Abstract

The dissertation investigates the work of Max Horkheimer in the 1930s and 1940s when he directed the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. I argue that Horkheimer's philosophical work in this period provided an insightful methodological framework for the interdisciplinary project of social research pursued by the Institute's many members. Horkheimer's work provides a philosophical justification of the interdisciplinary approach to social research, along with a non-dogmatic dialectical methodology that grounds a serious engagement with the dominant trends in philosophy and science of the time. He also offers a foundation for the progressive values that inform his critical social theory through his practice of immanent critique. ;Horkheimer's work underwent some changes after his departure from Europe and the practical break-up of the Institute in the 1940s. The changes reflect the shift away from a serious interdisciplinary project of social research and towards more philosophically focused work. His work in the 1940s also privileges a discussion of the character of reason and the human relation to nature. Still, I claim that Horkheimer's work maintains a deep continuity of content and structure, and I argue that the changes in the 1940s signify more of an evolution than a break with his work in the 1930s. In the 1940s, Horkheimer gestures towards a reconstructed Enlightenment framework to ground his work in philosophy and social theory. This reconstructed Enlightenment project attempts to replace an instrumental relation with nature with a relation that acknowledges and respects the difference and integrity of nature. Horkheimer thus brings the human to nature relation within the realm of social and political theory. ;Finally, I use my account of Horkheimer's work to confront the work of Jurgen Habermas, a second generation member of the Frankfurt Institute. I argue that Habermas, while offering important contributions to the project of social theory initiated by Horkheimer, still fails to recognize the significance of Horkheimer's work in constructing a vision of Enlightenment social theory grounded in a non-instrumental relation to nature