INTRODUCTION TO WESTERN AESTHETICS

FRANKFURT SCHOOL

Karishma Sahani

3rd Year

Department- Art History

College of Art

CONTENT
 Introduction
 Origin
 Bibliography

INTRODUCTION
The Frankfurt School was a group of scholars known for developing critical theory and
popularizing the dialectical method of learning by interrogating society's contradictions. It was
not a school, in the physical sense, but rather a school of thought associated with scholars at the
Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt in Germany. Frankfurt School is also
known as Critical Theory. The Frankfurt School scholars are known for their brand of culturally
focused neo-Marxist theory a rethinking of classical Marxism updated to their socio-historical
period. This proved seminal for the fields of sociology, cultural studies, and media studies. In
1923, Marxist scholar, economist Felix Weil founded the Institute. Philosophers under this
school were from German. They together did their social research. Critical theory is a social
theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole. It differs from traditional
theory, which focuses only on understanding or explaining society. Critical theories aim to dig
beneath the surface of social life and uncover the assumptions that keep human beings from a
full and true understanding of how the world works.

Important Philosophers-

1. Herbert Marcuse
2. Theodor W. Adorno
3. Max Horkheimer
4. Walter Benjamin
5. Jurgen Habermax

ORIGIN OF FRANKFURT SCHOOL

The Frankfurt school tradition can be traced its origin back to the Institute of Social Research.
Because of its location the institute is referred as Frankfurt School. It was founded by Felix Weil,
the Institute was officially established on 3rd February 1923 but it was conceptualized by Weil in
1922 by a decree of the Education Ministry. Felix Weil’s father Hermann provided the initial
annual funding of 120,000 marks. The Education Ministry suggested to call the institute the
“Felix Weil Institute For Social Research” but Weil declined. This is because the Weil wanted
the Institute to become known and perhaps famous due to its contribution to Marxism as a
scientific discipline and not due to the founder’s name. At the core of the Institute’s program is
the revitalization of Marxism through a re examination of the very foundations of Marxist
theory, with a dual purpose of explaining past errors and preparing for future action.

The Frankfurt school is a founder of the Erste Marxistische Arbeitawoche (First Marxist Week
Work) which met in the summer of 1922 in Ilmenau, Thuringia. The purpose of this meeting
according to Weil was “the hope that the different trends in Marxism, it afforded an opportunity
of talking it out together could arrive at a true or pure Marxism” The Frankfurt School critical
theorists especially the early members were devout Marxism. And because of the supposed
failure of the Marxist revolutionaries to overthrow the capitalist order during the first quarter of
the 20th century as well as the rise of Soviet Marxism which gradually developed into Stalinism,
the Frankfurt School critical theorists attempted to Revitalize Marxism, to clear out Marxism of
misconceptions and distortions that had covered Marxist scholarship during this time.

The Frankfurt School critical theorists believed that Marx’s philosophy remained the hope to the
oppressed those who had been disenfranchised by the capitalist order. A Zweite Marxistische
Arbeitswoche (Second Marxist Work Week) was proposed but did not materialize because a
more ambitious alternative took its place that is the founding of the school. Weil refused to
‘habilitate’ himself to consider the possibility of further academic advancement which will lead
to the directorship of the institute.

Early leaders of the Frankfurt School-

 Kurt Albert Gerlach- He was the first director of the institute. He was described by his
friend Friedrich Pollock as a non party socialist.
 Carl Grunberg- He was the second director of the institute. He was Austrian professor of
Law and Political Science at the University. He was first avowed Marxist to hold a chair
professor at a German University.
 Max Horkheimer- He became the director of the Institute in 1930 and recruited many of
the scholars who came to be known collectively as the Frankfurt School.

One of the core concerns of the scholars of the Frankfurt School, especially Horkheimer,
Adorno, Benjamin, and Marcuse, was the rise of "mass culture." This phrase refers to the
technological developments that allowed for the distribution of cultural products-music, film,
and art on a mass scale.  They objected to how technology led to sameness in production and
cultural experience. Technology allowed the public to sit passively before cultural content rather
than actively engage with one another for entertainment, as they had in the past. The scholars
theorized that this experience made people intellectually inactive and politically passive, as they
allowed mass-produced ideologies and values to wash over them and infiltrate their
consciousness. The Frankfurt School also argued that this process was one of the missing links in
Marx's theory of the domination of capitalism and explained why revolution never came.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 https://www.thoughtco.com/frankfurt-school-3026079
 https://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/4111/CriticalTheory/Frankfurt%20School
%20History.pdf