Max Horkheimer: Biography, Critical Theory, Contributions and Main Works

Max Horkheimer (1895 -1973) was one of the philosophers and sociologists who founded the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt. The thought of the so-called Frankfurt School had a great influence on the European left and on the so-called French May of 1968.

Horkheimer was also a professor of philosophy and got the chair of social philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. Because of his dual status as a Jew and Marxist (or neo-Marxist), he was exiled when the Nazis came to power. During that period and until the end of World War II, he lived in the United States; there he continued to develop his philosophical works.

Max Horkheimer, located on the right

The main contribution of Horkheimer and the rest of the members of the Frankfurt School was critical theory. This was a radical critique of the society of the time, capitalism and the system of domination that characterized it according to these thinkers.

Horkheimer's work is greatly influenced by the events he experienced, especially the oppressive state that the Nazis created. From the 1950s, he also criticized the system installed in the Soviet Union and made a re-reading of Marxism.

Biography of Max Horkheimer

Early age

Max Horkheimer was born on February 14, 1895 in Stuttgart, Germany, in a family with a good economic position. His father was an industrialist dedicated to the manufacture of fabrics and forced him to leave school at the age of 16 to work with him.

From very early on he demonstrated his passion for philosophy and a trip to Paris reaffirmed his vocation. There he read Schopenhauer, Hegel and Marx, influences that marked his future works.

The First World War interrupted his life and he had to enlist in 1916 in the German army to fight in the conflict.

Studies after the war

When the war ended, Max decided to resume his studies and not return to his father's factory. He chose the career of Philosophy and Psychology. He went through the universities of Munich, Freiburg and Frankfurt, where he met Theodor Adorno, with whom he collaborated in many of his works.

His doctoral thesis dealt with the antinomy of teleological judgment. He presented it in 1922 and the director of it was Hans Cornelius.

Frankfurt Social Research Institute

As early as 1930, Horkheimer began working as a professor of Philosophy. This was joined by the position of director of the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt. This institution began to carry out various studies on the society of its time, late capitalist, and how a system of social dominance had been created.

The arrival to the power of the Nazi party caused that it had to go to I exile. After a brief stint in Switzerland, he ended up residing in the United States in 1934. In his host country he worked at Columbia University, first in his headquarters in New York and then in Los Angeles. During that period he received US citizenship.

It was in Los Angeles where he published Dialectic of the Enlightenment , a book written in collaboration with Adorno.

Return to Germany

The end of the war allowed him to return to Germany. In 1949 he settled again in Frankfurt, where he recovered the activity of the Institute that had been closed by the Nazis. He was also appointed rector of the University of the city, a position he held between 1951 and 1953.

When leaving that position, it continued with its educational task in the same educative center, simultaneándolo it with the classes that it distributed in the University of Chicago. Horkheimer won the Goethe Prize in 1955 and in 1960 the city of Frankfurt made him an honorary citizen.

Death

Horkheimer's activity was much less during his last years. He left the direction of the Institute, a position that his friend Adorno occupied. The death of his wife greatly affected his health and barely appeared in public.

Max Horkheimer died on July 7, 1973 in the German city of Nuremberg at the age of 78.

Critical theory

The first appearance of critical theory was given in the book Traditional theory and critical theory of Max Horkheimer himself. The work was published in 1937.

This theory, like all the philosophical production of the Frankfurt School, has a clear Marxist influence. That yes, it is a Marxism that they considered themselves unorthodox, with variations on the thought of Marx.

The objective they aimed at with this critical theory was to help improve the world. For this, it was necessary to discover the social origins of knowledge and, ultimately, to achieve the emancipation of the human being.

For Horkheimer, just totally changing that traditional way of theorizing, as well as the form of social practice, could make everything evolve. It was a theory that faced the traditional one, which used to separate thought from the subject.

Traditional theory vs. critical theory

Despite starting from Marxism, the critical theory tries to overcome it, tries to make an update of what Marx was proposing. In contrast to traditional theory, Horkheimer argues that knowledge not only reproduces the objective data of reality, but is fundamental to its formation.

His critical theory does not separate the subject who contemplates the reality of it, but points out that both are totally related.

Max Horkheimer's Contributions

Faced with positivism

Critical theory is confronted with positivism when facing the study of reality. Horkheimer wrote about it during his stay in the United States, in research on communication in collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation,

His position sought to extend the concept of reason; in this way, it would no longer be linked to empiricist practice. For the German philosopher, companies and institutions adopt an empirical point of view that does not pay attention to social issues, focusing only on consumption.

Facing the Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was also studied by Horkheimer and Adorno. For them, this movement caused the human being to face the different in a negative way, provoking conflicts.

The society that emerged from the Enlightenment was homogeneous, without giving room for difference. Therefore, these authors concluded that the reason the Enlightenment boasted was used in a destructive and not liberating way. For them it only ended with certain myths, mainly religious, but replaced them with others of their own.

According to experts, this criticism was closely related to what was happening in Nazi Germany. Horkheimer put as an example the myth of the superior race as one of those who in his country had replaced the ancient myths.

Review of Marxism

Despite the Marxist base of the Frankfurt School, after the Second World War made several criticisms of this philosophy.

For Horkheimer, Marx had erred in thinking that the impoverished workers were going to end capitalism. He had managed to raise the workers' standard of living, even at the expense of impoverishing the inhabitants of other countries.

In his critical theory Horkheimer ventured that the world was directed to a bureaucratized society with all aspects regulated and, as such, almost totalitarian. On the other hand, he made a denunciation of revolutionary violence, convinced that this was not the way to change reality.

Cultural industry

Nor was the cultural industry left out of criticism. For Horkheimer the media, the cinema and, in general, all that industry, was part of the system. In fact, it was a fundamental tool so that nothing changed, since it issued messages that reaffirmed the benefits of the current social order.

Works of Max Horkheimer

Observations on science and the crisis (1932)

In this book, Horkheimer analyzes the function of science as an essential element for the system.

History and Psychology (1932)

The author develops the idea of ​​the need of the human being to belong to something, be it a nation or an ideological group.

Dialectic of the Enlightenment (1944)

Joint work between Horkheimer and Adorno. In this appears the criticism of reason and the Enlightenment.

Traditional theory and critical theory (1937)

Also written in collaboration with Adorno. The concept of critical theory appears for the first time.

Observations on philosophical anthropology (1935)

It is about how anthropology has become a science that justifies the maintenance of current structures, justifying it with tradition.

References

1. Biography and Lives. Max Horkheimer. Retrieved from biografiasyvidas.com
2. Various. Lexicon of politics. Recovered from books.google.es
3. Martínez, Leonardo. Fundamental Strategies of Critical Theory: Horkheimer, Adorno and Habermas. Retrieved from revistapensar.org
4. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Max Horkheimer. Retrieved from plato.stanford.edu
5. Corradetti, Claudio. The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory. Retrieved from iep.utm.edu
6. Wolin, Richard. Max Horkheimer. Retrieved from britannica.com
7. Schmidt, Alfred. On Max Horkheimer: New Perspectives. Recovered from books.google.es
8. Stirk, Peter M. R. Max Horkheimer: A New Interpretation. Recovered from books.google.es