TwentiethCentury Marxism

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Twentieth-Century Marxism

• Lecture Eight the Frankfurt School

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The Frankfurt School

• Institute of Social Research Institut für
  Sozialforschung, founded 1923
• 1930 Max Horkheimer became director
• Heyday 1932 to 1942
• Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (1932-1939)
• Studies in Philosophy and Social Science
  (1940-1941)
• 1942 memorial volume for Walter Benjamin

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critical theory

• Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory
• Marcuse, Philosophy and Critical Theory
• (Both published in the Zeitschrift für
  Sozialforschung, 1937.)
• traditional theory vs critical theory

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traditional theory

• Horkheimer The scholar and his science are
  incorporated into the apparatus of society his
  achievements are a factor in the conservation and
  continuous renewal of the existing state of
  affairs, no matter what fine names he gives to
  what he does (TCT, p. 196)
• Horkheimer the illusory harmonies of
  liberalism (TCT, p. 247)

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critical theory

• What enables critical theory to criticize
  society? What normative resources does it appeal
  to in evaluating the status quo?
• two lines of thought in Horkheimer
• 1. reason (transcendent critique)
• 2. bourgeois values (immanent critique)

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reason as a normative standard

• Horkheimer the self-knowledge of present-day
  man is a critical theory of society as it is, a
  theory dominated at every turn by a concern for
  rational conditions of life (TCT, pp.
  198-199)
• Horkheimer the idea of a rational organization
  of society that will meet the needs of the whole
  community (TCT, p. 213)

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reason as a normative standard

• Horkheimer in the transition from the present
  form of society to a future one humanity will for
  the first time be a conscious subject and
  actively determine its own way of life (TCT,
  p. 233)

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reason as a normative standard

• Horkheimer a transformed society would be a
  state of affairs in which there will be no
  exploitation or oppression, in which an
  all-embracing subject, namely self-aware humanity
  exists, and in which it is possible to speak of a
  unified theoretical creation and a thinking that
  transcends individuals (TCT. p. 241)

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bourgeois values

• Horkheimer If we take seriously the ideas by
  which the bourgeoisie explains its own order
  free exchange, free competition, harmony of
  interests, and so on and if we follow them to
  their logical conclusion, they manifest their
  inner contradiction and therewith their real
  opposition to the bourgeois order. (TCT, p.
  215)

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bourgeois values

• Horkheimer Today it is claimed that the
  bourgeois ideals of freedom, equality and justice
  have proven themselves to be poor ones however,
  it is not the ideals of the bourgeoise, but
  conditions which do not correspond to them, which
  have shown their untenability. The battle cries
  of the Enlightenment and of the French Revolution
  are valid now more than ever. The dialectical

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bourgeois values

• ... critique of the world, which is born along by
  them, consists precisely in the demonstration
  that they have retained their actuality rather
  than lost it on the basis of reality. These
  ideas and values are nothing but the isolated
  traits of the rational society, as they are
  anticipated in morality as a necessary goal.
  (Materialism and Morality (1933), p. 37)

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immanent critique

• immanent critique evaluating something by the
  standards it itself professes to uphold
  critique
• transcendent critique principles of evaluation
  are extrinsic to the object being assessed
  criticism
• Compare Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit,
  Introduction, esp. 81-88)

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Problems with immanent critique

• criticizing bourgeois ideals vs asserting
  bourgeois ideals
• fulfilment vs transfiguration (or progressivism
  vs utopianism)
• who is the critic? to whom is the criticism
  addressed?
• is it Marxist?

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first problem

• Critical Theory wants to both
• criticize bourgeois ideals, and
• assert bourgeois ideals.
• Difficult balancing act by the 1960s Horkheimer
  had abandoned (a.) and Adorno had effectively
  jettisoned (b).

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second problem

• What type of forward movement does the critical
  theorist anticipate?
• fulfilment
• transfiguration

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third problem

• Who makes this (immanent) critique? Who is
  pushing for society to live up to the normative
  potential present within it?

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• Marcuse The philosophical ideals of a better
  world and of true being are incorporated into the
  practical aim of struggling mankind, where they
  take on a human form. What, however, if the
  development outlined by the theory does not
  occur? What if the forces that were to bring
  about the transformation are suppressed and
  appear to be defeated? Little as the theorys
  truth is thereby contradicted, it

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• ... nevertheless appears in a new light which
  illuminates new aspects and elements of its
  object. The new situation gives a new import to
  many demands and indices of the theory, whose
  changed function accords it in a more intensive
  sense the character of critical theory.
  Marcuse here provides a footnote reference to
  Horkheimers essay TCT, published earlier that
  year (PCT, p. 142)

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• Horkheimer When optimism is shattered in periods
  of crushing defeat, many intellectuals risk
  falling into a pessimism about society ... They
  cannot bear the thought that the kind of thinking
  which is most topical, which has the deepest
  grasp of the historical situation, and is most
  pregnant with the future, must at certain times
  isolate its subject and throw him back upon
  himself. (TCT, p. 214)

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fourth problem

• Is Critical Theory Marxist?
• Compare Marxs Critique of the Gotha Programme
  and the Correspondence of 1843 (both in Karl
  Marx Selected Writings, ed. McLellan, as 5 and
  40)

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Primary texts

• Horkheimer, Max, Traditional and Critical
  Theory ZfS 1937, Critical Theory, pp. 188-243
  TCT
• Horkheimer, Max, Materialism and Morality ZfS
  1933, Between Philosophy and Social Science, pp.
  15-47
• Marcuse, Herbert, Philosophy and Critical
  Theory, ZfS 1937, Negations, pp. 134-158
  PCT

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Secondary texts

• McCarney, Joseph, Social Theory and the Crisis of
  Marxism (1990), chapter 2 The Frankfurt School
  Adorno
• Benhabib, Seyla, Critique, Norm and Utopia
  (1986), chapter 13 and chapter 5
• Habermas, Jürgen, The Philosophical Discourse of
  Modernity (1987), pp. 116-118
• Held, David, Critical Theory (1980), chapters 6
  and 14
• Honneth, Axel, chapter 13 in The Cambridge
  Companion to Critical Theory (2004), ed. F. Rush
• Hoy, D. C., chapter 41 in D. C. Hoy and T.
  McCarthy, Critical Theory (1994)
• Jay, Martin, The Dialectical Imagination (1973),
  chapter 2