Horkheimer rejected empirical sociology’s pseudo-exact method as servile to funders.

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: Connects to the Frankfurt School’s broader critique of positivist social science and the later positivism dispute with Popper. — connects to: Horkheimer dismissed empirical sociology as pseudo-exact parapharnalia serving paying customers — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1700
• DEFINE: Captures the defining contrast between critical theory’s speculative method and US empirical sociology’s operationalized research.