Horkheimer’s contempt for systematic empirical analysis undermined collaboration with Kirchheimer

Evidence

Without research like Kirchheimer’s, containing a wealth of material and centred on common ideas and concepts, the further development of social theory was not possible. Even Horkheimer could not imagine it without such research. Yet at the same time Horkheimer’s desire and ability to co-operate with other qualified specialists in social theory, and to engage in a far-reaching integration of empirical and specialist research, were not sufficient. He was unable to resist the temptation to escape from this challenge through his contempt for systematic, as opposed to merely exemplary, analyses of concrete materials. Ultimately, it was his contempt which gained the upper hand. His relationship with Kirchheimer remained a provisional arrangement, courteous and aloof. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 976

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to the long-running Frankfurt School tension between empirical research and philosophical theory — connects to the Positivismusstreit with Popper later, and to the Institute’s early empirical studies like the Arbeiter-und-Angestellten project. — connects to: Horkheimer dismissed empirical sociology as pseudo-exact parapharnalia serving paying customers — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1700; Horkheimer favored dialectical insight over empirical research into the facts. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 745; Horkheimer’s perfectionism made directorship unsustainable, shrinking the Institute — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1098 (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely probing portrait of how a thinker’s intellectual temperament — contempt for systematic empirical work — structurally disabled the very interdisciplinary integration the Institute formally championed.