Horkheimer dismissed empirical sociology as pseudo-exact parapharnalia serving paying customers

Evidence

Our difference in academic questions is as clear as the difference between Hegelian logic and an orderly working outfit' [in English in the German text] with its philosophical untidiness cleaned up. In the sphere of so-called research’, such a contradiction might even be fruitful, in so far as you represent the research standpoint with intelligence and integrity, while I, perhaps with no less intelligence and integrity, endeavour to give it meaning. But it is altogether impossible if you lecture me and at the same time take the situationone which has long since been lamented by those with more visionof the modern sociology assistant, who must restrict himself to his pseudo-exact paraphernalia if he does not want to be fired by his customers, and not merely eagerly assimilate it, but glorify it to yourself and to me as a piece of intellectual honesty, responsibility and incorruptibility. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1700

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the running tension between the Institute’s dialectical theory and American empirical sociology, echoing Lazarsfeld’s conflicts with Adorno. — connects to: Horkheimer rejected empirical sociology’s pseudo-exact method as servile to funders. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1700; Horkheimer’s contempt for systematic empirical analysis undermined collaboration with Kirchheimer — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 976
• SEED: The ‘pseudo-exact paraphernalia’ line is a quotable formulation of critical-theory contempt for positivist social science - usable in writing about why quantitative methods fail to capture structural injustice.

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer rejected empirical sociology’s pseudo-exact method as servile to funders. #corroborates (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1700
• Horkheimer’s contempt for systematic empirical analysis undermined collaboration with Kirchheimer #complicates (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 976