Horkheimer treated the Weil Foundation as his personal vehicle for social theory

Evidence

In Horkheimer’s view, it was possible to meet the requirements of the Weil Foundation’s statutes without actually having an institute. As an extreme measure, he imagined transforming the Institute into a foundation offering four or five private research contracts . . . Running an institute is by no means required by the Foundation's statutes. On the contrary, it is purely a matter of promoting social theory.' Since Horkheimer ultimately saw Weil's Foundation as the material basis for promoting a theory of society of which he himself was the principal incarnation, the use of the Foundation for shared purposes on a united basis was impossible. The financial situation was never disclosed, even to the circle of the Institute's full-time associates, in a form that could be checked. The only ones who really had access to the information represented the interior’: Horkheimer and Pollock. Lowenthal, however, was partly informed, in his capacity as a kind of general secretary. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1087

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Weberian/Bourdieusian analysis of charismatic-authority organizational control; also resonates with the Milgrom private-institutions work on how information control sustains extralegal regimes. — connects to: Horkheimer equated his own theoretical person with the Foundation’s social-theory purpose — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1087; The elder Weil sought an honorary doctorate via a social science foundation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 54; Horkheimer sought applied topics that could present his theory as expert social knowledge — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1338 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer sought applied topics that could present his theory as expert social knowledge #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1338
• Horkheimer reframed empirical social research as the renewal of enlightenment’s emancipatory project #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 149