The Institute’s empirical turn to family research had no stated philosophical basis

Evidence

Horkheimer did not let any of the topics he discussed in these essays develop into hypotheses which could have been used as material for, or even as the subject of, empirical research. The change of emphasis in the Institute’s empirical work which took place during the exile in Switzerland was not the result of a philosophical impulse of any sort (in a way which might have corresponded to the combination of philosophy, the scientific disciplines and empirical research which Horkheimer demanded in his inaugural lecture), but apparently came about quite naturally, and without any communication between those who were working on the collective research project. Research into the social-psychological mediation between material and intellectual culture in a specific social group, that of skilled manual and white-collar workers, was replaced by research into changes in the structure of the family at a period of particularly severe economic crisis, which many saw as the beginning of the end of capitalism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 549 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Institute’s empirical shift to family research happened without philosophical planning. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 549

Related

• The Institute’s empirical shift to family research happened without philosophical planning. (similarity 0.98)
• Frankfurt empirical research on family and authority ceased entirely by the late 1930s (similarity 0.86)
• The Frankfurt School’s promised empirical program quietly collapsed by the late 1930s (similarity 0.84)
• The Institute abandoned empirical research at the end of the 1930s (similarity 0.83)
• Horkheimer’s 1951 reopening speech abandoned the empirical research program of 1931 (similarity 0.82)
• The Institute resisted American empirical fieldwork demands in favor of philosophical humanities work (similarity 0.80)
• Horkheimer steered the Institute toward empirical research while retaining theoretical control (similarity 0.80)
• The Institute’s flagship study juxtaposed vast empirical material with theory that never engaged it (similarity 0.80)
• The Institute’s theory-empirical synthesis peaked with the Studies on Authority (similarity 0.79)
• Horkheimer equated his own theoretical person with the Foundation’s social-theory purpose (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The Institute’s empirical shift to family research happened without philosophical planning. #corroborates (0.98) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 549