The Frankfurt School

The Frankfurt School was a group of German social theorists and philosophers associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, known for developing critical theory. They critiqued Enlightenment rationality as carrying latent tendencies toward totalitarianism, examined the relationship between culture and social structures, and combined elements of Marxism, psychoanalysis, and sociology in their analysis of modern society.

Claims that use this term

• The Frankfurt School saw Enlightenment’s collapse into totalitarianism as latent in its own reason
• The Frankfurt School insisted culture never transcends society’s inadequacies
• The Frankfurt School opposed tradition-as-Erfahrung to Enlightenment progress, which destroys it.
• The Frankfurt School subordinated empirical research to theoretical speculation
• The Frankfurt School rejected the totalitarianism-versus-pluralism dichotomy as a false polarity
• The Frankfurt School critiqued both Stalinism and Western capitalism in equal measure