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Postmetaphysical Thinking or Refusal of Thought? Max Horkheimer s

Materialism as Philosophical Stance

J. C. Berendzen aaLoyola University, New Orleans, USA

Online Publication Date: 01 December 2008

To cite this Article

Berendzen, J. C.(2008)'Postmetaphysical Thinking or Refusal of Thought? Max Horkheimer's Materialism asPhilosophical Stance',International Journal of Philosophical Studies,16:5,695 718

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Internat ional Journal of Philosophical Studies

Vol. 16(5), 695718

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

ISSN 09672559 print 14664542 online 2008 Taylor & Francishttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/09672550802493900

Postmetaphysical Thinking orRefusal of Thought? Max

Horkheimers Materialism asPhilosophical Stance

J. C. Berendzen

Taylor and Francis LtdRIPH_A_349558.sgm10.1080/09672550802493900International Journal of Philosophical Studies0967-2559 (print)/1466-4542 (online)Original Article2008Taylor & [email protected]

Abstract

Frankfurt School critical theory has long opposed metaphysical philosophy

because it ignores suffering and injustice. In the face of such criticism, propo-nents of metaphysics (for example Dieter Henrich) have accused criticaltheory of not fully investigating the questions is raises for itself, and fallinginto partial metaphysical positions, despite itself. If one focuses on MaxHorkheimers early essays, such an accusation seems quite fitting. There hevociferously attacks metaphysics, but he also develops a theory that pushestoward metaphysical questions. His work can thus seem laden with unpackedmetaphysical baggage, and fraught with contradiction. The aim of this paperis to show that Horkheimers critique of metaphysics makes sense and is notcontradicted by a surreptitious metaphysics. To show this, Horkheimersviews will be compared with Bas van Fraassens in The Empirical Stance

.

Ultimately, the paper should show that Horkheimers early philosophy can bereconstructed in such a way that it employs a materialist stance.

Keywords:

Horkheimer; van Fraassen; critical theory; metaphysics;materialism; stance

Introduction

From Max Horkheimers early aphorisms inDmmerung

onward, Frankfurt

School critical theory has taken up anti-metaphysical or postmetaphysicalpositions. While critical theorists have presented various arguments againstmetaphysics, they all share in the emancipatory interest that has been centralto critical theory since the beginning of the Frankfurt School. For example,Jrgen Habermas counts himself among those who, with the early Horkhe-imer, persevere in the critique of metaphysics because they believe thatthe universal concepts of idealism all too slickly and willingly conceal theconcrete suffering that stems from degrading conditions of life.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES

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other criticisms one might make of metaphysics, such grand theorizingsupposedly masks injustice.

This anti-metaphysical attitude has not been without its critics. For exam-ple, Dieter Henrich, in a larger critique of Habermass work, has famously

characterized critical theorys attempt at postmetaphysical thinking as arefusal of thought. Following Kant, Henrich argues that many of the kindsof questions that are traditionally a part of metaphysics spring from a latentinterest of every human being.

2

Thinkers who attempt to shirk this humaninterest must fall, in Kants terms, into the very metaphysical assertions forwhich they displayed such contempt.

3

On this view, even anti-metaphysicaltheories make metaphysical assumptions, but they are then ignored.Postmetaphysical critical theory thus has its own secret metaphysics, andrefuses thought precisely by not owning up to this fact.

4

One might apply Henrichs criticism to the early Horkheimer, and hisessays from the 1930s that provide the initial framework for critical theory.There Horkheimer vociferously attacks metaphysics. But he does so on thebasis of a form of materialism that seems laden with unpacked metaphysicalbaggage. Any conception of materialism might reasonably be assumed tomake ontological claims. But Horkheimer further depends, in developinghis materialism, on notions of objective reality and natural facts that arenot fully elucidated. He might thus rely on an implicit metaphysics thatcovertly supports his materialism.

It would not be unusual to find such a contradiction at the heart ofHorkheimers early work. Even sympathetic commentators often makesuch a claim; a good example can be found in Alfred Schmidts contentionthat Horkheimers rejection of metaphysics in its own way, is a metaphysi-cally materialistic insight.

5

Such interpretations are compounded by thefact that Horkheimer himself would later find his work to embodycontradiction throughout, at least insofar as he maintained allegiance toSchopenhauer and Marx simultaneously.

6

One might then agree withHauke Brunkhorsts influential view that Horkheimer aims to deconstructphilosophy by driving his philosophical experiments toward overt aporias.

7

On this kind of view, then, there is no Horkheimerianphilosophy

that caneven be guilty of refusing thought.

But one need not interpret Horkheimer as being deconstructive or anti-philosophical in order to explain his seemingly contradictory views on meta-physics and materialism. One can, rather, show that Horkheimers earlywork is not contradictory on this score at all. Or so this paper will contend,by interpreting Horkheimers early materialism in such a way that thecritique of metaphysics does not refuse thought, and is not contradicted bybackhandedly metaphysical pronouncements. To show this, I will enlist a

perhaps unusual ally: Bas van Fraassen, and his workThe Empirical Stance

.Van Fraassen presents a view of philosophy that is anti-metaphysical with-out being overly deflationary, in a sense that is very close to Horkheimers

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MAX HORKHEIMERS MATERIALISM AS PHILOSOPHICAL STANCE

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aims. Also, van Fraassens conception of a philosophical stance provides aunique framework for reconstructing Horkheimers thought in a way thatruns counter to the above criticisms.

I Horkheimers Critique of Metaphysics

As noted above, Horkheimers critique of metaphysics springs from criticaltheorys emancipatory aim. We see this early on in Horkheimers work. In

Dmmerung

, a collection of aphorisms written during Horkheimers firstthree years as the director of the FrankfurtInstitut fr Sozialforschung

, hewrites curtly that though there is little agreement in the history of metaphys-ics, all metaphysicians are not terribly impressed by what torments men.

8

This belief that metaphysics turns a blind eye toward suffering is developed

more fully in Horkheimers essays published during the same period in the

Zeitschrift fr Sozialforschung

, which develop his anti-metaphysicalconception of materialism.

The most basic statement of the kind of philosophical outlook Horkheimeropposes can be found in Hegel:

Philosophy is not really a means of consolation. It is more than that,for it transfigures

reality with all its apparent injustices and reconcilesit with the rational; it shows that it is based upon the Idea itself, and

that reason is fulfilled in it.

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Horkheimer puts his opposition to such a view bluntly in the 1933 essayMaterialism and Metaphysics, claiming that past injustice will never bemade up; the suffering of past generations receives no compensation.

10

Metaphysics that aims at the transfiguration of injustice is bankrupt, andphilosophy must rather aim to uncover, memorialize, and try to eliminateinjustice.

Horkheimer calls (at this stage in his work) this non-transfiguring philos-ophy materialism.

11

What his materialism more specifically entails will bediscussed in the next section of this paper. For the moment, however, weneed only realize that the primary aim of Materialism and Metaphysics isto compare, and primarily contrast, Horkheimers way of doing philosophywith metaphysics.

But what, exactly, does Horkheimer mean by metaphysics? One canbegin to answer that question by looking at the influence of WilhelmDiltheys doctrine of world views on Horkheimers view. For Dilthey,when confronted with the enigma of life, human beings pick up on certaincharacteristics of their experience and develop them into coherent world

views that have putatively universal validity, and which give an overarchingmeaning to life. The development of those world views depends on compre-hensive world pictures, and it is on the basis of world pictures that

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questions of the meaning and significance of the world are decided, andfrom this ideals, highest goods, and sovereign principles for the conduct oflife are derived.

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For Dilthey, this development leads to metaphysics:world views are elevated to an intellectually conceived relationship;

furthermore, scientific reasons are adduced and claims of universal validityare made in short, metaphysics comes into being.

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So metaphysics, inthis sense, amounts to a kind of intellectualized, theoretically elaboratedattempt at coming up with a synoptic view of nature and human experience.

A large part of Horkheimers critique amounts to rejecting such hyposta-tization of merely partial experiences. The offending theories are problem-atic for two related reasons. First, they deal in illusions, because universal,transfiguring thought is beyond us: knowledge of the infinite must itself beinfinite, and a knowledge which is admittedly imperfect is not a knowledge

of the absolute. The world pictures metaphysics deals in are thus picturesof a false absolute; they are stand-ins that for the materialist are alwaysquestionable and not very important because far removed from the activitywhich generated them. Secondly, they are wrongly foundationalist: theeffort to make his personal life dependent at every point on insight intothe ultimate ground of things marks the metaphysician.

14

If insights into theinfinite are false, so is the supposed ultimate ground. Turning away fromfalse pictures of the infinite toward real human life requires sensitivity to thechanging contours of human history, not a vain search for foundations. In

this regard, Horkheimer argues that rather than pursuing a particularlyhuman interest, metaphysics obscures the proper understanding of humanlife.

Many of Horkheimers early essays aim to show how the works ofvarious philosophers, past and present, are troubled precisely becausethey are falsely universalist and foundationalist. This generally involvesuncovering the philosophical theories historical (often economic) roots;for example, Horkheimer says regarding (particularly Kantian) moralphilosophy that materialism attempts to delineate with a specific focuson the distinct periods and social classes involved the actual relation-ships which are reflected, if only in distorted fashion, in the doctrinesof moral philosophy.

15

In all cases, the aim is to show such partialtheories as being just that, and thus undercut their universalist and foun-dationalist pretensions.

The more-or-less scholarly pursuit of unveiling other philosophers falseuniversalism does not capture all of Horkheimers critique, however.Mistaking a partial world view for a universal theory might be misguidedbut is not clearly harmful. Furthermore, metaphysicians might easily try tosave metaphysics from foundationalism by simply admitting the partial

nature of their assumptions. Given such an admission, one could at least stillfind value in metaphysics as an intellectual exercise. So is metaphysicsactually harmful in the way Horkheimer contends?

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That contention is dependent on the view that properly construed,philosophy can actually have great practical import, and can actually workto alleviate suffering. Though a complete description of this view wouldrequire much more investigation, some of the basic points can be summa-

rized as follows. The assumption of the practical import of philosophy isdependent on Horkheimers views on our ability to control our socialarrangements rationally. Horkheimers critique of capitalism, for instance,rests on the notion that capitalist social arrangements are irrational, espe-cially because of the way they create tension between individual and socialinterests. Consider the following passage from his 1933 essay Materialismand Morality:

The social whole lives through unleashing the possessive instincts of

all individuals. The whole is maintained insofar as individuals concernthemselves with profit and the conservation and multiplication of theirown property. Each is left to care for himself as best he can. Butbecause each individual must produce things that others need in theprocess, the needs of the community as a whole end up beingaddressed through activities that are apparently independent of oneanother and seem only to serve the individuals own welfare.

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Horkheimer regards this as a pathological irrationality inherent in capital-

ism: there exists no rational connection between the free competition ofindividuals as what mediates and the existence of the entire society as whatis mediated this irrationality expresses itself in the suffering of the major-ity of human beings.

17

In his earlier work, at least, Horkheimer is confidentthat this irrationality can be made explicit, and more rational arrangementscan be explored.

Because the wretchedness of our own time is connected with the struc-ture of society, a social theory that could make that structures irrationalityexplicit could help overcome that wretchedness.

18

Furthermore, that irratio-nality needs to be made explicit to the classes who suffer the most from it,so they can be formed into a critical force in society. Here Horkheimersview connects generally to the Marxian view of the proletariat as a criticalforce in history, but unlike (on certain interpretations, at least) Marx, hedoes not see history as necessarily moving the proletariat to criticalconsciousness. Rather, various social and economic forces keep the prole-tariat from recognizing its potential; for example, there is a split between theunemployed, who suffer most from capitalism but are disorganized, and theworkers, who more directly experience the problems of capitalism and canbe organized, but who fear losing their jobs.

19

The proletariat requires the

help of the theorist.This point is part of the famed distinction drawn between traditional

theory and critical theory. For Horkheimer, a crucial aspect of critical

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theory is that the theorist must form a dynamic unity with the oppressedclass, so that his presentation is not merely an expression of the concretehistorical situation, but also a force within it to stimulate change. This isopposed to traditional theory (which refers most directly to the individual

sciences), which is isolated from its social and historical roots, and thus doesnot see the ways in which it can promote emancipatory interests. A trulycritical theory keeps a constant view of social reality, and seeks to find possi-bilities for that reality to change.

20

Note that Horkheimer is not arguing that metaphysics directly causes theirrationality and suffering noted. But it is linked to it in two ways. First, meta-physics is a kind of symptom of the social arrangements that cause suffering,as shown by the form of critique that uncovers its social-historical underpin-nings. And the (German) idealist metaphysics Horkheimer most often crit-

icizes is taken to be a symptom of the development of capitalism in the modernperiod. Secondly, metaphysics hides the fact that social arrangements causesuffering by turning away from the particular circumstances of life towardhypostatized intellectual fictions. This further keeps philosophers fromspending their mental energy on overcoming irrationality and considering therational arrangement of human conduct. Thus they do not form a dynamicunity with the oppressed class, and are not a force to stimulate change.

II Materialism as a Method for Social Research

Now that we have seen why Horkheimers materialist research programmeis to be non-metaphysical, and we have examined its basic aims, we can lookmore closely at the methods it employs. This will also help us get a grip onthe sense in which it is materialist, and display the ways in which that mate-rialism might depend on a secret metaphysics. The most obvious startingpoint in such a discussion is to examine Horkheimers relationship to Marx.In Materialism and Metaphysics, Horkheimer tells us that materialism isnot characterized by its form but by its content: the economic theory ofsociety, and he says that the fundamental historical role of economic rela-tions is characteristic of the materialist position.

21

He thus approvingly usesthe position Marx lays out in The German Ideology

, on which he had beenlecturing at Frankfurt in the late 1920s.

22

In The German Ideology

, the firstpremise of materialism is described as the existence of living human indi-viduals, who distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to

produce

their means of subsistence. Production thus becomes the keyterm because what they [humans] are coincides with their production,both with what

they produce and with how

they produce.

23

So the materi-alist, in order to open up philosophy to reality, must rigorously investigate

production in all its historical intricacies.What makes this view a materialism is hotly debated. The traditional

answer is that Marx is thinking of a distinction between materialism and

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idealism, with idealism being, in brief, the view that ideas (values, concepts,reasons, etc.) play a primary causal role in arranging human life and humaninstitutions. Materialism, then, is the insistence that production (oreconomic developments) rather than ideas is the primary cause of our social

arrangements.

24

A different view (primarily associated with the influentialwork of G. A. Cohen) is that the important distinction is between materialand social. On this view social refers to things that entail an ascription topersons, or are dependent on human actions and interactions. Thuseconomic activities, which are part of the material base on the traditionalview, are not material on Cohens view. Rather, material refers to thingsthat can, in principle at least, be understood apart from human actions, suchas natural resources, and the biological needs of human beings.

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The pointof this view, then, is to claim that the social is determined by the material.

26

Setting aside the question of which interpretation is better attributed toMarx, it is clear that for Horkheimer, materialism is contrasted mostprominently with idealism. Idealism is often used synonymously withmetaphysics in Horkheimers work, and in Materialism and Metaphysicshe contends that too many thinkers miss the opposition between material-ism and idealism.

27

Also, he (unlike Cohen) speaks of economics as mate-rial, given that he calls the economic theory of society the content ofmaterialism. His anti-metaphysical critiques of other philosophers thus fitwith the traditional interpretation of materialism insofar as they attempt to

show that (primarily) economic developments are at the root of supposedlyideal/conceptual developments. But Horkheimers main divergence fromthe traditional interpretation (especially as it is often found in Engels

28

)involves downplaying economic determinism and emphasizing culture andpsychology as important parts of social development that cannot be reducedsimply to superstructural results of movements in the economic base.

29

Crucially, though, Horkheimer is most interested in the sense in whichMarxs materialism is methodological

. In The German Ideology

, aside frommaking any ontological claims, Marx exhorts social research to begin withreal premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination,and these premises are derived from the investigation of real individuals,their activity and the material conditions of their life, both those which theyfind already existing and those produced by their activity.

30

Per the tradi-tional interpretation, the point here is to emphasize that general theoreticalconcepts (such as man, property, and production), while necessary fororganizing theoretical work, are empty if they are not built on empiricalinvestigation into actual human activities. Whatever one makes of theterminological validity of his talk of materialism, what Horkheimer meansto develop is a method for social research that generally follows Marxs

view.Rather than being a comprehensive ontological doctrine, Horkheimers

materialism involves a critical attitude toward such views, as it did for earlier

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materialists such as those among the French Enlightenment who treateduniversal ontological questions with complete open-mindedness whileobserving actual historical praxis with extreme rigor.

31

This brand of mate-rialism does not make the metaphysical error of falsely universalizing

partial experiences. Rather, the rigorous observation of historical praxisleads to a kind of modesty (adverted to above in the discussion of the impos-sibility of thought about the infinite) that will mark Horkheimers work:

neither pure thought, nor abstraction, nor intuition is capable ofcreating a connection between the individual and the permanentstructure of being. The individual within itself is incapable of discov-ering either the deepest foundations or the highest essence; nor can itdiscern supposedly ultimate elements of being.

32

The key to Horkheimers early methodology, however, is his belief thatwhile our being rooted in history deprives us of unassailable universal truth,it does not deprive us of truth altogether. Materialism is in a broad sense thename he gives to the method of inquiry that will seek truth (for purposesrelevant to social emancipation) in such a modest form.

Perhaps the best way to begin piecing together Horkheimers materialistmethod is to start with the inaugural address he delivered in 1931 upon takingover the leadership of theInstitut fr Sozialforschung

. There he lays out most

of the main themes of his view. The address begins by noting that socialphilosophys ultimate aim is the philosophical interpretation of the vicissi-tudes of human fate, found in areas like politics, law, and economics. ButHorkheimers interests go beyond these areas because of the desire to orientsocial theory toward the alleviation of human suffering. Thus, social philos-ophy is confronted with the yearning for a new interpretation of a life trappedin its individual striving for happiness.

33

Along these lines Horkheimerfurther notes in Materialism and Metaphysics that the desire for happiness from beginning to end proves illusory; and in the face of this the alterationof those conditions which cause unhappiness could become the goal ofmaterialist thought.

34

Social philosophy, in its materialist form, thus has theprimarily emancipatory aim of working against suffering and for happiness.

The methodology of this emancipatory social science requires, forHorkheimer, a combination of empirical research and more synoptic andinterpretive philosophical thought. In this regard he is not entirely dismiss-ive of metaphysics, and he credits metaphysicians (especially Max Scheler)for recognizing that the natural sciences had become too specialized andnarrow in outlook.

35

This qualified praise for metaphysics also comes out asa part of Horkheimers critique of positivism. Insofar as logical empiricism

holds only to what is, to the guarantee of facts, it tries to insulate theindividual sciences from broader interpretation. Thus positivism robsscience of its emancipatory possibilities, because brute facts can only grasp

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the present, and the possibility for changing the status quo in the future islost. At least in allowing for the interpretation of facts in relation to values,situated in historical and social movements, metaphysics exceeds positivistscience.

36

In the inaugural address, after briefly critiquing earlier social theory(primarily for aiming at transfiguration), Horkheimer explains that thework of theInstitut

depends on empirical research. In this regard he laudsthe sciences, but he is wary of their insularity. The aim of critical theory isto combine such scientific research with a broader viewpoint, and thusovercome the problems with both metaphysics and positivism:

The relation between philosophical and corresponding specializedscientific disciplines cannot be conceived as though philosophy deals

with the really decisive problems while on the other side empiricalresearch carries out long, boring, individual studies that split up into athousand partial questions the task is to do what all true researchershave always done: namely, to pursue their larger philosophical ques-tions on the basis of the most precise scientific methods, to revise andrefine their questions in the course of their substantive work, and todevelop new methods without losing sight of the larger context.

37

This continuous, dialectical penetration and development of philosophical

theory and specialized scientific practice can be aimed (to use the exampleHorkheimer gives) at the elucidation of the links between economic struc-ture, psychology, and culture, in such a way that the work of various socialscientists and theorists can be brought together to forge an empiricallyinformed picture of society that might replace such previous metaphysicalcategories as Universal Reason or Spirit.

38

The epistemology which grounds this research project can be termed,broadly and with some reservation, both empiricist and realist. Horkheimerspeaks often of such research as aiming at facts, and he claims that mansstriving for happiness, which we have seen is a basic component of hisresearch, is to be recognized as a natural fact.

39

This connects to a realiststrain in Horkheimers work that comes out in his 1935 essay On theProblem of Truth. Materialism, he tells us, insists that objective reality

isnot identical with mans thought and can never be merged with it. The truthabout this objective reality has to be discovered empirically, which, forHorkheimer, means that it is always established by real events and humanactivity.

40

Crucially, though, the fact that empirical truth is always tied tosuch events and activities makes it necessary to see that it is conditionedand transitory:

Already in the investigation and determination of facts, and evenmore in the verification of theories, a role is played by the direction of

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attention, the refinement of methods, the categorical structure of thesubject matter in short, by human activity corresponding to the givensocial period.

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Because all inquiry into truth is so historically and socially mediated, cogni-tion becomes a process, and truth is constantly open to adjustment. And thismeans that truth must necessarily be tied to the proper kind of procedure,which is determined by those who inquire into the truth:

The correction and further definition of the truth is not taken care ofby History, so that all the cognizant subject has to do is passivelyobserve, conscious that even his particular truth, which contains theothers negated in it, is not the whole. Rather, the truth is advanced

because human beings who possess it stand by it unbendingly, apply itand carry it through, act according to it, and bring it to power againstthe resistance of reactionary, narrow, one-sided points of view.

42

The stability of concepts depends on the stability of the reality thatdetermines the meaning of those concepts, so that the cognitive value ofunderstanding rests on the fact that reality knows not only constant changebut relatively static structures.

43

Presumably, suffering and happiness, atleast as brute facts, are such relatively static structures, but their precise

meaning has to be determined according to current reality. And that meansthat they have to be submitted to the proper procedure, which brings truthto light against reactionary, narrow, one-sided points of view, as mentionedabove.

44

This procedure necessarily involves interdisciplinary research,which brings together various empirically oriented researchers withtheorists who help organize and interpret empirical data.

At this point, we can see precisely how Horkheimer might be refusingthought in the way Henrich describes. Horkheimers critique of metaphysicsdepends on his finding an alternative in materialism. Metaphysical investi-gations that aim to provide a totalizing meaning for human life are to bereplaced by materialist investigations into historical and social reality. Butthis materialism relies on seemingly metaphysical assumptions in two ways.First, it (along with the critique of metaphysics) gets its initial impetus froma view of happiness and suffering as natural facts. Secondly, the form ofempirical inquiry Horkheimer advocates is bolstered by an epistemologythat depends on his conception of objective reality. But what is this view ofa world of natural facts, wherein social-scientific investigations can seizeupon objective reality, if it is not a metaphysical view about the ontologicalstatus of the world?

One might, then, develop a potential criticism of Horkheimer in thefollowing way. He is clearly motivated by and concerned with a humaninterest (per Henrichs view) concerning our desire for happiness and its

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frustration through suffering. This motivation leads him to develop aresearch programme that he thinks can illuminate this concern. Per thisprogramme, he is moved to link theoretical and empirical research, and toemphasize the historically bounded nature of both. Furthermore, the

particularly empiricist part of this view leads him to emphasize the carefulobservation of our objective reality, and to derive historically conditionedfacts of nature from it. And this, for him, is what materialism is. But, he doeslittle to justify or explain the metaphysical positions that underlie the mate-rialism he has been driven to support. Construed in this manner, Horkhe-imers early work surely is refusing thought, and it is unlikely that one couldsave him by claiming that he means to press contradictions or deconstructphilosophy. Rather, it just sounds like bad philosophy with woefully under-supported assumptions. But this is a poor interpretation of Horkheimers

work, and Bas van Fraassen can help show us why.

III On Philosophical Stances

Certainly Horkheimer has put himself in a difficult position, and might wantto have his materialist cake and eat it too. In the face of this problem, it isimportant to come up with a clear picture of how one can forgo the kind ofmetaphysical theorizing Horkheimer criticizes without undercutting thepossibility of engaging in philosophical thought.

In his recent lectures published as The Empirical Stance

, Bas van Fraas-sen suggests just such a position. While his view of philosophy as stance isdeveloped in the specific context of a discussion of analytic metaphysics andempiricism in philosophy of science, it has broader implications for philos-ophy as a whole. Van Fraassen shows us how to remove the problematicaspects of metaphysical thinking in a way that opens up further avenues forphilosophical research. In this regard, his work stands out from many anti-metaphysical works that are more strictly negative. Also, what is mostpertinent for this paper is that van Fraassens views uniquely match up withHorkheimers, and provide us with a powerful framework for reinterpretingHorkheimers early thought.

Before we can see how van Fraassens view fits with Horkheimers work,however, we need to look at some of the specifics of the view developed in

The Empirical Stance

. The terms used in the title are crucial to the point ofthe lectures as a whole. Van Fraassen wants to answer the question What isempiricism and what could it be? He ends up emphasizing the latter part;his main aim is to reactualize the original critical intent of empiricism andcast it in a contemporary light. In doing this, he ends up calling his empiri-cism a stance, contrasting it with metaphysically developed empiricisms.

Van Fraassen begins to explain the notion of philosophy as stance bydescribing its opponent, contemporary analytic metaphysics, which he takesto be a sort of reactionary reintroduction of seventeenth-century-style

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metaphysics in the face of the critical force of empiricism. In an endnote, hedescribes such metaphysics in the following way:

The type of metaphysics to which I refer, and which I take to be the

enterprise engaged in by, for example, Descartes and Leibniz, ischaracterized by the attempted construction of a theory of the world,of the same form as a fundamental science and continuous with (as anextension or foundation of) the natural sciences.

45

Van Fraassen makes his critical case early on in the aptly titled first lecture,Against Analytic Metaphysics. He begins by invoking the basics of Kantstranscendental dialectic, and claims that traditional metaphysics overshootsthe bounds of reason. Shortly thereafter, he vividly compares metaphysical

theories to baroque four-poster beds, implying that they are fanciful (andnot at all necessary) additions to common ideas, and laments that metaphy-sicians interpret what we initially understand into something hardly anyoneunderstands.

46

The deeper meaning of this image comes out in the claim thatseventeenth-century-style metaphysics replaces its real subjects of inquirywith obscure simulacra that it uses to develop theories that purport todescribe or explain those real subjects.

47

This use of simulacra is connectedto the metaphysical error that van Fraassen sees empiricism as uncovering:the demand for explanation and the use of explanation-by-postulate.

48

The

metaphysics that seeks to present a complete and true picture of the worldoperates in this fashion: it purports to explain phenomena by knitting theminto a theory which rests on postulated entities that present a trumped-uppicture of the world (thus the simulacra) that supposedly then determinesthe truth of the matter.

To keep from falling into this kind of obscurantist error, philosophyshould see itself as a stance. What van Fraassen wants from philosophy isthat it be open and honest about the fact that it is not an ultimately grounded,presuppositionless enterprise. A philosophical position, he tells us,

can consist in something other than a picture of what the world is like a philosophical position can consist in a stance (attitude, commit-ment, approach, a cluster of such possibly including some proposi-tional attitudes such as beliefs as well). Such a stance cannot besimply equated with having beliefs or making assertions about whatthere is.

49

While this position can be expressed theoretically, philosophy as attitude orstance is not the same as the development of a comprehensive picture ofwhat there is.

But van Fraassens support for the stance view goes beyond his critiqueof metaphysical obscurantism. Consider the following central claim of TheEmpirical Stance

:

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Philosophy itself is a value-and-attitude driven enterprise; philosophyis in false consciousness when it sees itself otherwise. To me, philoso-phy is of overriding importance, to our culture, to our civilization, tous individually. For it is the enterprise in which we, in every century,

interpret ourselves anew. But unless it so understands itself, it degen-erates into an arid play of mere forms.

50

Thus, what is truly driving van Fraassens view is not just a particular posi-tion on how analytic philosophy of science operates (though that is clearlyat play). It is connected to a broader belief that philosophy has a strongpractical import. He does not seek to recover philosophy from metaphysicsmerely because he thinks most metaphysics is internally inconsistent oroutstrips its own aims and abilities. Metaphysics obscures rather than

interprets, and thus separates philosophy from its most important aim.Now that we have seen why van Fraassen advocates the stance view, wecan examine more closely how philosophical stances are supposed tooperate. Stances have two important aspects. In the first instance, the stanceprovides a kind of beginning point for philosophical research.

51

But a start-ing point that stipulates a position based on an attitude or value claim iscrucially unlike a self-evident or necessary axiom. Rather, the aim is quitethe opposite: in the face of our inability to ground all knowledge and inquiryon axiomatic principles, we need to develop our perspectives on different

grounds, and admit to this. In this regard van Fraassen points out that theconnection to stances common meaning is not arbitrary: it literally meansa persons standing place or vantage point, advantageous or evenindispensable to a certain purpose or a posture, the configuration of thebody again, one advantageous or even indispensable to a certain purpose,such as to perform a specific athletic feat.

52

Such a practical starting pointis not an eternal truth; rather it works in relation to a particular purpose.

The second important aspect of the stance is that once the beginningpoint is set, further research is construed according to the value-driven aimsof the stance. So the stance shows up not only in ones starting point, butalso in which approaches are felt as congenial or promising.

53

This pointcomes out in van Fraassens discussion of voluntarist epistemology.Voluntarist, in this sense, has minimal connotations; the term is used inorder to highlight the fact that our epistemology follows the aims we decide

to follow given the attitudes and values expressed in our philosophicalstance. Thus a voluntarist epistemology derives its positions from the prac-tical aims we want to achieve, rather than from some purported picture ofwhat counts as true knowledge about the facts of the world.

54

And while wemay be beholden to basic empirical facts and basic rules of rationality, there

is no complete picture of the world that can rationally compel us to adoptany particular beliefs.55So we have to choose on the basis of our attitudesand commitments.

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For the sake of clarity, and to make it easier to match up van Fraassensview with Horkheimers, we can more precisely state what a stance is bydividing the preceding discussion into three basic points. 1. From the pointof view of one who espouses a philosophical stance, philosophy does not

need to be grounded in a comprehensive picture of the world. This comesout of the critique of seventeenth-century-style metaphysics, whichobscures common ideas by attempting to explain them through postulatedsimulacra. When a stance is accepted, such a metaphysical search is givenup. 2. The critique of metaphysics is further tied to a view of philosophy ascrucially practical, and this necessitates that philosophy be self-aware of itsvalue. So not only is metaphysics given up when the stance is accepted, butcertain practical aims are also embraced. 3. Per the preceding points, stancesare taken to stipulate a value- and attitude-driven starting point for

research. Furthermore, the resulting research is continually determined bythe practical aims tied to that starting point. With these points in mind, wecan begin to develop the sense in which Horkheimer can be interpreted asemploying a materialist stance.56

To start, it can be noted that Horkheimer clearly agrees with van Fraassenon point 1. The discussion of world pictures that Horkheimer, followingDilthey, makes a part of his critique of metaphysics is very similar to vanFraassens discussion of simulacra.57 In both cases, the problem is thatmetaphysicians take common (or at least broadly observable) phenomena

and replace them with hypostatized or distorted abstractions, which obscurewhat they purport to explain. Along these lines, Horkheimer would alsoshare van Fraassens distaste for explanations-by-postulate. Given a lackof understanding in some area (perhaps ethics or science), van Fraassensays:

It might be one thing to take me by the hand and lead me into the rele-vant experience. That might allow me to acquire a deeper insight intothose aspects of human experience. It would be quite another thing to postulate that there are certain entities or realms of being aboutwhich ethics (or science, or religion) tells us a true story.58

Horkheimer does say, in Materialism and Metaphysics, that the material-ist tries to replace the justification of an action with an explanation of itthrough an historical understanding of the agent.59Though Horkheimer ishere in favour of explanation, the difference between his view and vanFraassens is merely verbal. Justification, for Horkheimer, is roughly thesame as explanation-by-postulate, insofar as justification aims to providean ultimate, transfiguring ground for the thing in question. Given that

Horkheimer finds such grounds to be illusory, the justification would haveto rest on a postulate, which would purport to explain the ultimate truth.Furthermore, what Horkheimer means by explanation must generally

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agree with van Fraassens being taken by the hand through experience,insofar as Horkheimer wants research to work carefully through empiricaldata and historical events. Both agree that truly rigorous theory shouldengage in this type of explanation rather than postulate metaphysical

entities.Point 2, that philosophy is crucially practical and should be self-aware of

this practical import, clearly links the two thinkers. Van Fraassens work isnot in social theory, and is not motivated by the same Marxian aims asHorkheimers. He does not claim that the philosopher should work forsocial change to the same extent as Horkheimer. But in claiming that meta-physics is problematic because it obscures philosophys real value andimport, the two agree. Horkheimer would merely add that philosophysneed to interpret the world anew remains an arid play of forms if that

interpretation has no influence on practical action.On can also link Horkheimers thought to point 3. The idea of the stanceas starting point fits well; for example, Horkheimer tells us in Materialismand Metaphysics that materialism does not lack ideals its ideals areshaped with the needs of society as a starting point and are measured by whatis possible in the foreseeable future with the human forces available.60Thus,Horkheimers materialism is also like a stance insofar as it plays a functionalrole in organizing research. The decision to regard the needs of society as astarting point, connected to his views on suffering and injustice, and the

practical abilities of philosophy, motivated his picture of interdisciplinarysocial research. Furthermore, the theoretical and interpretive elements ofthat research are also always oriented by that initial emancipatory interest.

Given this overview of van Fraassens ideas, and the initial comparison ofthose ideas with Horkheimers views, we can now move on to a deeperconsideration of what it would mean to attribute to Horkheimer a materi-alist stance. This will largely depend on further interpreting Horkheimersthought in light of point 3 above. In particular, we need to examine howtaking his work as consonant with van Fraassens conception of stancessaves him from the Henrich-style accusation of the refusal of thought, andfrom the claim that his work is purposely contradictory or unphilosophical.

IV Horkheimers Materialist Stance

As if he were anticipating van Fraassens view, Horkheimer wrote in Mate-rialism and Metaphysics that materialism, in fact, does not mean simply aquestionable view of reality as such; it also stands for a whole series of ideasand practical attitudes.61 The primary practical attitude involved inHorkheimers materialism is the emphasis on happiness and suffering.

Further construing this materialism as a stance in van Fraassens senseshould allow us to dissolve the problems related to Horkheimers supposedsecret metaphysics, and show that he espouses a coherent theory.

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We might first consider the potentially problematic metaphysicalelement connected to suffering and happiness, because that is mostfundamental to Horkheimers materialism. When Horkheimer refers to anatural fact requiring no justification, we would do best to interpret such

a claim along the lines of a stance. He is not referring to some kind ofintellectual intuition of a first principle or a natural law (though taken outof context, it might sound as though he is). Rather, he is bluntly statingthe attitude in which his materialism finds its starting point. All one has todo is look at the world around them to see and experience suffering andthe desire for happiness, and in the face of that, Horkheimer does not feelthe need to give a philosophical justification for his anti-suffering attitude.Such a theory would have as much of a necessary connection to hisresearch plan as a four-poster bed has a necessary connection to the act of

sleeping.Thus in keeping with van Fraassens view, Horkheimers materialismcan be seen as a cluster of attitudes, commitments, and beliefs; his value

judgments, including his emphasis on suffering, his rejection of metaphysi-cal obscurity, and his early (and qualified) optimism regarding the possibil-ity of a rational society, sit alongside methodological commitments tointerdisciplinary pluralism and beliefs and arguments regarding historicistepistemology and the nature of capitalism. These views are all woventogether into the stance that generates the research programme for the

Institut fr Sozialforschung.Perhaps one can save Horkheimers claim regarding natural facts byinterpreting it through the notion of a stance, as just discussed. This wouldthen connect with the aspect of van Fraassens view that sees stances asproviding starting points. But what about his much more detailed discus-sions of objective reality and truth, in places like On the Question of Truth,which are so fundamental to his methodology? It would seem that that is thereal place where he is guilty of refusing thought by introducing unexplainedmetaphysical assumptions. Here, we can handle the potential problems byreconstructing Horkheimers views in comparison with van Fraassensdiscussion of voluntarist epistemology.

First, it should be noted that Horkheimer could have done a better job ofexplaining his views in this regard. But the fact that his writing sometimeslacks clarity does not prove that his views are contradictory or are lackingneeded metaphysical grounding. It only shows that they require furtherexposition. To motivate such exposition, we can consider one offendingpassage from On the Question of Truth:

Truth is decided not by individuals beliefs and opinions, not by the

subject in itself, but by the relation of the propositions to reality, andwhen someone imagines himself the messenger of God or the rescuerof a people, the matter is not decided by him or even by the majority

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of his fellows, but by the relation of his assertions and acts to theobjective facts of the rescue.62

The correspondence view of truth expressed here is not uncommon, though

most would give it a fuller explanation than does Horkheimer. But his viewcan be more fully explained. First, the reference to assertions and acts (andthe broader context) suggests that propositions in this case is an instanceof a more general point. Really, Horkheimer is thinking of human cognitiveor conceptual activity in general, so propositions are one part of the humanactivity that conditions our grasp of reality. Horkheimer clearly does notwant to endorse a strong realist position; an isolated and conclusive theoryof reality is completely unthinkable for the reasons discussed in sections Iand II above.63Unthinkable is meant to be taken more or less literally in

this context; all thinking is marked by practical and theoretical interests thatare partial and subject to historical change, and we cannot step outside ofthese interests to get at some complete reality.

But Horkheimer is still not an anti-realist who sees truth as determinedeither wholly by our practical interests or by theory-dependent conditionsof verification. When he says that truth is dependent on the relation ofpropositions to reality, he means both of those to be given equal weight.While the weight put on propositions (or better, human conceptualactivity) removes the possibility of a metaphysical theory of reality, it does

not remove reality. In this sense, Horkheimer would broadly agree withwhat Hilary Putnam has recently called natural realism. Putnam arguesthat what we recognize as the face of meaning is, in a number of fundamen-tally important cases, also the face of our natural cognitive relations to theworld even though it is also the case that as language extends thosenatural cognitive relations to the world, it also transforms them.64

Horkheimer is, in large part, expressing the same view. We have anumber of natural cognitive relations (among which Putnam countsperceiving, imagining, and remembering) that connect in a common-sense(or, as Putnam puts it, nave) way with a real world, but it is also the casethat our cognitive activities (which Putnam discusses as linguistic activity)extend and transform that connection in various ways. Insofar as Horkhe-imer is focusing on current and historical social conditions, it makescommon, or nave, sense to speak of facts and reality, and to discuss ourhistorical perspectives on that reality. And he could have said, if pressed,that such natural realism is all the realism we need for the purposes of theresearch programme that is oriented toward combating suffering. Horkhe-imers realism is not part of a factual theory of cognition, which seeks topresent a complete picture of world and the forms of knowledge we can

have of that world. Such a theory is, he thinks, impossible. But more impor-tantly, attempting to construct a metaphysical theory that would couch hisviews in some purported synoptic picture of the world would not contribute

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to those emancipatory aims. Like van Fraassens voluntarist epistemology,Horkheimers method is chosen, within the bounds of the natural realistconception of empirical truth, according to what is warranted by the stance.

We are now in a position to assess whether Henrichs criticism of critical

theory really gains much traction against Horkheimers early works.Horkheimers thought does not secretly employ metaphysical views that gounexplored. Those parts of his view that invite this criticism are not secretor surreptitiously introduced at all. Rather, they can be taken to be astraightforward part of the materialist stance; given the beginning pointprovided by Horkheimers emancipatory aims, a theory is developed that ismeant to pursue those aims. Nothing is hidden, and nothing is added thatthe materialist stance does not need to endorse.

Also, if we interpret Horkheimers materialism as stance-driven, it does

not make sense to call his critique of metaphysics a materialistically meta-physical insight. That claim would make sense if what Horkheimer meant todo was replace certain (idealist?) conceptions of the world with his ownmaterialist conception of the world. Such a materialist metaphysics mightnot aim at a transfiguration of the world that ignores suffering, but it wouldstill aim at a synoptic understanding of the world. But such a view would notfit with Horkheimers deeper critique of metaphysics, which denies theplausibility of any such synoptic viewpoint. Materialism is not metaphysicalin Horkheimers sense of the word, because it is oriented toward emancipa-

tory aims, not an overarching picture of reality.But in the face of this rejection of metaphysics, Horkheimer still valuesphilosophyfor its interpretive function, and it is important to keep this inmind when considering the claim that his aims might ultimately be anti-philosophical. This is seen in his criticism of logical positivism, whichstigmatizes as metaphysics all thought which attempts to clarify these rela-tions [between science and the aims of metaphysics] and all theories thattake critical account of the special sciences.65The point is to save a certainconception of philosophy from being so stigmatized. Such philosophy seeksto critique the sciences and elaborate the broader emancipatory concerns ofsociety so they can be combined with scientific research. While this viewmay denude philosophy of some of its traditional pretensions, it is clearlynot an anti-philosophical view; it is crucial that the philosopher proposestheoretical guidelines for empirical research, and interprets such researchinto a coherent perspective on society and its problems.66

But what of Henrichs accusation that in cutting off further metaphysicalinquiry, critical theory is denying a latent interest of every human being?Horkheimer could just as easily emphasize that the interest in emancipationis a prominent aspect of human life, and further argue that philosophical

inquiry should not be extended in a way that overlooks that emancipatoryinterest. In this case, there is perhaps a difference of opinion over therelative importance of theoretical and practical activities, and what degree

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of each is most human. Neither side denies the importance of theory orpractice, but Henrichs emphasis lies with the former while Horkheimerslies with the latter. It is not clear, however, that either of these is a belief thatis rationally compelled so much as an attitude or expression of value that

would itself be a part of a philosophical stance.

V Conclusion

When judged according to the efficacy of the Frankfurt Schools actual earlyresearch programme, Horkheimers work would not fare well. After all,though theInstitut fr Sozialforschungis still in operation (currently underthe directorship of Axel Honneth), theInstitutas it was organized underHorkheimer rather quickly dissolved, large part because of the rise of

National Socialism and Horkheimers subsequent exile.67

These historicalchanges further ushered in theoretical changes that shaped Horkheimerslater work.68

But this does not mean that contemporary critical theory would notbenefit from continued study of Horkheimers early work. When construedin terms of the materialist stance, it can be seen to have certain advantages.It is important, for instance, that it always keeps its emancipatory aims at theforefront. While all critical theory is rooted in such aims, there is always apossibility that such aims will become obscured by further theoretical devel-

opments.

69

This problem should be forestalled if one keeps the materialiststance in view. Also, it is noteworthy that the materialist stance as construedhere swings relatively free of the specific theoretical commitments onemakes in pursuing research according to that stance, other than to show thatthey must be driven by the appropriate practical concerns. One could thustake up the position described in this paper but develop it in somewhat newdirections. And importantly the idea of a materialist stance itself does notstand or fall with the theoretical strategies that are developed out of it.70

This flexibility was important to Horkheimer, and could benefit contempo-rary critical theory as well.

Furthermore, ideas like Horkheimers are in vogue in areas of philosophyoutside of critical theory, so broader study of his work is merited. For exam-ple, those who favour non-ideal theory in political philosophy and thosewho advocate experimental philosophy all press for a rejection of a prioritheorizing, and an emphasis on empirical research within philosophy. View-ing Horkheimers work in terms of the stance should help motivate compar-isons with such contemporary work, by making sense of the seemingcontradictions in his views. If such an interpretation of Horkheimers essaysis combined with contemporary views on philosophy and empirical

research, a vital new social research programme might result.And there are other reasons for re-examining Horkheimers work. The

force of the values that form his view has certainly not waned since the

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1930s: the world is still filled with people suffering and people striving forhappiness. Because of this, what is here being called the materialist stancecontinues to have appeal. Of course one can argue with the assumption thatphilosophy and social research can have a practical effect in dealing with

such suffering. But as long as there are those who are engaged in socialphilosophy with practical intent, Horkheimers early work should be rele-vant. The present interpretation of Horkheimers materialism should alsohelp. Social philosophy should be open about its value orientations, andforgo unnecessary attempts to provide ultimate justifications. Rather, thework of interpreting, and possibly changing, our current social conditionscan proceed without such foundations, and perhaps a renewed study ofHorkheimers early work can help provide a framework for such research inthe future.

Loyola University, New Orleans, USA

Notes

1 Jrgen Habermas, Metaphysics After Kant, in Postmetaphysical Thinking:Philosophical Essays(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), p. 15.

2 Dieter Henrich, What is Metaphysics What is Modernity? Twelve Thesesagainst Jrgen Habermas, trans. Peter Dews, in Habermas: A Critical Reader(Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1999), quotation on p. 294.

3 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A, X, quoted in Henrich, What isMetaphysics?, p. 296. Kant is specifically criticizing Voltaire and similar early-modern ironists; Henrich means to extend this critique to Habermas.

4 The term secret metaphysics is found in Henrich, What is Metaphysics?, p. 317.5 Alfred Schmidt, Max Horkheimers Intellectual Physiognomy, in Seyla

Benhabib, Wolfgang Bon, and John McCole (eds) On Max Horkheimer: NewPerspectives(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), p. 29.

6 Max Horkheimer, Preface, in Critical Theory: Selected Essays, ed. Matthew J.OConnell (New York: Continuum Press, 1999), p. ix.

7 Hauke Brunkhorst, Dialectical Positivism of Happiness: Max HorkheimersMaterialist Deconstruction of Philosophy, in On Max Horkheimer, quotation on

p. 68. It is noteworthy that Habermas endorses Brunkhorsts view: see, forexample, Habermas, Remarks on the Development of Horkheimers Work, inOn Max Horkheimer, p. 50.

8 Horkheimer, Dmmerung, in Gesammelte Schriften Band 2: PhilosophischeFrschriften 19221932(Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1987),p. 354. For an English translation of the aphorism see Horkheimer, Dawn andDecline: Notes 19261931 and 19501969, trans. Michael Shaw (New York:Seabury Press, 1978), pp. 456. This text includes part of Dmmerung.

9 G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction, trans.H. B. Nisbet (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 67; quoted inHorkheimer, The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an

Institute for Social Research, trans. John Torpey, in Between Philosophy andSocial Science: Selected Early Writings(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), p. 4.My italics.

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10 Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, in Critical Theory,p. 26.11 Materialism would be later replaced by critical theory as the name for

Horkheimers philosophical position. The shift is most clearly marked with the1937 publication of Traditional and Critical Theory (in Critical Theory,pp. 188243). On this shift in terminology, see Brunkhorst, Dialectical

Positivism of Happiness.12 Horkheimer quotes Wilhelm Dilthey, Die Typen der Weltanschauung und die

Ausbildung in den metaphysischen Systemen, cited in Materialism andMetaphysics, p. 17. An English translation of this text can be found in DiltheysPhilosophy of Existence, trans. William Kluback and Martin Weinbaum (NewYork: Bookman Associates, 1957). The translation of the quotation used hereis my own, based on the text found in Horkheimer, Materialismus undMetaphysik, in Gesammelte Schriften, Band 3: Schriften 19311936(Frankfurtam Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1988), p. 77. World view, as iscommon, translates Weltanschauung, and world picture translates Weltbild. Aworld picture is, briefly, the intellectual component of a world view; it is a

comprehensive conception of ones world, while a complete world view alsoincludes ones affective life and behaviours. Horkheimer does not make muchof this distinction.

13 See Diltheys Philosophy of Existence, p. 39.14 All quotations in this paragraph are from Horkheimer, Materialism and

Metaphysics, pp. 27, 20, and 18, respectively.15 Horkheimer, Materialism and Morality, in Between Philosophy and Social

Science, p. 21.16 Ibid., p. 19.17 Ibid., p. 20.18 Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, p. 24.

19 See Die Ohnmacht der deutschen Arbeiterklasse, in Dmmerung, pp. 3738;cited and discussed in Wolfgang Bon, The Program of InterdisciplinaryResearch and the Beginnings of Critical Theory, in On Max Horkheimer,pp. 10810.

20 See Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory, quotation on p. 215.21 Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, quotations on pp. 45 and 25,

respectively.22 John McCole, Seyla Benhabib, and Wolfgang Bon, Introduction, Max

Horkheimer: Between Philosophy and Social Science, in On Max Horkheimer,p. 5. See also Horkheimers use of The German Ideology in Materialism andMetaphysics, p. 25.

23 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology, Vol. I, Ch. I, trans. W.Lough, in Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works, Vol. V (New York:International Publishers, 1976), all quotations on p. 31.

24 This summary of the traditional view is indebted to Charles W. Mills, Is itImmaterial that theres a Material in Historical Materialism?, Inquiry, 32(1989) pp. 32342.

25 G. A. Cohen, Karl Marxs Theory of History: A Defense, expanded edition(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), quotation on p. 94.

26 Mills, Is it Immaterial?, provides an excellent summary of Cohens view on thispoint.

27 Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, p. 13.

28 See, for example, Frederick Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, trans.Edward Aveling, in Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works, Vol. XXIV(New York: International Publishers, 1989), pp. 281325.

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29 On this point see Bon, The Program of Interdisciplinary Research, pp. 11015.30 Marx, German Ideology, p. 31.31 Horkheimer, The Rationalism Debate in Contemporary Philosophy, in

Between Philosophy and Social Science, p. 223.32 Ibid., p. 223.

33 Horkheimer, The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of anInstitute for Social Research, in Between Philosophy and Social Science, quota-tions on pp. 1 and 7, respectively.

34 Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, p. 24.35 See Horkheimer, Notes on Science and the Crisis, in Critical Theory; the point

regarding Scheler is made on p. 6.36 See Horkheimer, The Latest Attack on Metaphysics, in Critical Theory,

pp. 13287, quotation on pp. 1434.37 Horkheimer, The Present Situation, pp. 810.38 Ibid., quotation on p. 9; see also pp. 1114.39 Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, p. 44.

40 Horkheimer, On the Problem of Truth, in Between Philosophy and SocialScience, quotations on pp. 189 (my italics) and 190, respectively.

41 Ibid., p. 190.42 Ibid., p. 193.43 Ibid., p. 208.44 Throughout his work Horkheimer refers to this kind of method as dialectical

(though the term means more than what I have described here). I havesuppressed that term because it is contentious enough to require extensiveexplanation, and an adequate explanation would be beyond the scope of thispaper. I think that the basic point of this paper survives without the term or itsexplanation. I am notavoiding dialectic, though, because of the view (espoused

by many contemporary interpreters of Marx) that it is a remnant of hopelessHegelian obscurantism.

45 Bas van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance (New Haven: Yale University Press,2002), p. 2, n. 1.

46 Ibid., p. 3.47 Van Fraassen considers Descartess The World, or Treatise on Light, to be para-

digmatic of this insofar as Descartes sets aside any observational description ofthe real world and instead theoretically constructs the world that God wouldhave created if he wished to make a world perfectly transparent and intelligibleto the human mind. See The Empirical Stance, pp. 2730.

48 Van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance, p. 37.

49 Ibid., p. 47.50 Ibid., p. 17.51 For a deeper discussion of this aspect of van Fraassens view, see Paul

Teller,Discussion: What is a Stance?, Philosophical Studies, 121 (2004),pp. 15970.

52 Van Fraassen, Ladyman, Lipton, and Teller on The Empirical Stance,Philosophical Studies, 121 (2004), pp. 17192.

53 Ibid.54 Van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance, pp. 813; see also p. 241, n. 17 on the

minimal connotations of voluntarism.55 See ibid., p. 92. Van Fraassen speaks in terms of bridled irrationality; reason

does not compel, but only sets broad borders within which choice is necessary.For a discussion of this point, see Peter Lipton, Discussion Epistemic Options,Philosophical Studies, 121 (2004), pp. 14758. There he notes that the broad

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principles of reason van Fraassen endorses amount to restrictions on internallyinconsistent beliefs.

56 It should be noted that van Fraassen discusses materialism, and contrasts thepossibility of a materialist stance with the empirical stance. His use of material-ism is clearly different from Horkheimers, however; van Fraassen is focusing

on materialism as it is used in contemporary analytic philosophy. See TheEmpirical Stance, pp. 4963.

57 It is interesting that van Fraassen favourably compares Diltheys discussion ofworld views to stances (see Ladyman, Lipton, and Teller on The EmpiricalStance). His brief use of Dilthey is so different from Horkheimers because theyemphasize different parts of Diltheys view; van Fraassen is most interested inthe role that values play in forming a world view, while Horkheimer is drawingon the role of the world picture (what van Fraassen refers to as cosmology).

58 Van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance, p. 37.59 Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, p. 23.60 Ibid., pp. 456.

61 Ibid., p. 17.62 Ibid., p. 194.63 Horkheimer, On the Problem of Truth, p. 188.64 Hilary Putnam, The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World (New York:

Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 69.65 Horkheimer, The Latest Attack on Metaphysics, p. 185.66 One could, of course, refer to such an interpretive task as metaphysical. See, for

instance, Italo Testa, Hegelian Pragmatism and Social Emancipation: An Inter-view with Robert Brandom, Constellations10(4) (2003), pp. 55470. In responseto a question about the relation of his work to Habermass postmetaphysicalview, Brandom endorses the word metaphysics when used in two ways: to refer

to theory that seeks to interpret rather than merely explain, and to refer totheory that aims at systematicity. He then rejects a third view, whereinmetaphysics is systematic and takes itself as completely describing reality. If weconnect these three forms of metaphysics to Horkheimer, only the first wouldfit, as he rejects overarching systematic aims. But the first use of the term could

just as well be termed philosophy (as Brandom notes), and thus the termmetaphysics seems less meaningful.

67 For a detailed history of the problems the Institutfaced during the rise of theNazis and their subsequent flight, see Rolf Wiggerschaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance, trans. Michael Robertson(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), particularly Chs 2 and 3.

68 For an overview of Horkheimers development that sees a continuity betweenthe early and later works, see Schmidt, Max Horkheimers Intellectual Physiog-nomy. For a discussion that emphasizes a break between the early and laterwork, see Habermas, Remarks on the Development of Horkheimers Work.The specific reasons for the dissolution of the early research programme are upfor debate. For example, Habermas, Remarks on the Development of Horkhe-imers Work, stresses the role of historical events, while Bon, The Program ofInterdisciplinary Research, focuses more on potential problems internal to thetheory.

69 This accusation has been made against Habermas by Honneth, who argues thatHabermass linguistic theory does not properly link up with the actual moral

experiences of the oppressed. See, for example, Honneth, The Social Dynamicsof Disrespect: Situating Critical Theory Today, in Habermas: A Critical Reader,pp. 32730. For similar criticisms, see Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of

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Jrgen Habermas(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978), p. 379, and David Held,Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas(Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1980), pp. 37475. Interestingly, Honneth has been subject tothe similar criticism that he attempts to describe too many different socialphenomena according to the terms of his theory of recognition, and thus

obscures some of those phenomena. See, for example, Nancy Frasers critique inFraser and Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-PhilosophicalExchange, trans. Joel Golb, James Ingram, and Christiane Wilke (London:Verso, 2003), pp. 198211, and Christopher F. Zurn, Recognition, Redistribu-tion, and Democracy: Dilemmas of Honneths Critical Social Theory, EuropeanJournal of Philosophy, 13(1) (2005), pp. 89126.

70 This aspect of the stance view could then be contrasted with Habermass critiqueof metaphysics, which is very strongly tied to his conception of communicativeinteraction, and to the prospect that the role once played by philosophy ofconsciousness can be taken over by philosophy of language. In this regard, seehis response to Henrichs criticisms in Habermas, Metaphysics After Kant.

Thus, the validity of Habermass postmetaphysical thinking is strongly tied to hisoverall theory of communicative action.

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