Frankfurt Sociology: Theory of Society

By 1949, out of the postwar chaos, two Germanies emerged as separate political entities: the Federal Republic of Germany ( Bundesrepublik Deutschland ) and the German Democratic Republic ( Deutsche Demokratische Republik ). Ralf Dahrendorf describes the striking dissimilarity of the two states: "If one compares Frankfurt and Leipzig, Dusseldorf and Karl-Marx-Stadt, even East and West Berlin today, one is unlikely to conclude that these cities are all situated in the same country." In 1933 sociology was either exiled or had become part of the Nazi Weltanschauung. The Nazis hated and feared sociology, the science with the capacity to unmask social myths. This chapter presents the attempted codification of Critical Theory as sociology, under the new label, "Theory of Society," after Max Horkheimer&s;s and Theodor W. Adorno&s;s return to Frankfurt. It demonstrates the conceptual looseness of Frankfurt sociology and how it is manifested particularly by its proposition that the demarcation between art and science be blurred.