When studying the Master of Arts, we are obliged to study the figures and thoughts of the founders and frontmen of the Frankfurt School. Countless how many pages I have written an academic paper in order to explore this topic. I need to share here a little bit of what I know about the Frankfurt School.
Frankfurt School is the term given to a group of philosophers who have affiliation with The Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany), and other thinkers influenced by them.
The milestone that is considered the glory of the Frankfurt School was in 1930, when Max Horkheimer was appointed director of the social research institute.
Famous philosophers who are considered members of the Frankfurt School are:1) Max Horkheimer,2) Theodor Adorno,3) Walter Benjamin,4) Jürgen Habermas,5) Herbert Marcuse,6) Alfred Sohn-Rethel,7) Leo Löwenthal, 8) Franz Neumann,9) Franz Oppenheimer,10) Friedrich Pollock,11) Eric Fromm,12) Alfred Schmidt,13) Oskar Negt,14) Karl A. Wittfogel,15) Susan Buck-Morss, and 16) Axel Honneth.
It is worth noting that these thinkers never defined themselves in a group or “mazhab”, and that this designation was given by other groups. Although most of them had an intellectual fascination with Neo-Marxism and cultural criticism (which later influenced the emergence of the field of Cultural Studies), each of these thinkers applied these two things in different ways and to different fields of study.
The Frankfurt School’s interest in Karl Marx’s thought was due, among other things, to their dissatisfaction with the use of the theories of Marxism by most people, which they considered to be a narrow view of the original views of Karl Marx. According to them, this narrow view was unable to provide an “answer” to their situation at that time in Germany.
After the First World War and the increasing political power of the Nazis, the Germany that existed at that time was very different from the Germany that Karl Marx experienced. Therefore, it is clear to the thinkers of the Frankfurt School that Marxism must be modified in order to be able to respond to the challenges of the times.
It is noteworthy that several of the main thinkers of the Frankfurt School were Jews and particularly in the early period were direct victims of Nazi Fascism. The most tragic event was the death of Walter Benjamin who was suspected of committing suicide after the contents of his library were confiscated by the Nazis.
Several others, such as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer were forced to flee to other countries, especially the United States. Examples of famous works produced by Frankfurt School thinkers include Dialectic of Enlightenment, Minima Moralia, Illuminations. (to be continued)
illustration source: https://i.imgur.com/0xJuDu0.jpg