14 Facts About Frankfurt School

Frankfurt School is a school of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the Institute for Social Research, at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1929.

The Frankfurt School theorists proposed that social theory was inadequate for explaining the turbulent political factionalism and reactionary politics occurring in 20th century liberal capitalist societies.

Term "Frankfurt School" describes the works of scholarship and the intellectuals who were the Institute for Social Research, an adjunct organization at Goethe University Frankfurt, founded in 1923, by Carl Grunberg, a Marxist professor of law at the University of Vienna.

Works of the Frankfurt School are understood in the context of the intellectual and practical objectives of critical theory.

The task of the Frankfurt School was sociological analysis and interpretation of the areas of social-relation that Marx did not discuss in the 19th century – especially the base and superstructure aspects of a capitalist society.

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Frankfurt School felt that the appropriate response to such a dilemma was the development of a critical theory of Marxism.

The Frankfurt School understood that a dialectical method could only be adopted if it could be applied to itself; if they adopted a self-correcting method – a dialectical method that would enable the correction of previous, false interpretations of the dialectical investigation.

When others of the Frankfurt School settled in the United States, Benjamin went instead to Paris, whose architecture was central to the Arcades Project, a work that Benjamin thought would be his magnum opus.

Epistemological aspects of the Frankfurt School are linked to the presence of Karl Popper on the scene of philosophical and scientific thought of the 20th century.

Frankfurt School contended that, while "this has produced an important contemporary variant of liberal theories of justice, different enough to be a challenge to liberal theory, but not enough to preserve sufficient continuity with critical theory's past, it severely weakened the identity of critical theory and inadvertently initiated its premature dissolution.

Frankfurt School said, therefore, that contrary to traditional notions of free speech, speech that served to legitimize the status quo should not be tolerated.

Frankfurt School mocked Marcuse for taking offense at Habermas' use of the phrase "left fascism", writing,.

Frankfurt School sought to recruit other movements on the political periphery, such as environmentalism and feminism, to a popular front for socialism.

Frankfurt School was a significant influence on Paolo Freire in the conception of critical pedagogy, alongside influences from orthodox Marxism, the Praxis School, and Frantz Fanon.