Horkheimer steered the Institute toward empirical research while retaining theoretical control

Evidence

At a further meeting of the AJC, the project once again met with agreement. … However, instead of getting the written confirmation they expected, the Institute’s directors were asked to present a budget and a further, more detailed draft. … Pollock was nominated as director of the project and acting director of the New York office of the Institute, at Horkheimer’s wishes. Since you are an economist,' he wrote to his friend in November 1942, you can move the Institute towards a more empirical attitude promising more practical results without endangering the expression of our theoretical thought.’ … But Horkheimer wanted, if possible, to drop the sub-project arranged by Neumann on anti-Semitism in the working class. He saw this as an unauthorized addition by Neumann to the draft of the project which had been published in SPSS. By the way,' he mentioned to Pollock, this idea of a survey on the whole labor movement, just to find some Anti-Semitic reactions, is, in my opinion, scientifically ridiculous.’ — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1495

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Studies on Authority and the Family methodology pattern referenced here, and to the broader Institute’s empirical/theoretical balance tension resurfacing throughout the book. — connects to: The Institute’s empirical apparatus functioned mainly as a protective screen for theory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 605; The Institute kept theory loosely coupled to empirical results to protect its totality claims — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 722; Horkheimer favored dialectical insight over empirical research into the facts. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 745 (+6 more)
• QUESTION: What exactly made Horkheimer dismiss Neumann’s working-class anti-Semitism survey as ‘scientifically ridiculous’ beyond budget concerns — a substantive theoretical or political objection?

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer sought to fuse European critical theory with American empirical methods #corroborates (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1520
• Horkheimer’s institutional dominance was baked into the Institut’s founding structure #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 109