Wittfogel’s positivism isolated him from Horkheimer’s inner circle

Evidence

Although his new colleagues respected Wittfogel’s contributions to the understanding of what Marx had called the Asiatic mode of production, there seems to have been little real integration of his work with their own. On theoretical issues he was considered naive by Horkheimer and the other younger members of the Institut who were challenging the traditional interpretation of Marxist theory. Wittfogel’s approach was unapologetically positivistic, and the disdain was clearly mutual. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 122

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of the Frankfurt School rejecting positivism (known from Lukács, and later Habermas’s critique of positivism in the tradition). — connects to: Wittfogel pioneered Asiatic society study within a Communist academic career — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 121; Neumann’s mechanistic Marxism aligned him with Grossmann and Wittfogel against Horkheimer’s circle. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 462; Wittfogel’s rightward shift destroyed his friendship with Massing — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 528 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Establishes ‘Asiatic mode of production’ as the Marxian category Wittfogel studied.