The classical value-freedom debate in German social science was left unresolved by its founders.

Evidence

Neither Grünberg nor Eckert asked himself whether a Social Democrat practising self-examination or a middle-class liberal practising self-discipline would ever be able to agree on their research results or even reach mutual understanding to the extent that it would be possible to speak of scientific knowledge. What was self-examination' intended to mean for someone like Grünberg, who described the goal of historical-materialist research, i.e. the investigation of the laws of transformation of social existence, as the acceleration of the decline of the old and the emergence of the new? What was self-discipline’ intended to mean for someone like Eckert, who described the aim of sociological research, i.e. true insight into the laws and forms of social co-existence and the preconditions for them', as the improvement of what has been handed down to us’ and as a `great social reconstruction of inherited conditions … instead of their ruthless overthrow’? — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 99

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Weberian Wertfreiheit debate and to the later Habermas–Adorno–Popper positivism dispute that Wiggershaus tracks through the book.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exactly did Eckert’s institute publish, and what became of his reform-conservative research program relative to Grünberg’s Institute?