Social science’s task is freeing thought from domination to prevent future catastrophe.

Evidence

Social science, he declared, could contribute towards abolishing the evils of prejudice and a priori restrictions, and could help to make the structure of the world correspond more closely to the true needs of its inhabitants. Without the kind of free thought, unconcerned with domination, which philosophy and sociology were concerned with, the door to a society which was more free and more worthy of humanity would never open, and the world would stagger from one catastrophe to the next, in spite of periods of reconstruction. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 468

Categorization

• DEFINE: States Horkheimer’s positive program for critical social science at the Institute’s 1951 reopening.
• QUESTION: How does this stated program square with the Institute’s later accommodation to Adenauer-era restoration?
• XREF: connects to: Domination is perpetuated by thought’s own ossification, not by technology; Ending deprivation requires increased domination of nature and self-repression — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1572; Liberation from technological domination requires preserving the technological base — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 812 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Domination is perpetuated by thought’s own ossification, not by technology; Ending deprivation requires increased domination of nature and self-repression — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1572; Liberation from technological domination requires preserving the technological base — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 812 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Ending deprivation requires increased domination of nature and self-repression #complicates (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1572
• Liberation from technological domination requires preserving the technological base #complicates (0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 812
• Belief in free will functions as a defense against acknowledging environmental determinism #complicates (0.74) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1154