Horkheimer and Adorno never shared one unified school paradigm

Evidence

The extreme unevenness of the external circumstances of the Institute’s history, if nothing else, makes it advisable not to take the term Frankfurt School' too seriously. Two other points underline this. First, the fact that Horkheimer, in spite of being a charismatic figure’, played an increasingly less decisive part in events, and one increasingly less suited to the formation of a school'. Secondly, the closely related fact that, looking at the four decades of the older Frankfurt School as a whole, it can be seen that there was neither a unified paradigm nor any paradigm change which would include all the elements now associated with the term Frankfurt School’. The two principal figures, Horkheimer and Adorno, were working in the same areas from two clearly distinct positions. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 12

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what precise paradigm commitments did each man hold that made them incompatible as school co-founders?
• XREF: Connects to Kuhn’s paradigm-change framework and to the sociology-of-knowledge literature on what makes a ‘school’ (e.g. Collins on intellectual groups). — connects to: Horkheimer and Adorno anchored their critique of reason in different ideals — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1308; Horkheimer approved Adorno’s thesis despite deeming it radically alien to his own philosophy — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 377

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer approved Adorno’s thesis despite deeming it radically alien to his own philosophy #corroborates (0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 377
• Horkheimer and Adorno anchored their critique of reason in different ideals #corroborates (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1308