Horkheimer attacked pragmatism for reducing truth to what conforms to present reality

Evidence

Pragmatism ignored the fact that some theories contradict the present reality and work against it, yet are not “false.” The implications of pragmatism were thus more conformist than critical, despite its pretensions; like positivism, it lacked a means of going beyond the existing “facts.” In making this critique, Horkheimer was performing a valuable service, in that Marxism had been incorrectly reduced to a variant of pragmatism by Sidney Hook and others in the thirties. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 308

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the general pragmatism-vs-critical-theory debate and Horkheimer’s 1937 essay ‘Traditional and Critical Theory’ referenced earlier in the chapter. — connects to: Both positivism and pragmatism shared philosophical assumptions Horkheimer opposed. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 243; Pragmatism rejects Enlightenment dualisms as props of conservatism — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 17; Horkheimer favored dialectical insight over empirical research into the facts. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 745 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Pragmatism rejects Enlightenment dualisms as props of conservatism #expands (0.85) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 17