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Max Horkheimer Quotes - Page 2

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Notwithstanding their attacks on the basic conception of rationalism, on synthetic a priori judgments, that is, material propositions that cannot be contradicted by any experience, the empiricist posits the forms of

Notwithstanding their attacks on the basic conception of rationalism, on synthetic a priori judgments, that is, material propositions that cannot be contradicted by any experience, the empiricist posits the forms of being as constant.

Max Horkheimer
Judgment, Form, Synthetic
"Critical Theory: Selected Essays" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 146), 1982.

The inversion of external compulsion into the compulsion of conscience ... produces the machine-like assiduity and pliable allegiance required by the new rationality.

Max Horkheimer
Machines, Inversions, Produce
"The Essential Frankfurt School Reader" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 34), 1982.

Plato and his objectivistic successors ... preserved the awareness of differences that pragmatism has been invented to deny the difference between thinking in the laboratory and in philosophy, and consequently the difference between the destination of mankind and its present course.

Max Horkheimer
Plato, Philosophy, Thinking
Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.36, A&C Black

Although the formulations of science now offer the most advanced knowledge of nature, men continue to use obsolete forms of thought long discarded by scientific theory. In so far as these obsolete forms are superfluous for science, the fact that they persist violated the principle of the economy of thought, that characteristic trait of the bourgeois temper.

Max Horkheimer
Men, Long, Principles
"Critical Theory: Selected Essays" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 133), 1982.

Subjective reason ... is inclined to abandon the fight with religion by setting up two different brackets, one for science and philosophy, and one for institutionalized mythology, thus recognizing both of them. For the philosophy of objective reason there is no such way out. Since it hold to the concept of objective truth, it must take a positive or a negative stand with regard to the content of established religion.

Max Horkheimer
Philosophy, Fighting, Two
Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.9, Read Books Ltd

The significance of God, cause, number, substance or soul consists, as James asserts, in nothing but the tendency of the given concept to make us act or think. If the world should reach a point at which it ceases to care not only about such metaphysical entities but also about murders perpetrated behind closed frontiers or simply in the dark, one would have to conclude that the concepts of such murders have no meaning, that they represent no 'distinct ideas' or truths, since they do not make any 'sensible difference to anybody.

Max Horkheimer
Dark, Thinking, Ideas
Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.31, A&C Black

At present, when the prevailing forms of society have become hindrances to the free expression of human powers, it is precisely the abstract branches of science, mathematics and theoretical physics, which ... offer a less distorted form of knowledge than other branches of science which are interwoven with the pattern of daily life, and the practicality of which seemingly testifies to their realistic character.

Max Horkheimer
Character, Expression, Theoretical Physics
Max Horkheimer (1972). “Critical Theory: Selected Essays”, p.133, A&C Black

Now that science has helped us to overcome the awe of the unknown in nature, we are the slaves of social pressures of our own making. When called upon to act independently, we cry for patterns, systems, and authorities. If by enlightenment and intellectual progress we mean the freeing of man from superstitious belief in evil forces, in demons and fairies, in blind fate--in short, the emancipation from fear--then denunciation of what is currently called reason is the greatest service reason can render.

Max Horkheimer
Mean, Fate, Men
Max Horkheimer (2004). “EPZ Eclipse of Reason”, p.126, A&C Black

The endeavor of scientific research to see events in their more general connection in order to determine their laws, is a legitimate and useful occupation. Any protest against such efforts, in the name of freefom from restrictive conditions, would be fruitless if science did not naïvely identify the abstractions called rules and laws with the actually efficacious forces, and confuse the probability that B will follow A with the actual effort make B follow A.

Max Horkheimer
Order, Law, Names
"Critical Theory: Selected Essays" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 150), 1982.

Calvin's theocentric irrationalism eventually revealed itself as the cunning to technocratic reason which had to shape its human material. Misery and the poor laws did not suffice to drive men into the workshops of the early capitalistic era. The new spirit helped to supplement external pressures with a concern for wife and child to which the moral autonomy of the introverted subject in reality was tantamount.

Max Horkheimer
Children, Reality, Men
"The Essential Frankfurt School Reader" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 34), 1982.

The pathfinders of modern thought did not derive what is good from the law. ... Their role in history was not that of adapting their words and actions to the text of old documents or generally accepted doctrines: they themselves created the documents and brought about the acceptance of their doctrines.

Max Horkheimer
Acceptance, Law, Roles
Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.22, A&C Black

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