Psychoanalysis justified the Frankfurt circle’s contempt for specialized academic disciplines

Evidence

The Horkheimer circle never attempted to rescue the various scientific disciplines from the grasp of positivism and the system of bourgeois academic scholarship. Instead, they showed growing contempt for the sciences as well as for positivist philosophy of science. This was made easier by the fact that Freudian psychoanalysis, in the way in which it had been presented in its classic period, could not be classified as a specialized scientific discipline. Instead, Freud’s psychoanalysis, which not only Fromm but also Horkheimer and Adorno had to thank for many of their most fruitful ideas, continued the tradition of the psychologically or anthropologically oriented dark' novelists of the bourgeois epoch. It was a central factor in giving Horkheimer and the most important of his fellow theoreticians the sense that important insights could also be achievedor even better achievedby skipping over the specialized disciplines. — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 757</cite> (#corroborates`, via linked claim)

Marx stressed the economic or “material” foundations of society and politics, viewing culture and ideology as manifestations of economic systems like capitalism. He is most famous for his writings on revolution and political transformation, inciting the embattled “workers of the world” to organize and throw off the “chains” of their oppression. As the 20th century wore on, Marx’s theories of ideology, which were used to explain why revolution was not forthcoming, were eventually merged with Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis by members of the Frankfurt School, first in Germany and then in the United States. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 100 (#expands, via linked claim)

Fromm referred to Engels’s letter to Mehring of 14 July 1893, in which Engels complained about the way in which the specific derivation of political, legal and other ideological ideas from the basic facts of economics was being neglected. Fromm praised psychoanalysis as having finally provided a means of following the path which leads from economic determinism through the human heart and mind and right on to the ideological conclusion'. — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 231</cite> (#expands`, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Marxist theories of false consciousness merged with Freudian psychoanalysis in the Frankfurt School. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 100; The Frankfurt School’s contempt for science stemmed partly from Freudian psychoanalysis’ non-disciplinary status. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 757; Psychoanalysis was seen as a bridge from economic determinism to ideology formation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 231 (+4 more)

Related

• The Frankfurt School’s contempt for science stemmed partly from Freudian psychoanalysis’ non-disciplinary status. (similarity 0.93)
• Marxist theories of false consciousness merged with Freudian psychoanalysis in the Frankfurt School. (similarity 0.86)
• Psychoanalysis was seen as a bridge from economic determinism to ideology formation (similarity 0.86)
• Frankfurt School’s interdisciplinarity failed to yield divergent analytic output (similarity 0.84)
• Personal networks placed psychoanalysis inside the Institute of Social Research, linking it with Marxism (similarity 0.83)
• The Frankfurt Institute of Psychoanalysis housed itself within the Institute of Social Research. (similarity 0.83)
• The Frankfurt circle’s interdisciplinary method failed to differentiate their fascism diagnosis (similarity 0.83)
• Fromm saw psychoanalysis as filling Marxism’s missing link between ideology and economic base. (similarity 0.83)
• Habermas derived a theory of institutions and ideologies from Freudian psychoanalysis by analogy. (similarity 0.83)
• Horkheimer saw psychoanalysis as a conformist tool at odds with radical critique. (similarity 0.82)
• Left Freudians combined Freudian drive theory with Marx’s class theory (similarity 0.81)
• The Frankfurt philosophy faculty pioneered systematic ideology critique around 1930. (similarity 0.81)
• Fromm was a practising analyst and left-Freudian synthesizer of Marx and Freud. (similarity 0.81)
• Fromm proposed a historical-materialist anthropology fusing psychoanalysis with sociology. (similarity 0.80)
• Horkheimer consistently translated Marx’s transcendence of bourgeois science into interdisciplinary social research. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• The Frankfurt School’s contempt for science stemmed partly from Freudian psychoanalysis’ non-disciplinary status. #corroborates (0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 757
• Marxist theories of false consciousness merged with Freudian psychoanalysis in the Frankfurt School. #expands (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 100
• Psychoanalysis was seen as a bridge from economic determinism to ideology formation #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 231
• Freudian mental categories are historical products of bourgeois subject disintegration #expands (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 74
• Frankfurt School’s interdisciplinarity failed to yield divergent analytic output #qualifies (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 573
• Psychoanalytic theorists explained fascism’s appeal via unconscious personality needs. #expands (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 100