For Marx and Horkheimer, self-creation was the only constant element of human nature.

Evidence

Although to some extent rooted in Freud, its primary origins could be found in the work of Marx. In discussing Feuerbach’s attempt to construct an explicit picture of human nature, Marx had attacked its atemporal, abstract, antihistorical premises. The only constant, he argued, was man’s ability to create himself anew. “Anthropogenesis,” to use a later commentator’s term, was the only human nature Marx allowed. Here Horkheimer was in agreement; the good society was one in which man was free to act as a subject rather than be acted upon as a contingent predicate. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 228

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘anthropogenesis’ as the only human nature Marx permitted.