This page intentionally left blank Max Horkheimer and the Foundations of the Frankfurt School This book is the first comprehensive intellectual biography of Max Horkheimer during the early and middle phases of his life (1895–1941). Drawing on unex- amined new sources, John Abromeit describes the critical details of Horkheimer’s intellectual development. This study recovers and reconstructs the model of early Critical Theory that guided the work of the Institute for Social Research in the 1930s. Horkheimer is remembered primarily as the coauthor of Dialectic of Enlightenment, which he wrote with Theodor W. Adorno in the early 1940s. Yet few people realize that Horkheimer and Adorno did not begin working together seriously until the late 1930s, or that the model of Critical Theory developed by Horkheimer and Erich Fromm in the late 1920s and early 1930s differs in cru- cial ways from Dialectic of Enlightenment. Abromeit highlights the ways in which Horkheimer’s early Critical Theory remains relevant to contemporary theoretical discussions in a wide variety of fields. John Abromeit is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Social Studies Education at State University of New York, Buffalo State. He is the coeditor of Herbert Marcuse: Heideggerian Marxism (2005) and Herbert Marcuse: A Critical Reader (2004), and his articles and book reviews have appeared in Theory and Society, Theory, Culture and Society, Radical Philosophy, and Constellations. Professor Abromeit previously held a Harper-Schmidt postdoctoral position in the social sciences in the University of Chicago Society of Fellows. Max Horkheimer and the Foundations of the Frankfurt School JoHn AbroMeit State University of New York, Buffalo State cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107006959 © John Abromeit 2011 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2011 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Abromeit, John, 1970– Max Horkheimer and the foundations of the Frankfurt School / John Abromeit. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-107-00695-9 (hardback) 1. Horkheimer, Max, 1895–1973. 2. Frankfurt school of sociology. 3. Critical theory. I. Title. b3279.h8474a825 2011 193–dc22 2010043680 isbn 978-1-107-00695-9 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents Acknowledgments page ix A Note on References and Permissions xiii Introduction 1 Why a New Study of Horkheimer and Early Critical Theory? 1 Horkheimer’s Eclipse in the Anglo-American Reception of Critical Theory 5 The Relevance of Horkheimer’s Early Critical Theory to Contemporary Discussions 10 Overview of the Book’s Structure and Content 15 1 Coming of Age in Wilhelmine Germany 19 Childhood and Youth 19 The War Years 27 Horkheimer’s Brief Stay in Bohemia: Munich 1918–19 41 Between Contempt and Compassion: Horkheimer’s Early Intellectual Development 46 2 Student Years in Frankfurt 51 Biographical Developments in the 1920s 51 Horkheimer’s Academic Studies 65 The Theoretical Lessons Horkheimer Learned from His Academic Studies 79 3 A Materialist Interpretation of the History of Modern Philosophy 85 Horkheimer’s Break with Consciousness Philosophy and His Turn toward History and Society 85 Horkheimer’s Materialist Interpretation of the History of Modern Philosophy 90 The Early Modern Period 92 German Idealism 111 The Emancipation of Philosophy from Science: The Development of Bourgeois Philosophy in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 124 v vi Contents 4 The Beginnings of a Critical Theory of Contemporary Society 141 Neither “Free Floating”. . .: Horkheimer’s Critique of Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of Knowledge 143 . . . Nor “Firmly Rooted”: Horkheimer’s Critique of Lenin’s Materialism and Empiriocriticism 150 The Twilight of Bourgeois Society: Dämmerung 156 The Place of Dämmerung in Horkheimer’s Thought 156 Dämmerung as an Expression of Horkheimer’s Nascent Critical Theory 160 Horkheimer’s (and Pollock’s) Understanding of the Soviet Union in the Late 1920s 180 5 Horkheimer’s Integration of Psychoanalysis into His Theory of Contemporary Society 185 The Biographical and Historical Context 186 The Theoretical Place of Psychoanalysis in Horkheimer’s Thought in the Late 1920s 196 Horkheimer: From Gestalt Psychology to Psychoanalysis 196 Demystifying the Unconscious: Theodor Adorno’s First Habilitationsschrift 197 The Beginnings of Fromm’s Analytic Social Psychology and His Theoretical Elective Affinity with Horkheimer 201 The Empirical Study of German Workers in 1929 as the First Attempt to Put Horkheimer’s Theory of Contemporary Society into Practice 211 6 Horkheimer’s Concept of Materialism in the Early 1930s 227 Horkheimer’s Philosophical Determination of Materialism 227 Materialism and Metaphysics 227 Materialism and Morality 238 The Institute’s Research Project on the History of Materialism 243 7 The Anthropology of the Bourgeois Epoch 248 Methodological and Theoretical Underpinnings 249 “Egoism and Freedom Movements”: The Historical Foundations of Bourgeois Anthropology 261 The Studies on Authority and Family and the Contemporary State of Bourgeois Anthropology 282 8 Reflections on Dialectical Logic in the Mid-1930s 301 The Critique of Cartesian-Empirical Consciousness Philosophy 304 Science and Metaphysics: The Antinomies of Philosophy in the Bourgeois Epoch 308 Hegel and the Beginnings of Dialectical Logic 312 Horkheimer’s Reformulation of Marx’s Critical Theory 321 Contents vii Excursus I The Theoretical Foundations of Horkheimer’s Split with Erich Fromm in the Late 1930s: Fromm’s Critique of Freud’s Drive Theory 336 Excursus II Divergence, Estrangement, and Gradual Rapprochement: The Evolution of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s Theoretical Relationship in the 1930s 349 Divergence and Estrangement 350 Rapprochement 361 Adorno’s Shift Away from Benjamin 362 Adorno’s “Renewed and Fruitful Study of Hegel” 374 Adorno’s Positive Reception of Horkheimer’s Essays in the Mid-1930s 378 Persistent Differences between Horkheimer and Adorno 382 9 State Capitalism – The End of Horkheimer’s Early Critical Theory 394 “Montaigne and the Function of Skepticism”: The Beginning of the End of Horkheimer’s Early Critical Theory 396 The Transitional Period: “The Jews and Europe” and “Authoritarian State” 402 “The End of Reason” as the End of Horkheimer’s Early Critical Theory 410 Epilogue: Toward a Historicization of Dialectic of Enlightenment and a Reconsideration of Horkheimer’s Early Critical Theory 425 Selected Bibliography 433 Index 437