Horkheimer reframed empirical social research as the renewal of enlightenment’s emancipatory project

Evidence

In this way, Horkheimer implicitly concluded, the nineteenth-century project of using science, technology and industry to make the social whole less and less arbitrary and unjust towards individuals, and accordingly less in need of transfiguration, would be taken up once again and continued with the more developed methods of the present day and with far better prospects of success. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 149

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the later Frankfurt School debate over whether empirical research betrayed critical theory — the positivism dispute and Adorno’s methodological skepticism. — connects to: Horkheimer treated the Weil Foundation as his personal vehicle for social theory — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1087; Horkheimer’s critical theory aimed to combine factual knowledge with normative urgency — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 199; The Enlightenment’s core project displaced local moralities with universal rational ones — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 71 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer’s critical theory aimed to combine factual knowledge with normative urgency #corroborates (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 199
• The Enlightenment’s core project displaced local moralities with universal rational ones #qualifies (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 71