Horkheimer traced changes in bourgeois anthropology without explaining their social basis.

Evidence

There was, however, nothing in what Horkheimer wrote to suggest how the anthropological doctrines dismissing egoism had developed, depending as they must do on the dialectic between growing human capacities and social structures. Nor was there anything to suggest where the inherently better aspects of egoism came from, how the sudden change in it came about and on what economic and social tendencies it was based. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 202

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School history where the Institute’s own method demanded linking ideology shifts to underlying economic and social tendencies, a demand Horkheimer’s essay here fails to meet. — connects to: Horkheimer’s critique of egoism lacked clear causal grounding in economic and social tendencies. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 740; Unlike Marx, Horkheimer prioritized philosophical method over social theory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 726; Horkheimer located Critical Theory’s distinctiveness at the level of theory, not empirical method. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 197
• QUESTION: Where did Horkheimer himself later supply the dialectic of capacities and social structures that he left out of the egoism essay?
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Horkheimer’s critique of egoism lacked clear causal grounding in economic and social tendencies. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 740; Unlike Marx, Horkheimer prioritized philosophical method over social theory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 726; Horkheimer located Critical Theory’s distinctiveness at the level of theory, not empirical method. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 197