The Frankfurt School rejected philosophical anthropology and eternal human essence

Evidence

The agnosticism in Horkheimer’s notion of materialism also extended to his views on the possibility of a philosophical anthropology. He dismissed the efforts of his former colleague at Frankfurt, Max Scheler, to discover a constant human nature as no more than a desperate search for absolute meaning in a relativist world. The yearning of phenomenologists for the security of eternal essences was a source of self-delusion, a point Adorno and Marcuse were to echo in their respective critiques of Husserl and Scheler. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 226

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts with the naturalized human-nature assumptions in the reader’s other readings (e.g. soundscapes, biopolitics); the critique of Scheler/Husserl recurs through critical theory. — connects to: Postmodernist thinkers rejected existentialism as outdated and overly human-centered — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 916; Post-structuralist philosophy rejected lived experience and active human subjects — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 88; The Frankfurt School kept Hegel’s memory of the past but rejected his transcendental idealism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 805 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The Frankfurt School kept Hegel’s memory of the past but rejected his transcendental idealism #expands (0.74) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 805
• Postmodernist thinkers rejected existentialism as outdated and overly human-centered #expands (0.72) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 916
• Post-structuralist philosophy rejected lived experience and active human subjects #expands (0.72) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 88