Adorno and Horkheimer rejected all optimistic philosophies of history including Marxism.

Evidence

Throughout, as we have had occasion to note several times, the tone was pessimistic and the prognosis bleak. The alienation of man from nature so central to the current crisis of Western civilization seemed an almost irreversible trend. In an aphorism devoted to the philosophy of history, Horkheimer and Adorno explicitly rejected the optimistic premises of Christianity, Hegelian idealism, and historical materialism. Hope for better conditions, if not entirely illusory, rested less in the guarantee of their attainment than in the determinate negation of the existing. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 800

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Frankfurt theorists rejected socialism as a necessary outgrowth of capitalism. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 294; Horkheimer and Adorno rejected orthodox Marxism as masochistic and outdated for social critique. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1665

Broader Connections

• Frankfurt theorists rejected socialism as a necessary outgrowth of capitalism. #expands (0.82) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 294