Not Just Director, Methodologist, or Partner: A Brief History of the Reception of Horkheimer’s Work

Abstract

The article discusses the reception of Horkheimer’s work after his death. In the 1970s, the literature on early Critical Theory focused on prolific postwar authors, such as Adorno and Marcuse, and on the history of Critical Theory as a whole. For this reason, Horkheimer’s roles were interpreted in three ways: as the director, who took care of the everyday bureaucracies of the institute; the methodologist, who laid down the theoretical foundations of Critical Theory; and the partner, who, together with Adorno, wrote the Dialektik der Aufklärung (Dialectic of Enlightenment). I argue that these three roles have obscured Horkheimer’s role as a philosopher, a thinker with his own ideas and diagnoses. This role appears clearly in the literature after the publication of the Gesammelte Schriften (Collected Writings) and the establishment of the Max Horkheimer Archive. From the 1990s on, and especially in the 2010s, the literature tends to portray Horkheimer as a philosopher with his own interests and philosophical questions.