Horkheimer rejected introspective understanding of history because past was made unconsciously

Evidence

What became clear, however, in Horkheimer’s discussion of Dilthey’s methodology3S was his rejection of a purely psychological approach to historical explanation. Dilthey’s notion of a Verstehende Geisteswissenschafl (a social science based on its own methods of understanding and reexperiencing, rather than on those of the natural sciences) did, to be sure, contain a recognition of the meaningfulness of historical structures, which Horkheimer could share. What he rejected was the assumption that this meaning could be intuitively grasped by the historian reexperiencing his subject matter in his own mind. Underlying this notion, he argued, was a Hegelian-like belief in the identity of subject and object. The data of the inner life were not enough to mirror the significant structure of the past, because that past had not always been made consciously by men. Indeed, it was generally made “behind the backs and against the wills” of individuals, as Marx had pointed out. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 209

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the Verstehen/Erklaren distinction and Horkheimer’s stance on which method history requires.
• XREF: Connects to the Marxian insight about history made behind men’s backs, echoed in later Frankfurt work on domination and reification. — connects to: Horkheimer and Adorno rejected history as autonomous substance and grounded theory in social material — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 186; The Frankfurt School kept Hegel’s memory of the past but rejected his transcendental idealism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 805; Horkheimer rejected non-class-based accounts of ideas as perpetuating suppression — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 220

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer and Adorno rejected history as autonomous substance and grounded theory in social material #corroborates (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 186
• The Frankfurt School kept Hegel’s memory of the past but rejected his transcendental idealism #corroborates (0.70) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 805