Max Horkheimer

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Western Philosophy
20th century philosophy
Name
Max Horkheimer
Birth February 14, 1895 (Stuttgart, Germany)
Death July 7, 1973 (Nuremberg, Germany)
School/tradition critical theory
Main interests social theory, Counter-Enlightenment
Notable ideas Critical Theory, The Culture Industry, the Authoritarian Personality, Eclipse of Reason
Influenced by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Weber, Freud, Pollock, Adorno
Influenced Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas, Honneth

Max Horkheimer (February 14, 1895 – July 7, 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist, and a founder and guiding thinker of the Frankfurt School/critical theory.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Horkheimer was born in Stuttgart to an assimilated Jewish family. Due to parental pressure, he did not initially pursue an academic career, leaving secondary school at the age of sixteen to work in his father's factory. However, after World War I he enrolled at Munich University, where he studied philosophy and psychology. He subsequently moved to Frankfurt am Main, where he studied under Hans Cornelius. There he met Theodor Adorno, several years his junior, with whom he would strike a lasting friendship and a fruitful collaborative relationship.

In 1925, Horkheimer was habilitated with a dissertation entitled Kant's Critique of Judgement as Mediation between Practical and Theoretical Philosophy written under Cornelius. He was appointed Privatdozent the following year. When the Institute for Social Research's directorship became vacant in 1930, he was elected to the position. In the same year Horkheimer took over the chair of social philosophy at Frankfurt University. The following year publication of the Institute's Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung began, with Horkheimer as its editor.[1]

Horkheimer venia legendi was revoked by the new Nazi government, and the Institute closed in 1933. He emigrated to Switzerland, from where he would leave for the USA the following year, where Columbia University hosted the Institute in exile.[2]

In 1940, Horkheimer received American citizenship and moved to Pacific Palisades, California, where his collaboration with Adorno would yield the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Unlike Adorno, Horkheimer was never a prolific writer and in the following twenty years he published little, although he continued to edit Studies in Philosophy and Social Science as a continuation of the Zeitschrift. In 1949 he returned to Frankfurt, where the Institute reopened in 1950. Between 1951 and 1953 Horkheimer was rector of the University of Frankfurt.[3], where he continued to teach until his retirement in the mid-1960s.

He returned to America in 1954 and 1959 to lecture at the University of Chicago. He remained an important figure until his death in Nuremberg in 1973.

[edit] Philosophy and writings

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Eclipse of Reason

Horkheimer's book, Eclipse of Reason, deals with the concept of reason within the history of Western philosophy. Horkheimer defines true reason as rationality. He details the difference between objective and subjective reason and states that we have moved from objective to subjective. Objective reason deals with universal truths that dictate that an action is either right or wrong. Subjective reason takes into account the situation and social norms. Actions that produce the best situation for the individual are "reasonable" according to subjective reason. The movement from one type of reason to the other occurred when thought could no longer accommodate these objective truths or when it judged them to be delusions. Under subjective reason, concepts lose their meaning. All concepts must be strictly functional to be reasonable. Because subjective reason rules, the ideals of a society, for example democratic ideals, become dependent on the "interests" of the people instead of being dependent on objective truths.

Writing in 1941, Horkheimer was strongly influenced by the Nazi legacy in Germany. He outlined how the Nazis had been able to make their agenda appear "reasonable", but also issued a warning about the possibility of this happening again. Horkheimer believed that the ills of modern society are caused by misunderstanding of reason: if people use true reason to critique their societies, they will be able to solve problems they may have.

[edit] Select bibliography

  • Authority and the Family (1936)
  • Traditional and Critical Theory (1937)
  • Critique of Instrumental Reason (1967)
  • Dawn & Decline
  • Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) - with Theodor Adorno
  • Eclipse of Reason (1947) orig. 1941 "The End of Reason" Studies in Philosophy and Social Sciences Vol. IX
  • Egoism and the Freedom Movement
  • The Authoritarian State
  • The Longing for the Totally Other

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Biography of Horkheimer at Marxists.org
  2. ^ Biography of Horkheimer at MIT Press
  3. ^ Biography of Horkheimer at University of Haifa

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Horkheimer, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION German sociologist, philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart, Germany
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1973
PLACE OF DEATH Nuremberg, Germany