The Institute kept theory loosely coupled to empirical results to protect its totality claims
Evidence
It was something else that caused the Institute’s reluctance to publish empirical research results. Horkheimer, in his inaugural lecture, had demanded the application of the `most refined scientific methods’, and Fromm and Lazarsfeldboth of them inspired by psychoanalysishad, for example, undertaken an important refinement of method by distinguishing between descriptive and interpretative classification and between manifest and latent structures. In Horkheimer’s view, the Institute’s work could be distinguished from bourgeois science primarily at the level of theory, where it was a question of integrating the results of empirical inquiries and research within the various scientific disciplines into a theory of how society as a whole functioned. In addition, questionnaires could only be undertaken in the present time, and must therefore continue to be only a highly selective procedure in relation to a theory concerned with society as a whole throughout an entire epoch. For that reason, the connection between theory and empirical research had to be kept fairly loose, so that the theory would not be restricted, or seem arbitrarily speculative, at points where it had to do without the results of questionnaires. If this was so, then the Institute’s true achievements were at the theoretical level. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 722
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the epistemological division between holistic theory and temporally-bound survey data that critical theory inherits from Lukács’s totality concept. — connects to: The Institute’s empirical apparatus functioned mainly as a protective screen for theory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 605; Horkheimer steered the Institute toward empirical research while retaining theoretical control — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1495; Even failed empirical tests boosted finance theory’s credibility through testability itself. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 43 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Horkheimer steered the Institute toward empirical research while retaining theoretical control
#qualifies(0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1495 - Neoliberal antitrust claims preceded the empirical work meant to support them
#exemplifies(0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1175 - Even failed empirical tests boosted finance theory’s credibility through testability itself.
#complicates(0.80) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 43