Neumann diverged from Critical Theory in method, not conclusions

Evidence

The source of Neumann’s distance from Horkheimer and the other members was not in this conclusion, but rather in the legalistic approach he used to derive it. It also arose from his psychologically spare characterization of man as already endowed with reason, which ignored all the findings of the Studien concerning the sway of irrational forces over modern man’s behavior. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 470

Categorization

• XREF: The disagreement over man’s rationality vs. irrational forces reflects the wider question of whether Freudian depth-psychology could coexist with rational natural-law grounding — connects to the Institute’s empirical studies of authoritarian character. — connects to: Behemoth was Institute recognition denied because its methodology strayed from Critical Theory — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 505; Marcuse and Neumann preserved Critical Theory’s political project that Horkheimer and Adorno abandoned — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 31; Frankfurter and the US academic left shaped Neumann’s divergence from Horkheimer’s circle — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 938

Broader Connections

• Marcuse and Neumann preserved Critical Theory’s political project that Horkheimer and Adorno abandoned #expands (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 31