Continental · 1895–1973
Max Horkheimer
Director of the Frankfurt Institute who defined critical theory
Horkheimer distinguished critical theory, which aims to free people from domination, from traditional theory, which accepts society as it is; with Adorno he argued that instrumental reason had turned enlightenment against itself.
Life and thought
Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) was the son of a Jewish textile manufacturer in Stuttgart and was expected to take over the family business before he turned to philosophy. In 1930 he became director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt and editor of its journal, and after 1933 he led it into exile, first to Geneva and then to New York. After the war he brought the Institute back to Frankfurt and served as rector of the university.
In “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937) Horkheimer argued that ordinary social science describes society as it is and so ends up serving it, while critical theory examines how its own concepts are shaped by society and aims at freeing people from domination. With Adorno, in Dialectic of Enlightenment, he went further: the reason that once freed people from myth had become instrumental, a tool for calculating and controlling nature and people, and so could breed new myths and new barbarism, as fascism and the culture industry showed.