Horkheimer’s materialist dialectic came close to Hegel’s idealist determinism.

Evidence

Horkheimer gave the procedure its materialist note by connecting changes in the meaning of concepts with changes in the social function of those concepts. The dialectical development which he presumed to exist was based on the assumption that there was a process, effective in every possible field, inhibiting or releasing those forces which were seeking the best possible condition for humanity. There was hardly any distinction between this and the determinism of Hegel’s idealist dialectics. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 744

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies how Horkheimer distinguished his materialist dialectic from Hegel’s idealist one — by tying concept-meaning changes to social function changes.
• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer and Adorno each deployed Hegelian dialectics toward different ends — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 767; Marx’s inversion of Hegel is oppositional, not a simple turn from idealism to materialism

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer and Adorno each deployed Hegelian dialectics toward different ends #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 767
• Marx’s inversion of Hegel is oppositional, not a simple turn from idealism to materialism #qualifies (0.85)