Everything about The Frankfurt School totally explained
The
Frankfurt School is a school of
neo-Marxist critical theory,
social research, and
philosophy. The grouping emerged at the
Institute for Social Research (
Institut für Sozialforschung) of the
University of Frankfurt am Main in
Germany when
Max Horkheimer became the Institute's director in
1930. The term "Frankfurt School" is an informal term used to designate the thinkers affiliated with the Institute for Social Research or influenced by them. It isn't the title of any institution, and the main thinkers of the Frankfurt School didn't use the term to describe themselves.
The Frankfurt School gathered together dissident
Marxists, severe critics of
capitalism who believed that some of
Marx's followers had come to parrot a narrow selection of Marx's ideas, usually in defense of orthodox
Communist or
Social-Democratic parties. Influenced especially by the failure of working-class revolutions in Western Europe after
World War I and by the rise of
Nazism in an economically, technologically advanced nation (Germany), they took up the task of choosing what parts of Marx's thought might serve to clarify social conditions which Marx himself had never seen. They drew on other schools of thought to fill in Marx's perceived omissions.
Max Weber exerted a major influence, as did
Sigmund Freud (as in
Herbert Marcuse's
Freudo-Marxist synthesis in the
1954 work
Eros and Civilization). Their emphasis on the "critical" component of theory was derived significantly from their attempt to overcome the limits of
positivism, crude
materialism, and
phenomenology by returning to
Kant's
critical philosophy and its successors in German
idealism, principally
Hegel's philosophy, with its emphasis on
negation and
contradiction as inherent properties of
reality. A key influence also came from the publication in the
1930s of Marx's
Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts and
The German Ideology, which showed the continuity with Hegelianism that underlay Marx's thought. Marcuse was one of the first to articulate the theoretical significance of these texts.
Erich Fromm, an under-represented member of the school, is credited with bringing it a psychoanalytic focus. However, members Adorno and Horkheimer attempted to belittle Fromm's contributions, even though a central theme, "The Authoritarian Character," developed directly from Fromm's research on the subject.
Critical theory
Critical theory, in
sociology and
philosophy, is shorthand for
critical theory of Marxism, referring to both his original work and social movements and political parties. It is a label used by the
Frankfurt School, for example, members of the
Institute for Social Research of the
University of Frankfurt, their intellectual and social network, and those influenced by them intellectually to describe their own work. The work of the School is oriented toward radical social change, in contradistinction to "traditional theory," for example theory in the
positivistic, scientistic, or purely observational mode. In
literature and
literary criticism and
cultural studies, by contrast, "
critical theory" means something quite different, namely theory used in criticism.
The original critical social theorists were
Marxists, and there's some evidence that in their choice of the phrase "critical theory of society" they were in part influenced by its sounding less politically controversial than "Marxism". Nevertheless there were other substantive reasons for this choice. First, they were explicitly linking up with the
critical philosophy of
Immanuel Kant, where the term
critique meant philosophical reflection on the limits of claims made for certain kinds of knowledge and a direct connection between such critique and the emphasis on moral autonomy. In an intellectual context defined by
dogmatic
positivism and
scientism on the one hand and dogmatic "scientific socialism" on the other, critical theory meant to rehabilitate through its philosophically critical approach an orientation toward revolutionary agency, or at least its possibility, at a time when it seemed in decline.
Second, in the context of both
Marxist-
Leninist and
Social-Democratic orthodoxy, which emphasized Marxism as a new kind of positive science, they were linking up with the implicit
epistemology of
Karl Marx's work, which presented itself as critique, as in Marx's "
Capital: A Critique of Political Economy". That is, they emphasized that Marx was attempting to create a new kind of critical analysis oriented toward the unity of theory and revolutionary practice rather than a new kind of positive science. Critique in this Marxian sense meant taking the ideology of a society (for example "freedom of the individual" or "equality" under capitalism) and critiquing it by comparing it with the social reality of that very society (for example subordination of the individual to the class structure or real social inequality under capitalism). It also, especially in the Frankfurt School version, meant critiquing the existing social reality in terms of the potential for human freedom and happiness that existed within that same reality (for example using technologies for the exploitation of nature that could be used for the conservation of nature).
The First Phase
The intellectual influences on and theoretical focus of the first generation of Frankfurt School critical theorists appear in the following diagram:
The Institute made major contributions in two areas relating to the possibility of rational human
subjects, for example individuals who could act rationally to take charge of their own
society and their own
history. The first consisted of social phenomena previously considered in Marxism as part of the "
superstructure" or as
ideology: ,
family and
authority structures (its first book publication bore the title
Studies of Authority and the Family), and the realm of
aesthetics and
mass culture. Studies saw a common concern here in the ability of
capitalism to destroy the preconditions of critical, revolutionary
political consciousness. This meant arriving at a sophisticated awareness of the depth dimension in which social oppression sustains itself. It also meant the beginning of
critical theory's recognition of ideology as part of the foundations of social structure. The Institute and various collaborators had a gigantic effect on (especially
American)
social science through their work
The Authoritarian Personality, which conducted extensive
empirical research, using sociological and
psychoanalytic categories, in order to characterize the forces that led individuals to affiliate with or support
fascist movements or parties. The study found the assertion of
universals, or even
truth, to be a hallmark of fascism.
The Authoritarian Personality hypothesis which proceeded from this contributed greatly to the emergence of the
counterculture.
The nature of Marxism itself formed the second focus of the Institute, and in this context the concept of
critical theory originated. The term served several purposes - first, it contrasted from traditional notions of theory, which were largely either positivist or scientific. Second, the term allowed them to escape the politically charged label of "Marxism." Third, it explicitly linked them with the "critical philosophy" of
Immanuel Kant, where the term "critique" meant philosophical reflection on the limits of claims made for certain kinds of knowledge and a direct connection between such critique and the emphasis on moral autonomy. In an intellectual context defined by dogmatic positivism and scientism on the one hand and dogmatic "scientific socialism" on the other, critical theory meant to rehabilitate through such a philosophically critical approach an orientation toward revolutionary agency, or at least its possibility, at a time when it seemed in decline.
Finally, in the context of both Marxist-Leninist and Social-Democratic orthodoxy, which emphasized Marxism as a new kind of positive science, they were linking up with the implicit epistemology of
Karl Marx's work, which presented itself as critique, as in Marx's "Capital: a critique of political economy", wanting to emphasize that Marx was attempting to create a new kind of critical analysis oriented toward the unity of theory and revolutionary practice rather than a new kind of positive science. In the 1960s,
Jürgen Habermas raised the epistemological discussion to a new level in his "Knowledge and Human Interests" (1968), by identifying critical knowledge as based on principles that differentiated it either from the natural sciences or the humanities, through its orientation to self-reflection and emancipation.
Although Horkheimer's distinction between traditional and critical theory in one sense merely repeated Marx's dictum that philosophers have always
interpreted the world and the point is to change it, the Institute, in its critique of ideology, took on such philosophical currents as
positivism,
phenomenology,
existentialism, and
pragmatism, with an implied
critique of contemporary Marxism, which had turned
dialectics into an alternate
science or
metaphysics. The Institute attempted to reformulate dialectics as a concrete
method, continually aware of the specific social roots of thought and of the specific constellation of forces that affected the possibility of liberation. Accordingly, critical theory rejected the materialist metaphysics of
orthodox Marxism. For Horkheimer and his associates, materialism meant the orientation of theory towards practice and towards the fulfillment of human needs, not a metaphysical statement about the nature of reality.
The Second Phase
The second phase of Frankfurt School critical theory centres principally on two works that rank as classics of twentieth-century thought:
Horkheimer's and
Adorno's
Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) and Adorno's
Minima Moralia (1951). The authors wrote both works during the Institute's American
exile in the Nazi period. While retaining much of the Marxian analysis, in these works critical theory has shifted its emphasis. The critique of capitalism has turned into a critique of
Western civilization as a whole. Indeed, the
Dialectic of Enlightenment uses the
Odyssey as a paradigm for the analysis of
bourgeois consciousness. Horkheimer and Adorno already present in these works many themes that have come to dominate the
social thought of recent years: the domination of
nature appears as central to Western civilization long before
ecology had become a
catchphrase of the day.
The analysis of
reason now goes one stage further. The
rationality of Western civilization appears as a fusion of domination and of
technological rationality, bringing all of external and internal nature under the power of the human subject. In the process, however, the subject itself gets swallowed up, and no social force analogous to the
proletariat can be identified that will enable the subject to
emancipate itself. Hence the subtitle of
Minima Moralia: "Reflections from Damaged Life". In Adorno's words,
» :"For since the overwhelming
objectivity of historical movement in its present phase consists so far only in the dissolution of the subject, without yet giving rise to a new one, individual
experience necessarily bases itself on the old subject, now historically condemned, which is still for-itself, but no longer in-itself. The subject still feels sure of its, but the nullity demonstrated to subjects by the
concentration camp is already overtaking the form of
subjectivity itself."
Consequently, at a time when it appears that reality itself has become 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 the dialectic can become a means to domination: "Its truth or untruth, therefore, isn't inherent in the method itself, but in its intention in the historical process." And this intention must be toward integral
freedom and
happiness: "the only philosophy which can be responsibly practised in face of despair is the attempt to contemplate all things as they'd present themselves from the standpoint of redemption". How far from orthodox Marxism is Adorno's conclusion: "But beside the demand thus placed on thought, the question of the reality or unreality of redemption itself hardly matters."
Adorno, a trained musician, wrote
The Philosophy of Modern Music, in which he, in essence, polemicizes against
beauty itself -- because it has become part of the ideology of advanced capitalist society and the
false consciousness that contributes to domination by prettifying it. Avant-garde art and music preserve the truth by capturing the reality of human suffering. Hence:
» :"What radical music perceives is the untransfigured suffering of man... The seismographic registration of traumatic shock becomes, at the same time, the technical structural law of music. It forbids continuity and development. Musical language is polarized according to its extreme; towards gestures of shock resembling bodily convulsions on the one hand, and on the other towards a crystalline standstill of a human being whom anxiety causes to freeze in her tracks... Modern music sees absolute oblivion as its goal. It is the surviving message of despair from the shipwrecked."
This view of modern art as producing truth only through the negation of traditional aesthetic form and traditional norms of beauty because they've become ideological is characteristic of Adorno and of the Frankfurt School generally. It has been criticized by those who don't share its conception of modern society as a false totality that renders obsolete traditional conceptions and images of beauty and harmony.
The Third Phase
From these thoughts only a short step remained to the third phase of the Frankfurt School, which coincided with the postwar period, particularly from the early
1950s to the middle
1960s. With the growth of advanced industrial society under
Cold War conditions, the critical theorists recognized that the structure of capitalism and history had changed decisively, that the modes of oppression operated differently, and that the industrial
working class no longer remained the determinate negation of capitalism. This led to the attempt to root the dialectic in an absolute method of negativity, as in Marcuse's
One-Dimensional Man and Adorno's
Negative Dialectics. During this period the Institute of Social Research re-settled in
Frankfurt (although many of its associates remained in the United States), with the task not merely of continuing its research but of becoming a leading force in the sociological education and
democratization of
West Germany. This led to a certain systematization of the Institute's entire accumulation of empirical research and theoretical analysis.
More importantly, however, the Frankfurt School attempted to define the fate of reason in the new historical period. While Marcuse did so through analysis of structural changes in the
labor process under capitalism and inherent features of the
methodology of
science, Horkheimer and Adorno concentrated on a re-examination of the foundation of critical theory. This effort appears in systematized form in Adorno's
Negative Dialectics, which tries to redefine dialectics for an era in which "philosophy, which once seemed obsolete, lives on because the moment to realize it was missed". Negative dialectics expresses the idea of critical thought so conceived that the apparatus of domination can't co-opt it. Its central notion, long a focal one for Horkheimer and Adorno, suggests that the
original sin of thought lies in its attempt to eliminate all that's other than thought, the attempt by the subject to devour the object, the striving for
identity. This
reduction makes thought the accomplice of domination.
Negative Dialectics rescues the "preponderance of the object", not through a naive
epistemological or
metaphysical realism but through a thought based on
differentiation,
paradox, and ruse: a "logic of disintegration". Adorno thoroughly criticizes
Heidegger's fundamental
ontology, which reintroduces
idealistic and identity-based concepts under the guise of having overcome the philosophical tradition.
Negative Dialectics comprises a monument to the end of the tradition of the individual subject as the locus of criticism. Without a revolutionary working class, the Frankfurt School had no one to rely on but the individual subject. But, as the
liberal capitalist social basis of the autonomous individual receded into the past, the dialectic based on it became more and more abstract. This stance helped prepare the way for the fourth, current phase of the Frankfurt School, shaped by the
communication theory of Habermas.
Habermas's work takes the Frankfurt School's abiding interests in rationality, the human subject,
democratic socialism, and the dialectical method and overcomes a set of contradictions that always weakened critical theory: the contradictions between the materialist and
transcendental methods, between Marxian social theory and the
individualist assumptions of critical
rationalism between technical and social rationalization, and between cultural and psychological phenomena on the one hand and the
economic structure of society on the other. The Frankfurt School avoided taking a stand on the precise relationship between the materialist and transcendental methods, which led to ambiguity in their writings and confusion among their readers. Habermas' epistemology synthesizes these two traditions by showing that phenomenological and transcendental analysis can be subsumed under a materialist theory of
social evolution, while the materialist theory makes sense only as part of a quasi-transcendental theory of emancipatory knowledge that's the self-reflection of cultural evolution. The simultaneously empirical and transcendental nature of emancipatory knowledge becomes the foundation stone of critical theory.
By locating the conditions of rationality in the social structure of
language use, Habermas moves the locus of rationality from the autonomous subject to subjects in
interaction. Rationality is a property not of individuals per se, but rather of structures of undistorted
communication. In this notion Habermas has overcome the ambiguous plight of the subject in critical theory. If capitalistic technological society weakens the autonomy and rationality of the subject, it isn't through the domination of the individual by the apparatus but through technological rationality supplanting a describable rationality of communication. And, in his sketch of communicative
ethics as the highest stage in the internal logic of the evolution of ethical systems, Habermas hints at the source of a new
political practice that incorporates the imperatives of evolutionary rationality.
Frankfurt School
critical theory has influenced some segments of the
Left wing and leftist thought (particularly the
New Left). Herbert Marcuse has occasionally been described as the theorist or intellectual progenitor of the
New Left. Their critique of technology, totality, teleology and (occasionally) civilization is an influence on
anarcho-primitivism. Their work also heavily influenced intellectual discourse on
popular culture and scholarly
popular culture studies.
Major Frankfurt school thinkers and scholars
Critics of the Frankfurt School
Several camps of criticism of the Frankfurt School have emerged. Some critics state that the intellectual perspective of the Frankfurt School is a romantic,
elitist critique of mass culture with a contrived
neo-Marxist guise. Another criticism, originating from the Left, is that critical theory is a form of bourgeois idealism that has no inherent relation to political practice and is totally isolated from any ongoing revolutionary movement.
Both of these criticisms were captured in
Georg Lukács's phrase "Grand Hotel Abyss" as a syndrome he imputed to the members of the Frankfurt School.
Karl Popper believed that the school didn't live up Marx's promise of a better future:
"Marx's own condemnation of our society makes sense. For Marx's theory contains the promise of a better future. But the theory becomes vacuous and irresponsible if this promise is withdrawn, as it's by Adorno and Horkheimer."
Other notable critics of the Frankfurt School include
Henryk Grossman,
Umberto Eco and
Mike Godwin.
In Popular Culture
Hardcore band
Orchid have several songs featuring references to the ideas of The Frankfurt School, including "Snow Delay at the Frankfurt School" (from the
Dance Tonight! Revolution Tomorrow! 10") and "Tigers" (from their final
Gatefold LP). In "Tigers," the lyrics mention Adorno and Marcuse by name.
Further Information
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