Horkheimer’s Kant studies taught him individuality’s value and the unity of knowledge and ethics

Evidence

From Kant, however, he took certain convictions that he would never abandon. … Horkheimer’s reading of Kant helped increase his sensitivity to the importance of individuality, as a value never to be submerged entirely under the demands of the totality. It also heightened his appreciation of the active elements in cognition, which prevented his acceptance of the copy theory of perception advocated by more orthodox Marxists. What it did not do, however, was to convince him of the inevitability of those dualisms - phenomena and noumena, pure and practical reason, for example - that Kant had posited as insurmountable. In concluding his study, Horkheimer made it clear that although these antagonisms had not yet been overcome, he saw no necessary reason why they could not be. Kant’s fundamental duality between will and knowledge, practical and pure reason, could and must be reconciled. In so arguing, Horkheimer demonstrated the influence of Hegel’s critique of Kant on his own. Like Hegel, he saw cognitive knowledge and normative imperatives, the “is” and the “ought,” as ultimately inseparable. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 198

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Horkheimer’s later rejection of orthodox Marxist copy-theory and the Institute’s Hegelian-Marxist synthesis that defines critical theory. — connects to: Kant located moral worth in reason’s autonomy from habit and inclination; Kant’s critical idealism planted seeds for later ideology theory without historicizing knowledge; Individual experience regained its epistemic authority after Hegel’s era — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 12 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Kant located moral worth in reason’s autonomy from habit and inclination #corroborates (0.72)
• Horkheimer defended egoism but insisted gratification flows through communal interaction #expands (0.72) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 233
• Kant’s critical idealism planted seeds for later ideology theory without historicizing knowledge #expands (0.70)
• Individual experience regained its epistemic authority after Hegel’s era #corroborates (0.70) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 12
• German idealism legitimated knowledge by unifying truth and justice in a single subject #corroborates (0.70) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 268
• Individuality itself is an illusion produced by the law of value #contradicts (0.70) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 932
• Human life must be understood under both individual and social attributes at once #expands (0.70) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 213
• Kracauer’s Kant tutorials shaped Adorno’s philosophical and cultural sensibility more than university did #exemplifies (0.70)
• Beauvoir’s ethic of treating others as freedoms parallels Kant’s humanity formula #corroborates (0.70) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 202