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The Frankfurt School (german: Frankfurter Schule) is a school of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the
Institute for Social Research The Institute for Social Research (german: Institut für Sozialforschung, IfS) is a research organization for sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and critical theory. Currently a pa ...
, at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1929. Founded in the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
(1918–1933), during the European interwar period (1918–1939), the Frankfurt School initially comprised intellectuals, academics, and political dissidents dissatisfied with the contemporary socio-economic systems (capitalist, fascist, communist) of the 1930s. The Frankfurt theorists proposed that social theory was inadequate for explaining the turbulent
political faction A political faction is a group of individuals that share a common political purpose but differs in some respect to the rest of the entity. A faction within a group or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, "parties within a party," ...
alism and reactionary politics occurring in 20th century liberal capitalist societies. Critical of both
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
and of
Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and vario ...
as philosophically inflexible systems of social organization, the School's critical theory research indicated alternative paths to realizing the
social development Social development can refer to: * Psychosocial development * Social change * Social development theory * Social Development (journal) * Social emotional development * Social progress or social regress The word decadence, which at first meant ...
of a society and a nation. The Frankfurt School perspective of critical investigation (open-ended and self-critical) is based upon Freudian, Marxist and Hegelian premises of idealist philosophy. To fill the omissions of 19th-century
classical Marxism Classical Marxism refers to the economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Marxism–Leninism. Karl Marx Karl Marx (5 May 1818, ...
, which did not address 20th-century social problems, they applied the methods of antipositivist sociology, of
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...
, and of
existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and val ...
."Frankfurt School". (2009). Encyclopædia Britannica Online
https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/217277/Frankfurt-School
(Retrieved 19 December 2009)
The School's sociologic works derived from syntheses of the thematically pertinent works of
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, of
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
and Max Weber, and of Georg Simmel and Georg Lukács. Like Karl Marx, the Frankfurt School concerned themselves with the conditions (political, economic, societal) that allow for
social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Definition Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or soci ...
realized by way of rational social institutions. Their emphasis on the critical component of social theory derived from their attempts to overcome the ideological limitations of positivism, materialism, and determinism by returning to the
critical philosophy The critical philosophy (german: kritische Philosophie) movement, attributed to Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), sees the primary task of philosophy as criticism rather than justification of knowledge. Criticism, for Kant, meant judging as to the po ...
of Kant and his successors in
German idealism German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutiona ...
– principally the philosophy of Hegel, which emphasized dialectic and contradiction as intellectual properties inherent to the human grasp of material reality. Since the 1960s, the critical-theory work of the Institute for Social Research has been guided by Jürgen Habermas's work in communicative rationality, linguistic intersubjectivity, and "the philosophical discourse of modernity." More recently, the "third generation" critical theorists
Nikolas Kompridis Nikolas Kompridis (; born 1953) is a Canadian philosopher and political theorist. His major published work addresses the direction and orientation of Frankfurt School critical theory; the legacy of philosophical romanticism; and the aesthetic d ...
,
Raymond Geuss Raymond Geuss, FBA (; born 1946) is a political philosopher and scholar of 19th and 20th century European philosophy. He is currently Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge. Geuss is primarily known for three r ...
, and
Axel Honneth Axel Honneth (; ; born 18 July 1949) is a German philosopher who is the Professor for Social Philosophy at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Jack B. Weinstein Professor of the Humanities in the department of philosophy at Columbia University ...
have opposed Habermas's propositions, claiming he has undermined the original social-change purposes of critical-theory-problems, such as what should
reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, lang ...
mean; analysis of the conditions necessary to realize social emancipation; and critiques of contemporary capitalism.


History


Institute for Social Research

The term "Frankfurt School" describes the works of scholarship and the intellectuals who were the Institute for Social Research (''Institut für Sozialforschung''), an adjunct organization at Goethe University Frankfurt, founded in 1923, by Carl Grünberg, a Marxist professor of law at the
University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hi ...
. It was the first Marxist research center at a German university and was funded through the largesse of the wealthy student
Felix Weil Félix José Weil (; 8 February 1898 18 September 1975) was a German-Argentine Marxist, who provided the funds to found the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Biography Weil was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and w ...
(1898–1975). Weil's doctoral dissertation dealt with the practical problems of implementing
socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes th ...
. In 1922, he organized the First Marxist Workweek  (''Erste Marxistische Arbeitswoche'') in effort to synthesize different trends of
Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
into a coherent, practical philosophy; the first symposium included György Lukács, Karl Korsch, Karl August Wittfogel and
Friedrich Pollock Friedrich Pollock (; ; 22 May 1894 – 16 December 1970) was a German social scientist and philosopher. He was one of the founders of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, and a member of the Frankfurt School of neo-Marxist t ...
. The success of the First Marxist Workweek prompted the formal establishment of a permanent institute for social research, and Weil negotiated with the Ministry of Education for a university professor to be director of the Institute for Social Research, thereby, formally ensuring that the Frankfurt School would be a university institution."The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory"
Marxist Internet Archive
(Retrieved 12 September 2009)
Korsch and Lukács participated in the ''Arbeitswoche'', which included the study of ''Marxism and Philosophy'' (1923), by Karl Korsch, but their Communist Party membership precluded their active participation in the Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt School); yet Korsch participated in the School's publishing venture. Moreover, the political correctness by which the Communists compelled Lukács to repudiate his book '' History and Class Consciousness'' (1923) indicated that political, ideological, and intellectual independence from the communist party was a necessary work condition for realizing the production of knowledge. The philosophical tradition of the Frankfurt School – the multi-disciplinary integration of the social sciences – is associated with the philosopher Max Horkheimer, who became the director in 1930, and recruited intellectuals such as Theodor W. Adorno (philosopher, sociologist, musicologist), Erich Fromm (psychoanalyst), and Herbert Marcuse (philosopher).


European interwar period (1918–39)

In the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
(1918–33), the continual political turmoils of the interwar years (1918–39) much affected the development of the critical theory philosophy of the Frankfurt School. The scholars were especially influenced by the Communists’ failed German Revolution of 1918–19 (which Marx predicted) and by the rise of
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...
(1933–45), a German form of
fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and t ...
. To explain such reactionary politics, the Frankfurt scholars applied critical selections of Marxist philosophy to interpret, illuminate, and explain the origins and causes of reactionary socio-economics in 20th-century Europe (a type of
political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...
unknown to Marx in the 19th century). The School's further intellectual development derived from the publication, in the 1930s, of the ''
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 The ''Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'' (german: Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844), also referred to as the ''Paris Manuscripts'' (') or as the ''1844 Manuscripts'', are a series of notes written between Apri ...
'' (1932) and '' The German Ideology'' (1932), in which Karl Marx showed logical continuity with Hegelianism as the basis of Marxist philosophy. As the anti-intellectual threat of
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...
increased to political violence, the founders decided to move the Institute for Social Research out of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
(1933–45). Soon after Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the Institute first moved from Frankfurt to Geneva, and then to New York City, in 1935, where the Frankfurt School joined
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. The School's journal, the ''Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung'' ("Magazine of Social Research"), was renamed "Studies in Philosophy and Social Science". Thence began the period of the School's important work in Marxist critical theory; the scholarship and the investigational method gained acceptance among the academy, in the U.S and in the U.K. By the 1950s, the paths of scholarship led Horkheimer, Adorno, and Pollock to return to West Germany, whilst Marcuse, Löwenthal, and Kirchheimer remained in the U.S. In 1953, the Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt School) was formally re-established in Frankfurt, West Germany.


Theorists

As a term, the ''Frankfurt School'' usually includes the intellectuals Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Löwenthal and Friedrich Pollock. Initially within the FS's inner circle, Jürgen Habermas was the first to diverge from Horkheimer's research program.


Critical theory

The works of the Frankfurt School are understood in the context of the intellectual and practical objectives of critical theory. In ''Traditional and Critical Theory'' (1937), Max Horkheimer defined critical theory as social critique meant to effect sociologic change and realize intellectual emancipation, by way of enlightenment that is not dogmatic in its assumptions.Carr, Adrian (2000). "Critical theory and the Management of Change in Organizations", ''Journal of Organizational Change Management'', pp. 13, 3, 208–220. Critical theory analyzes the true significance of ''the ruling understandings'' (the
dominant ideology In Marxist philosophy, the term dominant ideology denotes the attitudes, beliefs, values, and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society. As a mechanism of social control, the dominant ideology frames how the majority of the ...
) generated in bourgeois society in order to show that the dominant ideology misrepresents ''how'' human relations occur in the real world and how capitalism justifies and legitimates the domination of people. In the praxis of cultural hegemony, the dominant ideology is a ruling-class narrative story, which explains that what is occurring in society is the norm. Nonetheless, the story told through ''the ruling understandings'' conceals as much as it reveals about society. The task of the Frankfurt School was sociological analysis and interpretation of the areas of social-relation that Marx did not discuss in the 19th century – especially the base and superstructure aspects of a capitalist society. Horkheimer opposed critical theory to ''traditional theory'', wherein the word ''theory'' is applied in the positivistic sense of scientism, in the sense of a purely observational mode, which finds and establishes scientific law (generalizations) about the real world. Social sciences differ from natural sciences because their scientific generalizations cannot be readily derived from experience. The researcher's understanding of a social experience is always filtered through biases in the researcher's mind. The researcher does not understand is that he or she operates within an historical and ideological context. The results for the theory being tested would conform to the ideas of the researcher rather than the facts of the experience proper; in ''Traditional and Critical Theory'' (1937), Horkheimer said: For Horkheimer, the methods of investigation applicable to the social sciences cannot imitate the
scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientifi ...
applicable to the natural sciences. In that vein, the theoretical approaches of positivism and pragmatism, of neo-Kantianism and
phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
failed to surpass the ideological constraints that restricted their application to social science, because of the inherent logico–mathematic prejudice that separates theory from actual life, i.e. such methods of investigation seek a logic that is always true, and independent of and without consideration for continuing human activity in the field under study. He felt that the appropriate response to such a dilemma was the development of a critical theory of Marxism. Horkheimer believed the problem was epistemological saying "we should reconsider not merely the scientist, but the knowing individual, in general." Unlike Orthodox Marxism, which applies a template to critique and to action, critical theory is self-critical, with no claim to the universality of absolute truth. As such, it does not grant primacy to matter ( materialism) or consciousness (
idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ...
), because each epistemology distorts the reality under study to the benefit of a small group. In practice, critical theory is outside the philosophical strictures of traditional theory; however, as a way of thinking and of recovering humanity's self-knowledge, critical theory draws investigational resources and methods from Marxism.


Dialectical method

The Frankfurt School reformulated dialectics into a concrete method of investigation, derived from the Hegelian philosophy that an idea will pass over into its own negation, as the result of conflict between the inherently contradictory aspects of the idea.dialectic. (2009). Retrieved 19 December 2009, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online
https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/161174/dialectic
In opposition to previous modes of reasoning, which viewed things in abstraction, each by itself and as though endowed with fixed properties, Hegelian dialectics considers ideas according to their movement and change in time, according to their interrelations and interactions. In Hegel's perspective, human history proceeds and evolves in a dialectical manner: the present embodies the rational '' Aufheben'' (sublation), the synthesis of past contradictions. It is an intelligible process of human activity, the , which is the Idea of Progress towards a specific human condition – the realization of human freedom through rationality.Little, D. (2007). "Philosophy of History", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (18 February 2007)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/history/#HegHis
However, the Problem of future contingents (considerations about the future) did not interest Hegel, for whom philosophy cannot be prescriptive and normative, because philosophy understands only in hindsight. The study of history is limited to descriptions of past and present human realities. For Hegel and his successors (the
Right Hegelians The Right Hegelians (german: Rechtshegelianer), Old Hegelians (''Althegelianer''), or the Hegelian Right (''die Hegelsche Rechte''), were those followers of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the early 19th century who took his phi ...
), dialectics inevitably lead to approval of the status quo – as such, dialectical philosophy justifies the bases of Christian theology and of the Prussian state. Karl Marx and the
Young Hegelians The Young Hegelians (german: Junghegelianer), or Left Hegelians (''Linkshegelianer''), or the Hegelian Left (''die Hegelsche Linke''), were a group of German intellectuals who, in the decade or so after the death of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ...
strongly criticized that perspective; Hegel had over-reached in his abstract conception of "absolute Reason" and had failed to notice the "real"— i.e. and – life conditions of the proletariat. Marx inverted Hegel's idealist dialectics and advanced his own theory of dialectical materialism, arguing that "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but that their social being that determines their consciousness." Marx's theory follows a
materialist conception of history Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
and geographic space, where the development of the productive forces is the primary motive force for historical change. The social and material
contradictions In traditional logic, a contradiction occurs when a proposition conflicts either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle's ...
inherent to capitalism lead to its negation – thereby replacing capitalism with
Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
, a new, rational form of society. Marx used dialectical analysis to uncover the contradictions in the predominant ideas of society, and in the social relations to which they are linked – exposing the underlying struggle between opposing forces. Only by becoming aware of the dialectic (i.e. class consciousness) of such opposing forces in a struggle for power can men and women intellectually liberate themselves, and change the existing social order through social progress. The Frankfurt School understood that a dialectical method could only be adopted ; if they adopted a self-correcting method – a dialectical method that would enable the correction of previous, false interpretations of the dialectical investigation. Accordingly, critical theory rejected the
historicism Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely ...
and materialism of Orthodox Marxism.


Critique of Western civilization


''Dialectic of Enlightenment'' and ''Minima Moralia''

The second phase of Frankfurt School critical theory centres principally on two works: Adorno and
Horkheimer Horkheimer is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jack Horkheimer Jack Horkheimer (born Foley Arthur Horkheimer; June 11, 1938 – August 20, 2010) was the executive director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium. He ...
's ''
Dialectic of Enlightenment ''Dialectic of Enlightenment'' (german: Dialektik der Aufklärung) is a work of philosophy and social criticism written by Frankfurt School philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. The text, published in 1947, is a revised version of ...
'' (1944) and Adorno's ''
Minima Moralia ''Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life'' (german: Minima Moralia: Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben) is a 1951 book by the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno and a seminal text in critical theory. Adorno started writing it during Wo ...
'' (1951). The authors wrote both works during the institute's exile in America. While retaining much of a Marxian analysis, these works critical shifted emphasis from a critique of capitalism to a critique of Western civilization, as seen in ''Dialectic of Enlightenment'', which uses the ''
Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Iliad'', ...
'' as a paradigm for their analysis of bourgeois consciousness. In these works, Horkheimer and Adorno present many themes that have come to dominate social thought. Their exposition of the domination of nature as a central characteristic of
instrumental rationality "Instrumental" and "value rationality" are terms scholars use to identify two ways individuals act in order to optimize their behavior . Instrumental rationality recognizes means that "work" efficiently to achieve ends. Value rationality recogni ...
in Western civilization was made long before
ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...
and
environmentalism Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad Philosophy of life, philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment (biophysical), environment, par ...
became popular concerns. The analysis of reason now goes one stage further: The rationality of Western civilization appears as a fusion of domination and technological rationality, bringing all of external and internal nature under the power of the human subject. In the process the subject gets swallowed up and no social force analogous to the proletariat can be identified that enables the subject to emancipate itself. Hence the subtitle of ''Minima Moralia'': "Reflections from Damaged Life". In Adorno's words: Consequently, at a time when it appears that reality itself has become the basis for ideology, the greatest contribution that critical theory can make is to explore the dialectical contradictions of individual subjective experience on the one hand, and to preserve the truth of theory on the other. Even dialectical progress is put into doubt: "its truth or untruth is not inherent in the method itself, but in its intention in the historical process." This intention must be oriented toward integral freedom and happiness: "The only philosophy which can be responsibly practiced in face of despair is the attempt to contemplate all things as they would present themselves from the standpoint of redemption." Adorno distanced himself from the "optimism" of orthodox Marxism: "beside the demand thus placed on thought, the question of the reality or unreality of redemption .e. human emancipationitself hardly matters." From a sociological point of view, Horkheimer's and Adorno's works contain an ambivalence concerning the ultimate source or foundation of social domination, an ambivalence that gave rise to the "pessimism" of the new critical theory over the possibility of human emancipation and freedom. This ambivalence was rooted in the historical circumstances in which the work was originally produced, in particular, the rise of National Socialism, state capitalism, and mass culture as entirely new forms of social domination that could not be adequately explained within the terms of traditional Marxist sociology. For Adorno and Horkheimer,
state intervention Economic interventionism, sometimes also called state interventionism, is an economic policy position favouring government intervention in the market process with the intention of correcting market failures and promoting the general welfare o ...
in the economy had effectively abolished the tension in capitalism between the " relations of production" and "material productive forces of society"—a tension that, according to traditional Marxist theory, constituted the primary contradiction within capitalism. The previously "free" market (as an "unconscious" mechanism for the distribution of goods) and "irrevocable" private property of Marx's epoch gradually have been replaced by the more central role of management hierarchies at the firm level and macroeconomic interventions at the state level in contemporary Western societies. The dialectic through which Marx predicted the emancipation of modern society is suppressed, effectively being subjugated to a positivist rationality of domination. About this second "phase" of the Frankfurt School, philosopher and critical theorist Nikolas Kompridis wrote: Kompridis argues that this "sceptical cul-de-sac" was arrived at with "a lot of help from the once unspeakable and unprecedented barbarity of European fascism," and could not be gotten out of without "some well-marked xit or, showing the way out of the ever-recurring nightmare in which Enlightenment hopes and Holocaust horrors are fatally entangled." However, this , according to Kompridis, would not come until later – purportedly in the form of Jürgen Habermas's work on the intersubjective bases of communicative rationality. In the Frankfurt School analysis, consumption culture and mass media displaced the role of a father figure in the paternalistic family. Rather than serving to liberate society from patriarchal authority however, this merely replaced it with the authority of the "totally administered" society. Christopher Lasch criticized subsequent liberatory movments of the 1960s for failing to reckon with this dynamic, which in his view led to a "culture of
narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...
." Lasch believed the "later Frankfurt School" tended to ground political critcisms too much on psychiatric diagnoses like the
authoritarian personality The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by a disposition to treat authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect. Conceptually, the term ''authoritarian personality'' originated from the writings of Erich Fr ...
: "This procedure excused them from the difficult work of judgment and argumentation. Instead of arguing with opponents, they simply dismissed them on psychiatric grounds."


Art and music criticism

Walter Benjamin's essay ''The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'' is a canonical text in art history and film studies. In it, Benjamin is optimistic about the potential of commodified works of art to introduce radical political views to the proletariat. Adorno and Horkheimer in contrast saw the rise of the culture industry as promoting homogeneity of thought and entrenching existing authorities. Theodor Adorno came to America initially to work on the Princeton Radio Project, but it quickly became apparent that his theoretical bent was incompatible with the project's focus on opinion polling. Adorno's funding was not renewed after the initial two year period, and he was employed by the Institute for Social Research for the remainder of his time in America, before returning to Germany at the first opportunity. While employed by the radio project, Adorno (a trained classical pianist) wrote ''The Philosophy of Modern Music'' (1949), in which he polemicized against popular music―because it has become part of the culture industry of advanced capitalist society and the false consciousness that contributes to social domination. He argued that radical art and music may preserve the truth by capturing the reality of human suffering. Hence: This view of modern art as producing truth only through the negation of traditional aesthetic form and traditional norms of beauty because they have become ideological is characteristic of Adorno and of the Frankfurt School generally. It has been criticized by those who do not share its conception of modern society as a false totality that renders obsolete traditional conceptions and images of beauty and harmony. In particular, Adorno despised
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
and popular music, viewing it as part of the culture industry, that contributes to the present sustainability of capitalism by rendering it "aesthetically pleasing" and "agreeable". Martin Jay called the attack on jazz the least successful aspect of Adorno's work in America. When others of the Frankfurt School settled in the United States, Benjamin went instead to Paris, whose architecture was central to the Arcades Project, a work that Benjamin thought would be his magnum opus. Adorno encouraged Benjamin to imbue the work with an overtly Marxist outlook, but on reading Benjamin's draft of the work's central chapter on Baudelaire, Adorno criticized Benjamin's uses of Marxist jargon, writing that he had, "denied yourself your boldest and most productive thoughts in a kind of precensorship." Although Adorno encouraged Benjamin to join him in America, and the institute obtained a work visa for him, Benjamin took his own life in 1940 on the mistaken belief he would not be able to leave France. Adorno's media critiques were background to Frederic Wertham, a psychiatrist concerned with
child welfare Child protection is the safeguarding of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the protection of children in and out of the home. One of the ways to ...
and
school desegregation School integration in the United States is the process (also known as desegregation) of ending race-based segregation within American public and private schools. Racial segregation in schools existed throughout most of American history and rem ...
. Wertham's other work was overshadowed by his role in creating the Comics Code Authority that ended the
Golden Age of Comics The Golden Age of Comic Books describes an era of American comic books from 1938 to 1956. During this time, modern comic books were first published and rapidly increased in popularity. The superhero archetype was created and many well-known chara ...
. Later, socialists in the 1980s criticized what they called the rigid and determinist view of popular culture deployed within the Frankfurt School theories of capitalist culture, which precluded any prefigurative role for social critique within such work. They argued that
EC Comics Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books, which specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, war novel, military fiction, dark fantasy, and science fiction from the 1940s through th ...
often did contain such cultural critiques.


Positivism dispute

The epistemological aspects of the Frankfurt School are linked to the presence of Karl Popper on the scene of philosophical and scientific thought of the 20th century. Popper's response to philosophy indicates a link between critical theory and the crisis of scientific thought in the face of falsificationism. The boundaries of social disciplines are also involved in the revision of the debate on critical knowledge and dialectical reason. The bequests of authors such as Adorno, Hans Albert and Jürgen Habermas are also the text of the debate, culminating with the affirmation of the second Methodenstreit (See Guglielmo Rinzivillo, ''Passato e presente nello sviluppo della teoria critica della società'' su "Sociologia. Rivista Quadrimestrale di Scienze Storiche e Sociali", Anno LIV, N. 1, 2020, pp. 77–98; idem Second Part su "Sociologia. Rivista Quadrimestrale di Scienze Storiche e Sociali", Anno LIV, N. 2, 2020, pp. 89–108). The seeming lack of a promise of a better future and the lack of a positive outlook on society in the works of Adorno and Horkheimer was criticized by Karl Popper in his "Addendum 1974: The Frankfurt School" (1994). For Popper, "Marx's own condemnation of our society makes sense. For Marx's theory contains the promise of a better future." Any theory becomes "vacuous and irresponsible" if the promise of a better future is omitted or not present in the theory.


Communicative action

Habermas's "reformulation of critical theory" has been accused by philosopher Nikolas Kompridis as solving "too well, the dilemmas of the philosophy of the subject and the problem of modernity's self-reassurance", while creating a self-understanding of critical theory that is too close to liberal theories of justice and the normative order of society. He contended that, while "this has produced an important contemporary variant of liberal theories of justice, different enough to be a challenge to liberal theory, but not enough to preserve sufficient continuity with critical theory's past, it severely weakened the identity of critical theory and inadvertently initiated its premature dissolution."


Praxis

The first generation of Frankfurt scholars generally engaged in theory and avoided political commitments or
praxis Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised * Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...
in the post-war years. Max Horkheimer opposed any revolutionary rhetoric in the institute's publications, since it could jeopardize funding from the West German government. Habermas suggested that Critical Theory should respond to student protests with a "strategy of hibernation." Theodor Adorno showed some sympathy to student movements, particularly after the after the Killing of Benno Ohnesorg, but he did not believe street violence had the potential to effect change. Before his death in 1969, Adorno said, "I established a theoretical model of thought. How could I have expected that people would want to implement it with Molotov cocktails?" Angela Davis recounted advice given to her by Adorno that critical theorists working in the radical movements of the 1960s were, "akin to a media studies scholar deciding to become a radio technician". In ''The Theory of the Novel'' (1971), Georg Lukács criticized the "leading German intelligentsia", including some members of the Frankfurt School (Adorno is named explicitly), as inhabiting the ''Grand Hotel Abyss'', a metaphorical place from which the theorists comfortably analyze the ''abyss'', the world beyond. Lukács described this contradictory situation as follows: They inhabit "a beautiful hotel, equipped with every comfort, on the edge of an abyss, of nothingness, of absurdity. And the daily contemplation of the abyss, between excellent meals or artistic entertainments, can only heighten the enjoyment of the subtle comforts offered."Lukács, Georg. (1971). ''The Theory of the Novel''. MIT Press, p. 22. The singular exception to this was Herbert Marcuse, who engaged enthusiastically with the New Left in the 1960s and 70s. Marcuse's '' One-Dimensional Man'' described the containment of the working class by material consumption and mass media that diverted any possibility of a proletarian revolution. Although Marcuse considered this pessimistic state of affairs to be ''fait accompli'' when the book was published in 1964, he was surprised and pleased when almost immediately the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
intensified and serious
opposition to the Vietnam war Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War (before) or anti-Vietnam War movement (present) began with demonstrations in 1965 against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War and grew into a broad social move ...
began. Student activists such as the Students for a Democratic Society in turn took an interest in Marcuse and his works. Formerly an obscure academic ''émigré'', he rapidly became a controversial public intellectual known as the "Guru of the New Left". Marcuse did not aim for narrow, incremental reforms but for the "Great Refusal" of all existing culture and "total revolution" against capitalism. In the democratic protests movements, Marcuse saw agents of change that could supplement the quiescent working class and unite with
third-world The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the ...
Communist revolutionaries. Marcuse took an active role in the New Left, organizing events with students in the United States and the West German student movement. Throughout these activities he articulated ideas like those in his 1965 article, '' Repressive Tolerance'' concerning free speech and the use of violence. Marcuse argued that since Western societies engaged in imperialism abroad and repressed minorities at home, there was a "clear and present danger" justifying a "natural right" to resistance. He said, therefore, that contrary to traditional notions of free speech, speech that served to legitimize the status quo should not be tolerated. There was strong opposition to these ideas from the political right and also some opposition from the left. Douglas Kellner commented that the rhetoric of "clear and present danger" was often used by authorities to suppress radical resistance. German student leaders such as Rudi Dutschke interpreted Marcuse to legitimize their activities. Dutschke's willingness to consider violence was criticized by Jürgen Habermas as "left fascism" which drew condemnation from Oskar Negt and others. Habermas later withdrew the accusation of fascism during the German Autumn of 1977. Marcuse's relationship with Horkheimer and Adorno was strained by their divergence of opinion about the student movements. The Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund was harshly critical of Adorno for his lack of political engagement and would disrupt his lectures. When a student's room was trashed for refusing to take part in protests, Adorno wrote, "praxis serves as an ideological pretext for exercising moral constraint." Adorno further said it was a manifestation of the
authoritarian personality The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by a disposition to treat authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect. Conceptually, the term ''authoritarian personality'' originated from the writings of Erich Fr ...
. Adorno's student Hans-Jürgen Krahl was also critical of Adorno's inaction. When in January 1969, Krahl led a group of students to occupy a room, Adorno called the police to remove them, further angering the students. Marcuse criticized Adorno's decision to call the police, writing, Adorno replied that the actions of the students had been Stalinist and fascist. He mocked Marcuse for taking offense at Habermas' use of the phrase "left fascism", writing, In the 1970s, perceiving the limitations of the New Left, Marcuse de-emphasized the third world and revolutionary violence in favor of a focus on social issues in the United States. He sought to recruit other movements on the political periphery, such as
environmentalism Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad Philosophy of life, philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment (biophysical), environment, par ...
and
feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
, to a popular front for socialism. During this period, he spoke enthusiastically about women's liberation, seeing in it echoes of his earlier work in ''
Eros and Civilization ''Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud'' (1955; second edition, 1966) is a book by the German philosopher and social critic Herbert Marcuse, in which the author proposes a non-repressive society, attempts a synthesis of the t ...
''. Seeing that the revolutionary moment of the 1960s was over, Marcuse advised students to avoid even a suggestion of terrorism. Instead he advocated the " long march through the institutions" and recommended educational institutions as a refuge for radicals in the U.S. The Frankfurt School was a significant influence on
Paolo Freire Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work '' Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' is generally considered one of the founda ...
in the conception of critical pedagogy, alongside influences from orthodox Marxism, the
Praxis School The Praxis school was a Marxist humanist philosophical cycle, whose members were influenced by Western Marxism. It originated in Zagreb in the SFR Yugoslavia, during the 1960s. Prominent school's theorists include Gajo Petrović and Milan Kangrg ...
, and Frantz Fanon. Freire's work made major inroads towards increasing literacy in Brazil and the third world, which Freire saw as an essential step towards raising class consciousness. Critical pedagogy was meant initially to address the needs of peasants resisting oppression rather than students in the United States, who attend universities as part of a process of entering the social or economic elite. Amidst the decline of the New Left, rise of
neoconservativism Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and coun ...
, and election of Ronald Reagan, leftist academics turned from revolutionary economic Marxism towards cultural Marxism. Animated by Aronowitz's reminder of Marx's dictum, "the ultimate task of philosophy and theory was not merely to 'comprehend reality' but to change it",
Henry Giroux Henry Armand Giroux (born 1943) is an American-Canadian scholar and cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth s ...
sought to make the university classroom a site for class struggle. Giroux drew on the work of Gramsci and the British cultural Marxists in conceiving of teachers as a revolutionary vanguard. Alongside Michael Apple, Giroux popularized Freire in educational studies, to the point that Freirian language and techniques of critical pedagogy became ubiquitous in
liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as La ...
classrooms of the 1990s. The value of these practices were questioned in the broader cultural conversation on political correctness.


See also


References


Further reading

* Arato, Andrew and Eike Gebhardt, Eds. ''The Essential Frankfurt School Reader''. New York: Continuum, 1982. * Bernstein, Jay (ed.). ''The Frankfurt School: Critical Assessments'' I–VI. New York: Routledge, 1994. * Benhabib, Seyla. ''Critique, Norm, and Utopia: A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory''. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. * Bottomore, Tom. ''The Frankfurt School and its Critics''. New York: Routledge, 2002. * Bronner, Stephen Eric and Douglas MacKay Kellner (eds.). ''Critical Theory and Society: A Reader''. New York: Routledge, 1989. * Brosio, Richard A
''The Frankfurt School: An Analysis of the Contradictions and Crises of Liberal Capitalist Societies.''
1980. * Crone, Michael (ed.): ''Vertreter der Frankfurter Schule in den Hörfunkprogrammen 1950–1992.'' Hessischer Rundfunk, Frankfurt am Main 1992. (Bibliography.) * Friedman, George. ''The Political Philosophy of the Frankfurt School''. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1981. * Gerhardt, Christina. "Frankfurt School". ''The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, 1500 to the Present''. 8 vols. Ed. Immanuel Ness. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2009. 12–13. * Held, David. ''Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. * * Jay, Martin. ''The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute for Social Research 1923–1950''. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. 1996. * * Kompridis, Nikolas. ''Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006. * Postone, Moishe. ''Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press, 1993. * Schwartz, Frederic J. ''Blind Spots: Critical Theory and the History of Art in Twentieth-Century Germany''. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2005. * Shapiro, Jeremy J. "The Critical Theory of Frankfurt". ''Times Literary Supplement'' 3 (4 October 1974) 787. * Scheuerman, William E. ''Frankfurt School Perspectives on Globalization, Democracy, and the Law''. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2008. * Wiggershaus, Rolf. ''The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories and Political Significance''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995. * Wheatland, Thomas. ''The Frankfurt School in Exile''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.


External links


Official website of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt
* Gerhardt, Christina

The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. Ness, Immanuel (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2009. Blackwell Reference Online. *
The Frankfurt School on the Marxists Internet Archive

BBC Radio 4 Audio documentary "In our time: the Frankfurt School"
{{Authority control Critical theory Cultural studies Goethe University Frankfurt Historical schools Marxist schools of thought Political philosophy Social philosophy Sociological theories Weimar culture