Social theory as critical theory: Horkheimer's program and its relevance today

More than 90 years later, it is fascinating and encouraging to read Horkheimer's inaugural address as the second director of the Institute for Social Research. Social philosophy, as depicted in his lecture, had not yet found its specific articulation as critical theory. However, in setting out the Institute's tasks as a center for social philosophy, the key components of his emerging idea of critical theory are already visible. These will be elaborated in his programmatic essay on traditional and critical theory, which appeared in 1937 (Horkheimer, 1973). The fundamental elements of the early Horkheimer's view of social philosophy/critical theory seem to me as pertinent as ever. This is how I understand them:

First, social philosophy's aim is to interpret philosophically “the fate of humans” (Horkheimer, 1988, p. 20).¹ It must do so within a framework in which the individual and social whole exist in a dynamic relationship of mutual self-constitution (p. 20), which is in turn part of a dynamic interplay between fact and value or, as he writes, “mind” and “reality” (p. 32). We can infer from this that “the fate of humans” has a material basis and is socially produced. This calls for attentiveness to the actual facts of existing social reality. However, social philosophy must not lose sight of “the great principal questions”—questions about the relationship of the individual to society, the meaning of culture, the formation of communities, and the development of history as a whole (p. 28). In the same vein, though it must start from the concrete pressing philosophical questions of the times, it must endeavor always to keep the universal in view (p. 29).

Second, social philosophy's interpretative efforts must be based on collective inquiry in multiple areas that has an empirical component. Accordingly, it must organize investigations in which philosophers, sociologists, economists, historians, and psychologists work together with the aid of the most precise scientific methods, revising the concrete philosophical questions driving its interpretative efforts and rendering them more exact; it must also develop new methods in the course of such work. Social philosophical questions thereby become part of a dialectical movement, in which they are drawn into the empirical scientific process, which affects their character (p. 30); presumably they in turn impact the empirical process of inquiry. While Horkheimer does not say so explicitly in his lecture, his 1937 essay criticizes theories that hypostatize the facts, treating them as extrinsic to the human mind. He contrasts such hypostatization with critical theory's view that facts are “products which in principle should be under human control” (Horkheimer, 1973, p. 209). In this way, “objective realities” lose the character of “pure factuality” (p. 209). In other words, critical theory recognizes the importance of a fact-driven, empirically based inquiry, provided it is conducted within a context of critical engagement with questions of meaning and value and motivated by a concrete practical concern to bring about social change for the better. It seems clear, therefore, that for Horkheimer mind in the form of social philosophy impacts reality as investigated by the empirically based sciences, just as reality impacts mind. In other words, there is a feedback loop between critical theory and scientific findings.

Third, social philosophy is concerned with knowing the true value and content of the meaning of human existence. Horkheimer attributes this view of social philosophy to Hegel and describes it as problematic (p. 21). However, to all appearances he distances himself only from Hegel's idealist view that such knowledge is solely a matter of philosophical insight and that it can be established once and for all, thereby closing the dialectical process. There is no indication that he rejects Hegel's commitment to determining the value and content of human existence as it takes shape in historical reality and some hints that he endorses it. Indeed, providing we leave aside his objections to Hegel's idealism and closure of the dialectic, his citation of him fits well with his opening remarks on social philosophy's concern to interpret the fate of humans within a value-imbued social context. His citation of Hegel could also be said to anticipate his 1937 essay, where he tells us that critical theory “constructs a developing picture of society as a whole, an existential judgment with a historical dimension” (Horkheimer, 1973, p. 239; see Cooke, 2023).

In Horkheimer's inaugural address, the second of the three elements is foregrounded. He criticizes abstract theorizing, be it Spinozist, Hegelian, or Marxian, for splitting off mind and reality (p. 32) and underscores the need for social theory to remain in constant connection with its material: It must develop its philosophical questions through “work on the object” (p. 28), according to the matter at hand as opposed to its own wishes. This calls on it to develop the most varied methods of investigation (p. 33). If it does not, it runs the risk of losing sight of the first core element; in addition, it is also likely to sink into dogmatic rigidity, advancing theses that are fundamentally immune from external control (pp. 32–33). In his 1937 essay, Horkheimer expands on this point, observing that social philosophy (now called critical theory) can avoid dogmatic rigidity only if it is based on a concern for social transformation that arises ever anew from the prevailing social injustice. Importantly, the concrete concern for social transformation must manifest itself in theoretically informed political action (praxis).² Whereas in this essay, Horkheimer seems in the first instance to have the enlightening powers of critical theory in mind, in his 1931 lecture, his emphasis is on the scientific evidence provided by traditional theory, especially empirical-based scientific inquiry in multiple disciplines. There is no suggestion, however, that he sees any conflict between the two.

In the 1937 essay, more clearly than in the 1931 lecture, Horkheimer draws attention to the mutual learning involved in the interactions between mind (in the sense of critical theory) and reality (in the double sense of empirically based scientific research and praxis). On the one hand, critical theory, due to its concrete concern for social transformation, must be ready to modify its values, and accordingly its substantive content, in response to the prevailing injustice; here, the theory must learn from scientific findings about social reality. On the other hand, the values and substantive content of critical theory must shape and guide its empirically informed, practical efforts to overcome the prevailing injustice through concrete transformative proposals; praxis cannot rely solely on scientific evidence but must also learn from the value-driven insights of critical theory.

In the 1930s, in sum, Horkheimer's idea of critical theory, and of the tasks of a research institute that would foster such theorizing, displays a concrete concern for social transformation in response to the pressing philosophical problems of the time. In its attentiveness to social reality, it loses sight neither of more general questions of meaning and value nor of its task of interpreting the (materially based, socially produced) fate of humans, while maintaining a dynamic relationship between mind and reality.

I will leave open the question of whether critical theory as it subsequently developed in the Frankfurt School tradition has succeeded in realizing the early Horkheimer's program. My question in the following is what it implies for contemporary critical theory. To focus my discussion, I consider some challenges arising from anthropogenic ecological devastation on a global scale.³ Of the many concrete and pressing philosophical questions that confront critical theories today, the meaning and value of human life in the context of global anthropogenic ecological destruction is indisputably one of them.

In addressing this question, Horkheimer's call for a dynamic relationship between fact and value, mind and reality, is highly relevant. The importance of the reality side is obvious. It is immediately evident that the scale of ecological devastation, together with the rapidity at which it has happened and continues to happen, means that any attempt philosophically to interpret its implications must go together with multiple strands of empirical investigation. It must incorporate “work on the object,” preferably cooperative work, conducted in the areas mentioned by Horkheimer: sociology, economics, history, and psychology. We can add to this list just about all other disciplines in the human sciences, for example, ethnography, science and technology studies, archaeology and geography, and the entire palette of research areas in the natural sciences. Furthermore, the urgent imperative to halt ecological devastation, and where possible, to remedy its worst effects, calls for praxis: theoretically guided social transformation aimed at bringing about change for the better.

But the mind side of the relationship is just as relevant. One reason for this is the contemporary “post-truth” culture, which undermines truth claims made by the empirical sciences, with knock-on effects for the validity claims of any philosophical or social theory. Widespread feelings of disorientation are a consequence of this. Disorientation leads easily to apathy when it comes to possibilities for socially transformative action. Critical theory's tasks of orientation and guidance acquire special importance in such circumstances. Although Horkheimer does not include these tasks explicitly in his account of social philosophy, they are implicit in the interpretative aim he attributes to it: its concern to interpret the (materially based, socially produced) “fate of humans” from the point of view of the “true value and content of human existence.” A danger here, however, is that social philosophy's concern to orient and guide may be authoritarian. Clearly, this is a problem for critical theory in the Marxist tradition, which connects human emancipation with the free development of individuals in association with others (Marx & Engels, 1848). Accordingly, critical theory's orientation and guidance should foster such development, which means, at a minimum, that it must always be open to critical questioning by those it addresses and, in this sense, non-authoritarian (Cooke, 2005). In his political writings of the late 1960s, Theodor W. Adorno, Horkheimer's collaborator and colleague at the Institute, draws a link between (what I call) an authoritarian conception of theory and a kind of political activism he calls “actionism” (Adorno, 2005). In my reading of Adorno, he acknowledges that actionists may initially be theoretically motivated. However, due to a fixation on action, they subsequently leave to one side the question of the theory's validity, deeming it irrelevant to the fundamental social transformation the objective facts of the situation demand. This leaves no room for critical interrogation of the theory's analyses of what is wrong with existing social and political reality and of its (usually tacit) projections of a better alternative. Adorno offers a trenchant critique of this action-fixation (see Cooke, 2020b, pp. 585–591). As he describes it, actionism serves to distract from the only kind of genuinely transformative praxis possible in the social conditions of the time, which is resistance to the power of the totality in the form of unrelenting, unsparing self-reflection, coupled with reflection based on a theoretically guided interpretation of the causes of the current catastrophe. Actionism works against the required transformation, since it generates the false belief that resistance of this kind is not necessary; it thereby not only serves the power of the oppressive totality but also strengthens it. This is why, in my terms, critical theory today must offer authoritative, yet non-authoritarian diagnoses of social reality and utopian projections of better alternatives.⁴ By this I mean that its guidance and orientation must be authoritative in the sense of having the power to move the hearts and minds of its addressees, giving them reason to feel that it is “advice that they may not safely ignore” (Mommsen, 1888, cited in Arendt, 1977)⁵; yet, at the same time, it must be non-authoritarian by acknowledging its own inherent contestability and opening its prescriptions and recommendations to critical challenge by everyone affected by them (Cooke, 2020c).

Human-induced ecological devastation on a global scale poses many other difficulties for contemporary critical theory. A particular challenge is how to reconcile the need for ecological sustainability with critical theory's projections of an emancipated social condition, since it is hard to imagine how an emancipatory aim such as the free development of each individual could be achieved without a significant material impact on the earth's ecosystems. However, here too Horkheimer's programmatic writings from the 1930s, with their emphasis on the dynamic interplay between mind and reality, between the material and spiritual dimensions of human life, seem to me a fruitful starting point. They remind us that the concrete material impact of humans on earth is not a given but something that demands ongoing critical attention through reference to scientific findings, while keeping in view the importance of achieving a good life on this planet for each human individual within a corresponding good society.