HORKHEIMER, MAX

HORKHEIMER, MAX (1895–1973), German sociologist. Born in Stuttgart, Horkheimer studied philosophy as well as sociology at German universities; he became professor of social philosophy at the University of Frankfurt in 1930 and director of the Institut fuer Sozialforschung in 1931. In 1933 Horkheimer emigrated to Paris and in 1934 to the U.S. where he continued the Institut fuer Sozialforschung in connection with Columbia University in New York. In 1941 Horkheimer settled in Los Angeles where he wrote Dialektik der Aufklaerung (together with Theodor Adorno); upon his return to New York he served as chief research consultant to the American Jewish Committee from 1945 to 1947, and in 1949–50 he edited, with Samuel Flowerman, a series of social-psychological treatises, Studies in Prejudice, which exerted considerable influence on the social sciences in the U.S. Horkheimer returned to Germany in 1948. He reestablished the Institut fuer Sozialforschung there and made it the center of the social sciences in Germany after the demise of the Nazi regime. He was a leading   member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Soziologie, of the UNESCO Conference on Social Tensions, and of many German and American scientific associations. After 1954 Horkheimer also taught at the University of Chicago. Horkheimer's thinking combines a critical appraisal of the philosophy of the enlightenment with the positivistic methodology of the social sciences; his analysis of social-psychological trends has dialectic foundations. Under his influence a distinct school of sociological thought has emerged, centered around the Institut fuer Sozialforschung and the "Frankfurter Beitraege zur Soziologie" (see Adorno, Theodor ). Among Horkheimer's major works are Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft als Bindeglied zwischen theoretischer und praktischer Philosophie (1925), Anfaenge der buergerlichen Geschichtsphilosophie (1930), Eclipse of Reason (1947), Survey of the Social Sciences in Western Germany (1952), and Akademisches Studium. Begriff der Bildung. Fragen des Hochschulunterrichts (1953). (Werner J. Cahnman)