Sobre el discurso de Horkheimer al asumir la dirección del Instituto de Investigación Social

• Published in: Cinta de moebio 2023-12 (78), p.196-208
• Main Author: López-Pérez, Sheila
• Format: Article
• Language: por ; spa
• Subjects: escuela de Frankfurt; filosofía social; Frankfurt School; Horkheimer, Max; individual; individuo; PHILOSOPHY; sistema; social philosophy; system; transdisciplinariedad; transdisciplinarity
• ISSN: 0717-554X; 0717-554X
• DOI: 10.4067/S0717-554X2023000300196

This paper analyses Horkheimer's speech when assuming the position of director of the Institute for Social Research, popularly known as the Frankfurt School. Our objective is to trace the type of social philosophy that the institute undertook and that distanced it from other disciplines of the time, among which were pure philosophy and sociology, incapable, in the eyes of the German, of clarifying social reality. We will go through his critique of the totality and his emphasis on the protection of individuality, as well as his denunciation of hyperspecialization in universities. Based on the latter, we will present the transdisciplinarity of academic disciplines as the only way capable of shedding light on a complex and interconnected world. Lastly, we will assess the relevance of social philosophy based on the two types of social philosophy that Horkheimer already glimpsed: that focused on the verum (on the verification of objective and rational facts) and that focused on the bonum (on the pursuit of the good, that is, to its realization through a transformative practice). We will defend the latter as the most useful version of social philosophy.