Félix José Weil (; 8 February 1898 18 September 1975) was a
German-Argentine Marxist
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
and
patron, who provided the funds to found the
Institute for Social Research in
Frankfurt am Main,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, the institute later originated the
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School is a school of thought in sociology and critical theory. It is associated with the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt am Main ...
.
Biography
Weil was born in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
,
Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
and was the son of the wealthy
grain merchant Hermann Weil and his wife Rosa Weil, both of whom were of
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
origin. At the age of 9 he was sent to attend school in Germany at the
Goethe-Gymnasium, Frankfurt.
He attended the
University of Tübingen
The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...
and the
University of Frankfurt am Main, where he graduated with a doctoral degree in
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
. While at these universities he became increasingly interested in
socialism
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
and
Marxism
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
. His thesis topic was "
Socialization
In sociology, socialization (also socialisation – see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is the process of Internalisation (sociology), internalizing the Norm (social), norm ...
: An Attempt at a Conceptual Foundation, with a Critique of the Plans for Socialization".
He did his doctorate in Frankfurt am Main on the concept of socialization. Like
Theodor W. Adorno, he belonged "to the generation of intellectuals born around the turn of the century and from bourgeois, mostly Jewish families, who were attracted in the 1920s to a philosophical Marxism beyond the workers' parties". He met
Karl Korsch and studied Marxist economic theory.
[Jörg Später: ''Zuerst kommt die Geldanlage, dann die Theorie. Das Kapital der Kapitalismuskritik: Jeanette Erazo Heufelders ökonomische Geschichte des Frankfurter Instituts für Sozialforschung rückt den Mäzen Felix Weil ins Zentrum''. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 7. März 2017, S. 10.]
Felix Weil married Käthe Badiert and moved to Argentina, his country of birth, for a year. The two were married from 1921 to 1929.
In 1923 he financed the ''Erste Marxistische Arbeitswoche'' ("
First Marxist Workweek"), a conference in the German town of
Ilmenau. The event was attended by various
leftist figures such as
Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch,
Richard Sorge,
Friedrich Pollock, and
Karl August Wittfogel. The success of this event led him and his friend Friedrich Pollock to, with the help of an endowment from his father, found the
Institute for Social Research in 1923.
Works
* ''Argentine Riddle'' (1944)
See also
*
Critical theory (Frankfurt School)
References
Sources
*
*
* Helmuth Robert Eisenbach: Millionär, Agitator und Doktorand. Die Tübinger Studienzeit des Felix Weil (1919). In: Bausteine zur Tübinger Universitätsgeschichte, Band 3, Tübingen 1987, S. 179–216.
External links
History of the Institute of Social Research from the Institute for Social ResearchThe Frankfurt School at Marxists.org
1898 births
1975 deaths
Frankfurt School philosophers
People from Buenos Aires
Argentine Jews
Argentine people of German-Jewish descent
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