Max Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School of Philosophy

Running head: MAX HORKHEIMER
Max Horkheimer
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

MAX HORKHIEMER 1
Max Horkheimer was the proponent of The Frankfurt School of philosophy also known
as the Critical theory. In this philosophy, various aspects of the sociological and philosophical
movements are studied, which are spread throughout a number of Universities. The critical
theory itself is the philosophical approach in the understanding of culture and literature in an
attempt to understand the ideological, social and historical perspectives that cause or hinder it
(Horkheimer, 1982). The philosophy works on the empirical analysis and reinterpretation of the
theories of Marx and Freud. It was Max Horkheimer who based the philosophical theorization of
the work on political social and the economic aspects affecting them. He took forward the
psycho analytic trend that had been started by Eirich Fromm in the Frankfurt school of
philosophy.
In his time, Horkheimer caused a paradigm shift in the philosophical intervention of
education by putting forward what is known as the Lebensphilosophie. In this theory he
criticized aversion to subjectivity that the philosophers of the time had. In contrast to Marx’s and
Hegel, Horkheimer dialectics were not a part of metaphysical principle or historical practices and
was not to be a methodological instrument (Horkheimer, 1976). It was based on the overcoming
of the strict categorization of the unhelpful divisions of the ideas. It is the idea of Horkheimer
that helped in the division of the productive structures and ideological superstructures helping in
the understanding of positivisms separation of social interpretation and social facts.
According to Horkheimer when a person focusses on emotions like compassion suffering
and happiness that are relying more on the emotivism and not logical reasoning. In his works he
describes suffering as the result of irrationality in the social approach. This helps in
understanding that a rational approach towards the problems in the society is necessary for it to

MAX HORKHIEMER 2
be redressed (How, 2017). Irrationality, according to Horkheimer is a problem in the social co-
ordination that exists in the society. The social structure should not generalize the perspective of
the emotions for the individuals and there should be a space for the understanding the difference
in the individual happiness in the society. He suggests that social needs have to be addressed
through a number of differential activities according to the individual needs of the people
(Lowenthal, 2018). Capitalism, on the other hand, focusses towards individual gains of people
focusing on selfish welfare needs. He also goes on t0 take on the Kantian ideology based on the
universal principles and categorical imperative. The categorical imperative balances the
comparison of the individual to the people in the society the group of randomly chosen people
leading to a major issue understanding of individual perspectives (Tarr, 2017). Horkheimer
argues that metaphysics obstructs the path to understand the intricate details of human life and
understanding.
One of the important issues in the understanding of the theories of Horkheimer is that he
focuses on the fact that the knowledge of the infinite must be infinite in itself. Since the
individuals of the society are not a quantifiable amount the experiences that they have in the
society should not be a quantifiable amount as well. He focused on the critiquing and changing
the society rather than understanding the society. It focuses on the criticizing the society based
on general norm or values in the society. He suggested that the understanding of a society in a
certain time frame. He focused on the improved understanding of the society based on focusing
on a number of social sciences such as sociology, economics, geography, anthropology and
political science. If the perspectives of the individuals in the society are molded by a number of
factor as suggested by Horkheimer (Butler & Spivak, 2015). The ambivalence in the society
should be contradicted with the theories and the modern theories of production could not be