The Frankfurt School’s roots lie in 1840s Left Hegelianism, later displaced by positivism

Evidence

To trace the origins of Critical Theory to their true source would require an extensive analysis of the intellectual ferment of the 1840’s, perhaps the most extraordinary decade in nineteenth-century German intellectual history.’ It was then that Hegel’s successors first applied his philosophical insights to the social and political phenomena of Germany, which was setting out on a course of rapid modernization. The so-called Left Hegelians were of course soon eclipsed by the most talented of their number, Karl Marx. And in time, the philosophical cast of their thinking, shared by the young Marx himself, was superseded by a more “scientific,” at times positivistic approach to social reality, by Marxists and non-Marxists alike. By the late nineteenth century, social theory in general had ceased being “critical” and “negative” in the sense to be explained below. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 187

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to material already read on the Frankfurt School and its Marx lineage. — connects to: The Frankfurt School’s positivism label covered nominalist, empirical, scientific currents — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 2148

Broader Connections

• The Frankfurt School’s positivism label covered nominalist, empirical, scientific currents #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 2148