So, after all this surfing, what did the Frankfurt school really do? Well if we use the picture of philosophy as an extended conversation, the Frankfurt school threw side conversation of historical materialism into the center of the room. It forced Marxist ideology to broaden its scope and take ongoing issues, such as how people and institutions interact, into consideration. The impact of the Frankfurt School on Marxism is that it validated it by analyzing it and providing empirical "evidence" of its existence. The Frankfurt School supplied Marxism with methodology. Horkheimer used the notion of rationality as a way of explaining and describing historical materialism; Adorno used language; Benjamin used metaphors of cities; and Habermas rebuilt the whole idea. Where Marx said, "This is historical materialism, and this is what it does," The Frankfurt School said, "This is historical materialism; this is what’s right with it, this is what’s wrong with it, and this is how it works." The Frankfurt school also, and maybe most importantly helped Marxism get rid of the dogmatism, that became associated with it during the rise of socialism. Besides it's direct impact on Marxism, The Frankfurt school had it’s own effects on philosophy as a whole. It affected philosophy by preserving the notion of meta-analysis of society through its economic, political, and social systems. It introduced the notion of social philosophy and made theory part of everyday practice by "mixing" philosophical problems, and empirical problems.

We hope the glimpse of the Frankfurt School that we provided has sparked your interest. If you are interested in works other than the ones summarized in this site, be sure to check out the links to other sites.

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What's up with Elsie the Cow?

Well, in one passage by Theodor Adorno,

Like Elsie, the happpy American advertisement-cow, that phrase about Man, whom the phrase enjoins us to care for, would not be so convincing if the phrase did not rely on a suspicion; the suspicion that, after all, the overpowering conditions of society really were made by men and can be undone by them.

We (the auhors of the webpage) just found the fact that an important philosopher would take the time to pick on a completely defensless cartoon cow. The poor thing does nothing but look happy all day and night. Oh well. Such are the perils of learning philosophy. @:-)