Collapsed idealist systems left their concepts as tools of obscurantist humanistic sociology

Evidence

Before all this began, however, Adorno attempted in his introductory lecture to snatch empirical social research back from the `research system’ and rescue it to serve a theory of society which was resolutely critical of the humanistic tradition of German sociology. In the period of idealism, Adorno argued, philosophical thought had been able to master all the factual material then known. After the collapse of idealistic systems, their central concepts had been torn from their theoretical context and material relations and made into tools of obscurantism in the hands of a humanistic social theory. This remnant of German humanistic sociology urgently requires the use of empirical methods as a corrective measure. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 476

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School thread on how philosophy’s failure to master reality pushed Critical Theory toward both empirical research and ideology critique. — connects to: Splitting praxis into sociology and metaphysics erases the dialectic. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1546; Sohn-Rethel traces idealist theory’s logical autonomy to the primal break of exploitation — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 313; Simmel advanced technical sociology mainly as a byproduct of metaphysical concerns — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 117
• DEFINE: Adorno’s ‘research system’ names the administratively administered survey apparatus he wanted to subordinate to critical social theory.
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Splitting praxis into sociology and metaphysics erases the dialectic. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1546; Sohn-Rethel traces idealist theory’s logical autonomy to the primal break of exploitation — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 313; Simmel advanced technical sociology mainly as a byproduct of metaphysical concerns — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 117