Social theory stopped being critical and negative by the late nineteenth century

Evidence

At the very heart of Critical Theory was an aversion to closed philosophical systems. To present it as such would therefore distort its essentially open-ended, probing, unfinished quality. It was no accident that Horkheimer chose to articulate his ideas in essays and aphorisms rather than in the cumbersome tomes so characteristic of German philosophy. Although Adorno and Marcuse were less reluctant to speak through completed hooks, they too resisted the temptation to make those books into positive, systematic philosophical statements. Instead. Critical Theory, as its name implies, was expressed through a series of critiques of other thinkers and philosophical traditions. Its development was thus through dialogue, its genesis as dialectical as the method it purported to apply to social phenomena. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 186 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Here the Institut was uniquely equipped to make an important contribution. Well before the forced emigration, it had turned its attention to problems of authority. Critical Theory was developed partly in response to the failure of traditional Marxism to explain the reluctance of the proletariat to fulfill its historical role. One of the primary reasons for Horkheimer’s early interest in psychoanalysis had been the help it might give in accounting for the psychological “cement” of society. Accordingly, when he assumed the reins of the Institut in 1930, one of the first tasks he announced was an empirical study of the mentality of workers in the Weimar Republic. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 389 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Critical Theory defined itself through critique of others rather than systematic positive statements — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 186; Critical Theory arose from Marxism’s failure to explain workers’ passivity — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 389

Related

• Critical Theory arose from Marxism’s failure to explain workers’ passivity (similarity 0.90)
• Critical Theory defined itself through critique of others rather than systematic positive statements (similarity 0.86)
• Changed historical conditions forced critical theory from immanent to transcendent critique (similarity 0.83)
• The proletariat’s integration forced critical theory into transcendent critique (similarity 0.81)
• Marcuse and Neumann preserved Critical Theory’s political project that Horkheimer and Adorno abandoned (similarity 0.79)
• Truth for critical theory is historically conditioned, not timeless. (similarity 0.79)
• Adorno had abandoned all collectivities as truth-bearers by 1951 (similarity 0.79)
• Critical theory’s concepts aim to terminate in actual social transformation (similarity 0.79)
• The Frankfurt School’s roots lie in 1840s Left Hegelianism, later displaced by positivism (similarity 0.78)
• Critical Theory rejected falsifiability because social truths imply possible alternatives to present order (similarity 0.78)
• Critical theory must analyze industrialized society as a whole rather than rank power blocs (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Critical Theory defined itself through critique of others rather than systematic positive statements #corroborates (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 186
• Critical Theory arose from Marxism’s failure to explain workers’ passivity #qualifies (0.72) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 389