Adorno and Horkheimer never gave their social theory a coherent systematic exposition.

Evidence

Adorno and Horkheimer chose to do without even an outline of a coherent presentation of social theory, and they vacillated between the view, on the one hand, that a theory of society had yet to be produced, and a conviction, on the other, that its essentials had already been stated by Marx and by themselves. This made it easier for elements of unclarity to remain, and these unclarities reinforced the impression among readers during the 1950s that the culture criticism Adorno and Horkheimer were engaged in had at best been given only a provisional basis in social theory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 570

Categorization

• QUESTION: Would be worth tracing whether Adorno’s later negative-dialectical work finally supplies the missing systematic theory, or abandons the goal.
• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer and Adorno shared an open dialectics that no system could prescribe.; Horkheimer never specified a criterion for distinguishing rational from regressive uses of tradition. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 371; Adorno defended empirical fieldwork while never giving the Institute a rigorous research direction. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 474 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Horkheimer and Adorno shared an open dialectics that no system could prescribe.; Horkheimer never specified a criterion for distinguishing rational from regressive uses of tradition. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 371; Adorno defended empirical fieldwork while never giving the Institute a rigorous research direction. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 474 (+1 more)