Defending biological materialism made Critical Theory’s social critique depend on instinctual utopian potential.
Evidence
To the extent that, in the 1940s, they considered `biological materialism’ to be the theoretical core of psychoanalysis which was to be maintained against the revisionists, 24 they were adopting a biological and anthropological basis for the criticism of societyan assumption that there was utopian potential in instinctual structurewhich was no less problematic than Fromm’s belief in spontaneity. Although Adorno and Horkheimer’s position was less conventional than Fromm’s, it was at the same time less exposed, in that it said nothing about the way in which this utopian potential might be expressed. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 293
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies what ‘biological materialism’ meant within the Frankfurt School’s psychoanalytic debates against the revisionists.
- XREF: connects to: Adorno-Horkheimer’s instinct-based utopian critique rested on unproven biological assumptions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1121; Theorizing instinct as socially produced can accidentally naturalize existing social conditions. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 292; Horkheimer grounded Critical Theory in natural reason emanating from innate sympathies. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2155
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Adorno-Horkheimer’s instinct-based utopian critique rested on unproven biological assumptions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1121; Theorizing instinct as socially produced can accidentally naturalize existing social conditions. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 292; Horkheimer grounded Critical Theory in natural reason emanating from innate sympathies. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2155
Broader Connections
- Theorizing instinct as socially produced can accidentally naturalize existing social conditions.
#complicates(0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 292