Horkheimer’s late-life Schopenhauer turn revived an early philosophical interest

Evidence

Horkheimer, who set the tone for all of the Institut’s work, had been interested in Schopenhauer and Kant before becoming fascinated with Hegel and Marx. His expression of interest in Schopenhauer in the 196o’s, contrary to what is often assumed, was thus a return to an early love, rather than an apostasy from a life-long Hegelianized Marxism. In fact the first book in philosophy Horkheimer actually read was Schopenhauer’s Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, which Pollock gave him when they were studying French together in Brussels before the war. Both he and Lowenthal were members of the Schopenhauer Gesellschaft at Frankfurt in their student days. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 193

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how exactly Schopenhauer’s pessimism and Kant’s aesthetics flowed into Horkheimer’s critical theory, given he later read them as pre-Marxist.
• XREF: connects to: Rousseau and Kant prepared the doctrine Schopenhauer first proclaimed pure. — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2752

Broader Connections

• Rousseau and Kant prepared the doctrine Schopenhauer first proclaimed pure. #qualifies (0.72) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2752