Max Horkheimer Quotes

Max Horkheimer was a German philosopher and sociologist who was famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the 'Frankfurt School' of social research. Horkheimer addressed authoritarianism, militarism, economic disruption, environmental crisis, and the poverty of mass culture using the philosophy of history as a framework. This became the foundation of critical theory. His most important works include Eclipse of Reason , Between Philosophy and Social Science and, in collaboration with Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment . Through the Frankfurt School, Horkheimer planned, supported and made other significant works possible. Wikipedia  

✵ 14. February 1895 – 7. July 1973
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Works

Eclipse of Reason
Eclipse of Reason
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer: 61   quotes 4   likes

Famous Max Horkheimer Quotes

“When even the dictators of today appeal to reason, they mean that they possess the most tanks.”

Source: "The End of Reason" (1941), p. 28.
Context: When even the dictators of today appeal to reason, they mean that they possess the most tanks. They were rational enough to build them; others should be rational enough to yield to them.

Max Horkheimer Quotes about ideas and thoughts

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Max Horkheimer Quotes

“Answers determined by the social division of labor become truth as such.”

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 50: Describing the pragmatist view

“Having given up autonomy, reason has become an instrument.”

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 21.

“The basic ideals and concepts of rationalist metaphysics were rooted in the concept of the universally human, of mankind, and their formalization implies that they have been severed from their human content. How this dehumanization of thinking affects the very foundations of our civilization can be illustrated by analysis of the principle of the majority, which is inseparable from the principle of democracy. In the eyes of the average man, the principle of the majority is often not only a substitute for but an improvement upon objective reason: since men are after all the best judges of their own interests, the resolutions of a majority, it is thought, are certainly as valuable to a community as the intuitions of a so-called superior reason. … What does it mean to say that “a man knows his own interests best”—how does he gain this knowledge, what evidences that his knowledge is correct? In the proposition, “A man knows [his own interests] best,” there is an implicit reference to an agency that is not totally arbitrary … to some sort of reason underlying not only means but ends as well. If that agency should turn out to be again merely the majority, the whole argument would constitute a tautology. The great philosophical tradition that contributed to the founding of modern democracy was not guilty of this tautology, for it based the principles of government upon … the assumption that the same spiritual substance or moral consciousness is present in each human being. In other words, respect for the majority was based on a conviction that did not itself depend on the resolutions of the majority.”

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), pp. 26-27.

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