Horkheimer’s dialectics project responded to scientific rationality’s restriction and scientism.

Evidence

While Marx achieved only a provisional presentation of the dialectical method in his works on the critique of political economy and on social theory, with Horkheimer the opposite was true, as the sequence of his works in the 1930s shows. The dialectics' project stood for the constant continuation of his work on the philosophical basis of social theory, and was his response to the restriction of rationality in the sciences which he had diagnosed in his Remarks on Science and the Crisis’, which appeared in the first issue of the ZfS, and to the hypostatization of this restricted rationality by scientism'. In the face of the irrationalist rejection of the sciences in various forms of metaphysics, dialectics was intended at the same time to present, as an alternative, a critique of science which would go further, and which would at the same time be able to integrate within itself the corrections which metaphysics could provide. … Social theory was constantly being mentioned in essays by Horkheimer and his closest associates, and the Horkheimer circle gave the appearance of having such a theory at its disposal, since it frequently referred to what was simply described as the correct theory’, although this was presented as something that would follow in the future. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 726

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies what the ‘dialectics’/‘dialectical logic’ project actually was for Horkheimer and how it differed from Marx’s provisional presentation.
• XREF: The ‘correct theory’ self-reference echoes Critical Theory’s recurring deferred-teleology critique, relates to reader’s broader Adorno/Horkheimer reading. — connects to: Horkheimer’s lifelong dialectics project opposed both scientism and irrationalist metaphysics — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 726; Horkheimer favored dialectical insight over empirical research into the facts. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 745; Both positivism and pragmatism shared philosophical assumptions Horkheimer opposed. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 243
• SEED: Angle: how a research circle can credibly invoke a theory it transparently hasn’t written yet — the sociology of institutional bluff and deferred foundations.

Broader Connections

• Both positivism and pragmatism shared philosophical assumptions Horkheimer opposed. #expands (0.82) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 243
• Horkheimer favored dialectical insight over empirical research into the facts. #qualifies (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 745