Discovering

Frankfurt School
Nurul Wahdini - Moza Permata Hati Saud - Ayu Alifah Ramadhani
what’s Frankfurt
School?
The Frankfurt School was a as an assemblage of social scientists
and researchers focused on the application of Marxism to
philosophy and society. The Frankfurt School was founded in 1923
as part of Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. The school was
part of the university's Institute for Social Research, and its
members sought to understand society using ideals from Marxism
and other scientific perspectives. Their work resulted in the
development of Critical Theory, which postulated and examined
the effects of big businesses, monopolies, electronics, technology,
and capitalism on human life and society. The work also explored
human freedom and liberation in the context of slavery
Felix Jose Weil
 Founding of the
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School was originally called the Fur
Socialforschung Institute which was founded by intellectuals
from Frankfurt University in Germany.
The Institut für Sozialforschung (Institut) was the creation of
Felix Weil, who was able to use money from his father's grain
business to finance the Institut. Weil was a young Marxist who
had written his PhD on the practical problems of implementing
socialism and was published by Karl Korsch.
 First Generation of the
Frankfurt School

Theodor Max Herbert

W. Adorno Horkheimer Marcuse
 MAX HORKHEIMER

Philosopher and
sociologist and
also a director of
He was born on
the Institute of
February 14th,
Social Research
1895, Stuttgart,
(1930-1950)
Southern Germany,
and died on July 7, developed an
1973, Nurnberg. original
interdisciplinary
movement, known
as critical theory.
 THEODOR W. ADORNO

Born on 11th German

September 1903, philosopher,
Frankfurt, German sociologist,
and died on 6th pschycologist,
August 1969, Visp, musicologist,
Switzerland. and composer.
 HERBERT MARCUSE

German-
Born on 19th July,
American
1898, Berlin,
philosopher,
German and died
social critic, and
on 29th July, 1979,
Starnberg, German.
political
theorist.
Second Generation of the
Frankfurt School

Jürgen
Habermas
 JüRGEN HABERMAS

German
Born on 18th June philosopher and
1929 in Düsseldorf, social theorist in
German. the tradition of
critical theory
and pragmatism.
 CRITICAL THEORY
Critical theory is a school of thought
that emphasizes reflective assessment
and critique of society and culture by
applying knowledge from the social
sciences and humanities.
Critical theory believes that it is
impossible to create a free and equitable
social order, if human life is still
controlled by external social forces such
as capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and
other domination.
HISTORY OF CRITICAL
THEORY
The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory was born out of various
criticisms of Karl Marx's thought.
The history of the emergence of critical theory is inseparable
from two important interrelated aspects :
a. The environmental conditions of European societies or
countries that are experiencing massive industrialization and
great progress since the early 19th century. This theory was
born from structural inequality in a society, especially Western
society under the capitalism system.
b. The influence of German philosophy idialism, the philosophy
of Immanuel Kant who is famous for the philosophy of
criticalism.
 BASIC ASSUMPTIONS OF
CRITICAL THEORY
1 2
Basically, humans have autonomy and The attitude of neutrality in the conception
freedom. With his autonomy and freedom of science that traditional-positivism
supported by the power of his mind, he is theories formulate in the concept of
able to make social changes. science is something false.

3 4
Critical theory holds that social reality The historical development of society is
exists and occurs dialectically, social reality seen as man's liberation from the grip
is a product or construction of individuals of nature.
or other aspects of life that are interrelated
and full of complexity.
5
Philosophically, positivist sciences are
considered irrational.
 WHAT CRITICAL THEORY
CRITICIZES?
Critical theory opposes positivism. It is opposed because positivism is considered to
tend to deify the social world and maintain it as a neutral process, ignoring actors and
downplaying passive entities determined by natural forces.
Critical theory places its theoretical orientation on cultural issues. In the critical
school, modern society is not only dominated by the economic field, but has gone further
than that, namely the domination of cultural elements.

What the critical theory school is worried about is :

a. The construction of a false, artificial, and pretentious socio-economic reality of society,
especially when transformed through the media to the general public.
b. Critical theorizing on the products of modern capitalism in its various guises has lulled
and anesthetized the public subconscious.
 Therefore, critical theory criticizes :
a. Positivism, it is argued, tends to see social life as a natural process, whereas
critical theorists see social life as a complex and dialectically processed reality.
b. Modern Society, the repression brought about by rationality has displaced
economic exploitation as the dominant social issue.
c. Culture is seen as the reality of modern capitalist society. The rationality of
modern society has turned into industrialization, or in other terms "cultural
industry", which is a rationalized and bureaucratized structure (through television
networks) that controls modern culture. The culture industry produces "mass
culture" which is defined as a regulated, non-spontaneous, controlled and fake
culture.