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Horkheimer Max 1895 - 1973 (78)

Philosophy is overwhelmingly complicated, its procedure depressingly slow.


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Eclipse

Of Reason



Max Horkheimer (February 14, 1895 - July 7, 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist, a Marxist theorist, founding member and director of the Frankfurt School, a neo-Marxist school of critical theory, sociological research, and philosophy. Born in Stuttgart, his father was a factory owner and in his teens he was forced to leave school and work in the factory. Business operations were interrupted by World War I, and once the war ended Max enrolled at the University of Munich, where he studied philosophy and psychology. He then moved to Frankfurt, and in 1925, he was named lecturer with the thesis: "Kant's Critique of Critical Ability as Mediation between Practical and Theoretical Philosophy" In 1930 he took over the directorship of the Institute for Social Research and the chair of social philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.

In 1939, Nazis closed the Institute and expelled him from the university because he was Jewish. He emigrated to Switzerland and then to the USA where he found a position at Columbia University and continued the work of the Institute. In 1940, Horkheimer took American citizenship and moved to Los Angeles. He lived by teaching, lecturing and writing. In 1950 he returned to Germany, re-established the Institute, became rector of the University of Frankfurt from 1951 to 1953, and continued to teach until his retirement in the mid-1960s. He died in Nuremberg in 1973 leaving behind an important work on social sciences and philosophy.