Postwar German philosophy stayed existentialist because exiled neopositivists never returned

Evidence

After the war, the scene was dominated by Heidegger and a new variation of `material phenomenology’, French existentialism, with Sartre as its best-known representative. A further variant of existential philosophy was provided by Jaspers. Plessner, Gehlen and Schelsky were powerful representatives of the philosophical anthropology that was influential in sociology at the time. By contrast, neopositivism and critical philosophy, the worst affected by expulsions from Germany under fascism, still had to regain ground. Critical philosophy was able to do so thanks to the return from exile of Horkheimer and Adorno. None of the neopositivists who had fled ever returned to Germany. Up to the 1960s, neopositivismwhich had a monopoly position in the USA, Scandinavia and Hollandinfluenced the philosophical scene in German-speaking countries only indirectly. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2276

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader exile/displacement pattern of the Frankfurt School and to how institutional disruption reshapes national intellectual scenes. — connects to: Nazi rule and restoration alienated postwar Germans from utopian-social criticism
• QUESTION: Interesting to probe why neopositivists (freely exiled) never returned while Horkheimer and Adorno (under direct threat) did — what differentiated the two groups’ postwar dispositions?

Broader Connections

• Nazi rule and restoration alienated postwar Germans from utopian-social criticism #corroborates (0.85)