“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.” HumansCharacterFormExpressionOffersMathematicsPatternsPhysicsAbstractBranchesDaily LifeRealisticTheoreticalPrevailingHindrancePracticalityFree ExpressionHuman PowerTheoretical Physics Book:Critical Theory: Selected Essays Source: Critical Theory: Selected Essays
“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.” MenLongFactsUseFormPrinciplesEconomyTheoryOffersCharacteristicsTemperTraitsPersistBourgeoisObsoleteSuperfluousDiscardedScientific Theory Author:Max Horkheimer
“Whoever desires to live among men has to obey their laws this is what the secular morality of Western civilization comes down to. ... Rationality in the form of such obedience swallows up everything, even the freedom to think.” ThinkingMenFormLawDesireMoralityCivilizationWesternObedienceSecularRationalityWestern CivilizationDesire To Live Book:Zeitschrift Fur Sozialforschung Source: Zeitschrift Fur Sozialforschung
“When the great religious and philosophical conceptions were alive, thinking people did not extol humility and brotherly love, justice and humanity because it was realistic to maintain such principles and odd and dangerous to deviate from them, or because these maxims were more in harmony with their supposedly free tastes than others. They held to such ideas because they saw in them elements of truth, because they connected them with the idea of logos, whether in the form of God or of a transcendental mind, or even of nature as an eternal principle.” PeopleThinkingMindIdeasFormHumanityReligiousJusticePrinciplesSawsAliveDangerousHumilityTasteTruth IsElementsEternalHarmonyPhilosophicalConnectedOddConceptionRealisticMaximsTranscendentalLogosBrotherlyBrotherly LoveDeviateGreat Religious Author:Max Horkheimer
“The pleasure a man gets from a landscape would [not] last long if he were convinced a priori that the forms and colors he sees are just forms and colors, that all structures in which they play a role are purely subjective and have no relation whatsoever to any meaningful order or totality, that they simply and necessarily express nothing....No walk through the landscape is necessary any longer; and thus the very concept of landscape as experienced by a pedestrian becomes meaningless and arbitrary. Landscape deteriorates altogether into landscaping.” IfsMenLongPlayLastsFormOrderWalksPleasureRolesColorConceptsRelationStructureConvincedMeaningfulLandscapeMeaninglessSubjectiveArbitraryTotalityPedestriansLandscaping Author:Max Horkheimer
“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.” FormMaterialsJudgmentConstantConceptionPropositionsRationalismSynthetic Author:Max Horkheimer
