POLI ECON READING NOTES

MARXISM THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND CRITICAL THEORY

INTRODUCTION c. Klaus Offe and many more

2. Second Group – scholars who are influenced by
• Frankfurt School (FS) known more as Critical Theory (CT) Habermas when he visited US
• Philosophical and Sociological movement across
universities CRITICAL THEORY: HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL
• Originally located – Institute for Social Research (Goethe BACKGROUND
University in Frankfurt, Germany
• Felix Weil donated money to found the Frankfurt School in
• It was founded in 1923 thru Felix Weil’s donation
Germany focusing on labor movement and origins of Anti-
• Its aim is to develop Marxist studies in Germany
Semitism
• After 1933, Nazis forced the closure of the Institute.
• The Institute was recognized by the Education Ministry –
• It was moved to US at Columbia University, NYC
Goethe University Frankfurt (Karl Marx University)
• The School focuses on the issues of:
• Carl Grunberg was the First Director who created historical
a. Critique of Modernity and Capitalist Society (progress
archive on the study of labor movement
and capitalism)
• 1930 – Max Horkheimer replaced Grunberg. He focuses on
b. Definition of Social Emancipation (freedom)
interdisciplinary integration of social sciences
c. Detection of the Pathologies of Society (causes and
• Grunberg’s archive was also replaced with the literacy
effects)
organ ‘Journal for Social Research’
• This also provides specific interpretation of Marxist
• In Horkheimer’s leadership, topics of economic, social,
Philosophy on Central Economic and Political Notions:
politics, and aesthetics were addressed thru empirical
a. Commodification – making income out of something
analysis and philosophical theorization
(product or service)
• Psychoanalysis was given focuses even after Fromm’s
b. Reification – treating immaterial things material
departure
(happiness, fear)
• Adorno co-authored ‘The Authoritarian Personality’ (1950)
c. Fetishization – sexual fascination on not inherently
which focuses on ‘new anthropological type’ and it found
sexual things (body, race)
specific traits in authoritarian personality
d. Critique of Mass Culture – prevalent/dominant culture
• Authoritarianism is different from Totalitarianism,
in a society
authoritarian is traditional paternal authority
• First Generation of Critical Theorists:
• Horkheimer’s ‘Philosophy of Life’ criticized fetishism of
a. Max Horkheimer (1895 – 1973)
subjectivity and lack of consideration for materialist
b. Theodor Adorno (1903 – 1969)
conditions
c. Herbert Marcuse (1898 – 1979)
d. Walter Benjamin (1892 – 1940) • Dialectical Mediation attempted to rejoin all dichotomies –
e. Friedrich Pollock (1894 – 1970) divide between consciousness and being; theory and
f. Leo Lowenthal (1900 – 1993) practice; fact and value
g. Eric Fromm (1900 – 1993) • 1933 – Institute was transferred to Geneva
• Second Generation (1970s) began with Jurgen Habermas • 1935 – It was transferred to Columbia University, NY
o Contributed to opening the dialogue (RE: continental • 1937 – Horkheimer published ‘Traditional and Critical
and analytic traditions) Theory’ – an ideological manifesto that readdressed
o FS became global which influenced methodological previous topics and theories
approaches in other European academic contexts and • 1947 – Publication of ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ the only
disciplines free voice publishing in German language
o In this phase also, Richard Bernstein – a philosopher • Topic of Nazism was one of the major topics:
and Habermas’ contemporary embraced CT’s research o Analysis of legal and political issues by coordination of
agenda which significantly helped its development in economic substructure (Neumann, et al)
American Universities – starting in New School for o Notion of Psychological Nationalism as a source of
Social Research in NY obedience and domination (Horkheimer)
• Third Generation consists of two (2) groups: • The Institute was divided into two (2)
1. First Group – spans a broad time, denying the 1. Pollock’s leadership – focuses on Anti-Semitism
possibility of sharp boundaries 2. Horkheimer and Adorno’s leadership – focuses on
a. Andrew Feenberg – student of Marcuse notion of dialectics
b. Albrecht Wellmer – assistant of Habermas
• 1955 – Adorno took over the directorship and became full
professor in Philosophy and Sociology
• 1966 – Adorno published ‘Negative Dialectics’ – ‘open and THE THEORY/PRACTICE PROBLEM
non-systemic’ notion of dialectics
• CT has theory/practice problem so they use the is/ought
• Before that, Marcuse published ‘One-Dimensional Man’
question
(1964) – notion of ‘educational dictatorship’
• Cognitivist Approach – truth validity
• Habermas joined the Institute in 1956 as Adorno’s assistant
• Non-Cognitivist Approach – no truth validity
but it was evident that Horkheimer disliked him due to the
series of rejection on his texts • Habermas’ Anthropological dynamic says that knowledge
came from interests – natural and transcendental
• The center of FS is emancipation – liberation form related
(supernatural)
to action-transformation which includes revolution
• Non-cognitivists believe that there is no need for truth
• Habermas left at 1971 and came back at 1981 after
validity if it passes the test of moral validity
completing the ‘Theory of Communicative Action’ which
provided a model for social complexities and action • Habermasians – no such thing as objective just – detached
coordination based upon the original interpretation of from intersubjective forms of understanding
classical social theorists • Since knowledge values interests – it cannot be neutral and
• To achieve Social Coordination, truth, rightness, and objective
sincerity should come along together • Problems arise on theory/practice when fake ought to arise
• Though works of Habermas were obsolete, it opened the in is/ought question
intellectual discussion for the later generation – French • Relying solely on human biology makes it impossible to
post-modernism philosophies distinguish truth and false

WHAT IS CRITICAL THEORY? THE IDEA OF RATIONALITY: CRITICAL THEORY AND ITS
DISCONTENTS
• Empirical Verification – whether the fact occurs or not.
Condition of truth and falsehood are objective • Rationality is a historical process that manifested
• CT do not believe in objectivity because they abandon naïve interconnections with the psychological status of the mind
concepts • Rationality could be achieved thru means of action – self-
• To them, objectivity is a societal embedded perspective of actualization could be obtained while not being coerced
interdependent individuals • Rationality could be the primary source of emancipation
• CT view knowledge as something more than ideology – YET it could also be the premise of totalitarianism
knowledge should translate to transformation of reality • Rationality is subjective as it needs reasons – critical
• CT (Marxian) embraced the concept of rationality in relation approach could be enacted
to reality – also pointed the concept of Dialectics as method • Foucault believes that rationality is not abstract while
of social criticism Habermas believes that validity is only needed if
understanding and agreement are interconnected.
TRADITIONAL AND CRITICAL THEORY: IDEOLOGY AND
CRITIQUE

• CT embraces the concept of truthfulness in terms of its

usage – also in-need of opposition to embrace
consciousness and self-reflection
• Ideological criticism has the function to unmask wrong
rationalizations of present or past injustices
• Ideology has two (2) types: ‘means-ends’ or ‘ends in
themselves’
• CT is a question of conscience as well
• Theory and Action are interconnected