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Definition: Horkheimer, Max from Key Terms in Literary Theory

Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) was a German and Jewish philosopher, and director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. He was exiled from Germany during the Nazi regime; he continued to run the Institute in the United States, which he reopened in Frankfurt from 1949 until its closure in 1958. Major works translated into English include Traditional and Critical Theory (1937), The Eclipse of Reason (1947), and The Dialectic of Enlightenment with Theodor Adorno (1947).

Horkheimer, Max (1895-1973)

From Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture
Max Horkheimer was a German philosopher and social scientist. He was the founder of critical theory. Horkheimer's intellectual sources included the philosophies of the French Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Karl Marx. He also drew on ideas from sociology and psychoanalysis. Between 1931 and 1958, Horkheimer served as the director of the Institute of Social Research of Frankfurt am Main, Germany (also known as the Frankfurt School). The 1933 National Socialist takeover forced Horkheimer, who was of Jewish origin, to immigrate to America, where the institute was temporarily set up. He returned to Germany in 1948. Horkheimer ranks as one of Europe's most prominent twentieth-century social thinkers. His work has shaped the projects of Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, and many others. Horkheimer's 1937 essay “Traditional and Critical Theory” is widely read as a programmatic statement of critical theory. Horkheimer…
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Max Horkheimer is best known as one of the leading members of the Frankfurt school, and one of the leading proponents of what he called “critical theory.” Born near Stuttgart, Germany, the son of a wealthy Jewish industrialist, Horkheimer attended University of Frankfurt, where he completed his…
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Full text Article Horkheimer, Max (1895-1973)

From Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology
For many years Horkheimer served as Director of the Institute for Social Research and, with Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno , Herbert Marcuse , and others, helped develop the critical theory of society . In “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937 [trans. 1972]) in Critical Theory , Horkheimer argued that…
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Full text Article Horkheimer, Max (1895-1973)

From Encyclopedia of Philosophers on Religion
Horkheimer’s parents belonged to a generation of assimilated German-Jews. Maintaining kosher and other religious practices of the Jewish tradition, they provided Horkheimer with a "strictly conservative, but not orthodox, Jewish atmosphere" in which to grow up. Although Horkheimer would later…
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Full text Article Horkheimer, Max (1895–1973),

From Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
German philosopher, the leading theorist of the first generation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Both as director of the Institute for Social Research and in his early philosophical essays published in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung , Horkheimer set the agenda for the collaborative…
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Full text Article CRITICAL THEORY

From Elsevier's Dictionary of Psychological Theories
Critical theory is an analytical approach in political philosophy and psychology - especially associated with the University of Frankfurt in Germany and Columbia University in New York in the 1930s and advanced by Max Horkheimer (1895-1973), Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), and Herbert Marcuse…
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Full text Article Frankfurt School

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
The members of the Institute of Social Research , set up at Frankfurt University, Germany, in 1923 as the first Marxist research centre. With the rise of Hitler, many of its members went to the USA and set up the institute at Columbia University, New York. In 1969 the institute was dissolved. In the…
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Full text Article Left-Wing Philosophy

From Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice
Left-wing philosophy includes radical philosophy, liberal, and progressive social and political thought. Radical philosophy includes Marxism, Neo-Marxism, Critical Theory, and anarchism. Marxism is the philosophy and the social, political, and economic theory of Karl Marx (1818–1883), a German…
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Full text Article Avant-Garde

From Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice
The phrase avant-garde derives from the French “advance guard,” “vanguard,” or, literally, “fore-guard,” and is intended to refer to experimental and innovative people or works, such as works of art, and people involved in culture production, the arts, and political theory. There are avant-garde…
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Full text Article Horkheimer, Max

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(born Feb. 14, 1895, Stuttgart, Ger.—died July 7, 1973, Nürnberg) German philosopher and social theorist. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Frankfurt in 1922. In 1930 he became director of the university’s newly founded Institute for Social Research. Under his leadership, the…
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