ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the implications of critical theory for the construction of adult education knowledge. What the critical theory perspective strongly suggests is that theory construction and the knowledge base of adult education must, in the final analysis, reflect professional interests in the division of labour in society. Critical theory rejects the possibility of 'positivist' or 'scientific' theory in adult education as in any other area of social life. At the heart of adult education knowledge should be a critical theory of whose interests are really being served and whose needs really met in practice, rather than a 'scientific' theory of interests and needs or a philosophical discourse upon the meaning of the words. The 'needs-meeting' ideology attributed to adult education is a classic instance of the instrumental rationality of groups seeking their place in the division of labour in society.
