Heidegger’s existential seriousness swayed young Horkheimer against formal philosophy

Evidence

Heidegger’s lectures and seminars soon gave him the reputation of being an outstanding philosopher. Nor did this reputation suffer from the fact that he did not publish anything for more than a decade after his Habilitation thesis. To many of those who attended his lecturesHorkheimer among themhe seemed to be living evidence of the fact that philosophy could mean something for life, something of importance to the individual. Bloch and Benjamin affected Adorno in a similar way. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 397 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In all this there was an echo, which was not heard in his inaugural lecture in 1931, of the Schopenhauerian consciousness of the finiteness, physicality and solidarity of creatures, rather than the activist pathos of German Idealism. It was, in a way, as if an awareness of the finiteness and transitoriness of human existence was being given a historical-materialist backbone. The existential transformation of transcendental philosophy was once again being modified in a sociohistorical direction. Heidegger’s position was that we cannot define Dasein's essence by citing a "what" of the kind that pertains to a subject-matter [eines sachhaltigen Was] . . . its essence lies rather in the fact that in each case it has its Being to be, and has it as its own', and Sartre's position later on was that there was no such thing as human nature, but that human beings are what they make themselves’. Horkheimer’s view was that When the sociologist Mannheim speaks of the "being" Man, whose development takes place and is expressed through or within cultural forms, it is hard to know what he is talking about . . . To the extent that history does not stem from the conscious purpose of the human beings who plan and determine it, it has no purpose.' — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 203</cite> (#expands`, via linked claim)

In all this there was an echo, which was not heard in his inaugural lecture in 1931, of the Schopenhauerian consciousness of the finiteness, physicality and solidarity of creatures, rather than the activist pathos of German Idealism. It was, in a way, as if an awareness of the finiteness and transitoriness of human existence was being given a historical-materialist backbone. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 203 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer grounded existential finitude in historical materialism against Heidegger and Sartre — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 203; Heidegger’s lectures moved young philosophers including Horkheimer before he published anything — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 397; Schopenhauerian finitude consciousness grounded Horkheimer’s historical-materialist critique — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 203

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer grounded existential finitude in historical materialism against Heidegger and Sartre #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 203
• Heidegger’s lectures moved young philosophers including Horkheimer before he published anything #corroborates (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 397
• Schopenhauerian finitude consciousness grounded Horkheimer’s historical-materialist critique #qualifies (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 203