—in ...Missing: summary | Show results with:summary
[35]
Psychoanalysis and the Methodology of Critique Amy Allen ...
supposed to learn to attain insight into the early childhood causes of its symptoms and, in ... 14 See Amy Allen, “Are We Driven: Critical Theory and ...
[36]
Critique on the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis
Does critical theory still need psychoanalysis? In Critique onthe Couch, Amy Allen offers a cogent and convincing defense ofits ongoing relevance.
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Transitional Subjects: Critical Theory and Object Relations on JSTOR
AMY ALLEN and BRIAN O'CONNOR ... From the beginning, and across its generations, critical theory has sustained an intense dialogue with psychoanalysis.
[38]
Critical Theory Between Klein and Lacan: A Dialogue - Mari Ruti ...
The book is co-authored in the form of a dialogue between Amy Allen, a prominent representative of Frankfurt School critical theory with expertise on Klein, and ...
[39]
'Critique On The Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis ...
May 12, 2021 · Allen argues that psychoanalysis is a much-needed check on the tendency of critical theory towards excessive rationalism and idealism.
[40]
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=FBmxU9gAAAAJ&citation_for_view=FBmxU9gAAAAJ:u5HHmVD_uO8C
[41]
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-politics-of-our-selves/9780231136228
[42]
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=FBmxU9gAAAAJ&citation_for_view=FBmxU9gAAAAJ:2osOgNQ5qMEC
[43]
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-end-of-progress/9780231173247
[44]
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=FBmxU9gAAAAJ&citation_for_view=FBmxU9gAAAAJ:UeHWp8X0CEIC
[45]
The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of ...
Amy Allen fractures critical theory from within by dispensing with its progressive reading of history while retaining its notion of progress as a political ...
[46]
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=FBmxU9gAAAAJ&citation_for_view=FBmxU9gAAAAJ:Y0pCki6q_DkC
[47]
Penn State Series in Critical Theory
- **Penn State Series in Critical Theory**: Showcases contemporary critical theorists expanding the Frankfurt School canon. Features symposia-based volumes with an original essay by a renowned theorist, critical responses, and the theorist’s reply. Focuses on neglected topics like colonialism, racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism, highlighting the tradition’s relevance.
[48]
https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08478-7.html
[49]
https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09334-5.html
[50]
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/transitional-subjects/9780231183185
[51]
Critique on the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis
Jan 7, 2022 · Amy Allen works with many of the central authors in the field of critical theory to make the case for psychoanalysis.
[52]
Critical Theory (Frankfurt School)
Dec 12, 2023 · ... Amy Allen and Martin Saar are influenced by Foucauldian genealogy. The latter is part of a broader engagement between the Frankfurt School ...Missing: formative | Show results with:formative
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Decolonizing Critical Theory?: Epistemological Justice, Progress ...
Apr 1, 2021 · This article asks what it means to seek to decolonize a tradition of thought that has never explicitly acknowledged colonial histories.
[54]
Justification and emancipation: The critical theory of Rainer Forst ...
Oct 27, 2020 · 141). In his response to Allen, Forst turns the charge of context-transcendent value imposition against her. Universalism understood in her ...
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Justification and Emancipation: The Critical Theory of Rainer Forst
Mar 7, 2020 · Amy Allen and Eduardo Mendieta have given us a timely and valuable appreciation of, and critical engagement with, the work of Rainer Forst.
[56]
Emancipation, Progress, Critique: Debating Amy Allen's The End of ...
May 3, 2018 · Emancipation, Progress, Critique: Debating Amy Allen's The End of Progress. The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of ...