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Academy Resources Glossary of Philosophical Terms Timeline of Philosophy A Timeline of American Philosophy Diagram: Development of Philosophic Thought Diagram: Divisions of Philosophy The Philosophy Resource Center The Religion Resource Center Books about Philosophy in The Radical Academy Bookstore Books about Religion in The Radical Academy Bookstore Click Here for New & Used College Textbooks at Discount Prices Click Here for College Education Information & Study Resources Shop Amazon Stores in the Radical Academy Bookstore Magazine Outlet Music Store Classical Music Store Video Store DVD Store Computer Store Camera & Photo Store Computer/Video Games Software Store Musical Instruments Outlet Store Cellular Phones Toys & Games Tools & Hardware Automotive Store Outdoor Living Consumer Electronics Home & Garden Kitchen & Housewares Baby Superstore Apparel & Accessories Gourmet Food Grocery Store Sporting Goods Jewelry & Watches Health & Personal Care Beauty Store		Select: Herbert Marcuse - Theodor Adorno - Erich Fromm - Jurgen Habermas The Frankfurt School Diagrams The Development of Modern and Recent Philosophical Thought Major Influences on American Social Thought The term "Frankfurt School" refers to a group of German-American scholars who worked first in Frankfurt, Germany, in the 1930s. The group went into exile following the rise of Hitler, settling at Columbia University, where the core members worked until World War II, when the group dispersed. The project of the Frankfurt School was to develop a critical theory of contemporary society that would combine philosophy, social theory, economics, and cultural criticism in a new type of interdisciplinary theory. Members of the Frankfurt School developed highly provocative and original perspectives on contemporary society and culture, including analyses of fascism, state monopoly capitalism, the culture industries, advanced industrial society, and the high-tech and consumer society that we currently find ourselves in. Drawing on Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber, the Frankfurt School synthesized philosophy and social theory to develop a critical theory of contemporary society. The Frankfurt School includes Herbert Marcuse, who eventually became the most famous member of the group when he emerged as a guru of the New Left in the 1960s; Max Horkheimer, who was the group's director and a prolific philosopher and social theorist; Theodor Adorno, who was one of the major philosophers and cultural critics of the century; Erich Fromm, who became one of the most popular writer in the United States; Leo Lowenthal, a major literary and cultural critic and an important member of the inner circle of the group; Jurgen Habermas, who has emerged as the most influential contemporary representative of the Frankfurt School. Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) Herbert Marcuse became a U.S. social philosopher who acquired a large following among young radicals in the United States and Europe in the 1960s. Drawing on Hegel, Marx, and Freud, Marcuse put forward a theory of "the great refusal," meaning that individuals should reject the existing social order as repressive and conformist without waiting for a revolution. He came to the United States in 1934 and taught philosophy at various universities until his death. Among his books are Eros and Civilization (1955); One-Dimensional Man (1964); The Aesthetic Dimension (1979), a revised translation of an earlier critique of Marxist aesthetics.   Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) Theodor Adorno was a German sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist. He is perhaps best known as coauthor (with Else Frenkel-Brunswik and others) of The Authoritarian Personality (1950), a survey of Fascist mental attitudes. He also wrote The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947; Eng. trans., 1972), with Max Horkheimer; Philosophy of Modern Music (1949; Eng. trans., 1971); And studies of Hegel and Kierkegaard; and several other works. He spent the Nazi years in England and in the United States. Strongly influenced by Marx and Hegel, Adorno was an intellectual leader of West Germany's New Left movement in the 1960s.   Erich Fromm (1900-1980) Erich Fromm was a psychoanalyst, philosopher, and anthropologist. Fromm stressed the role of culture in the formation of personality; in this he parted company with traditional psychoanalysis. In industrial society, Fromm maintained, people have become estranged from themselves, and he proposed that society should fulfill human needs. Fromm received his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 1922 and trained as a psychoanalyst at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1934 he moved from Nazi Germany to the United States, teaching at several schools before becoming (1951) professor of psychoanalysis at the National University of Mexico and later (1961) professor of psychiatry at New York University. Fromm's description of the authoritarian personality has become an important concept in the psychological study of personality. His works include Escape from Freedom (1941); Man for Himself (1947); Psychoanalysis and Religion (1950); The Sane Society (1955); The Art of Loving (1956); Social Character in a Mexican Village (1970); The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973); To Have or To Be? (1976); Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought (1980).   Jurgen Habermas (1929- ) German philosopher and social theorist Jurgen Habermas, perhaps the most important intellectual in postwar Germany, is best known for his theory of communicative action. Having studied philosophy, history, psychology, and German literature at the universities in Gottingen, Zurich, and Bonn, he obtained his doctorate in 1954. After professorial appointments at Heidelberg (1961) and Frankfurt (1964), he became director of the Max Planck Institute in Starnberg in 1971. He returned to Frankfurt as a professor of philosophy in 1981.  Habermas has been centrally concerned with founding a social theory that involves equal and open participation in public debate. In numerous controversies, both public and academic, he has illustrated and defended his theoretical position. In his early work, which focused on a rethinking of social theory, he wished to separate the methodology of the natural sciences from the approaches used toward social and historical phenomena. In Knowledge and Human Interests (1968; Eng. trans., 1971), Habermas postulated fundamental differences between different types of knowledge and the human interests that are involved in the discovery of that knowledge. In later work he abandoned the notion of interests and turned instead to communicative competence as a foundation for his social theory. His two-volume Theory of Communicative Action (1981; Eng. trans., 1983, 1987) contends that human societies operate with two sorts of rationality: purposive, which governs dealing with the natural world; and communicative, which is based on interactions designed to reach consensus. In his opinion purposive rationality prevails in the modern world, threatening communal life and democratic control over social institutions. Habermas urges that humans complete the task of modernity by strengthening communicative action.   Positive contributions of the Frankfurt School to the Perennial Philosophy. None. Academy Showcase Specials Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Introduction & Directory
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