The Frankfurt School. An approach to its research methodology and philosophy of power.

Abstract

This article provides a systematic analysis of the Frankfurt School, focusing on two central aspects: its research methodology and its philosophy of power. The author concentrates on the School’s foundational stage, led by Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, in order to demonstrate the theoretical and methodological coherence of critical theory. First, the study examines the distinctive features of its methodology, including dialectical materialism, the primacy of totality, the historicity of the social entity, the centrality of contradiction, the link between knowledge and interest, and the commitment to interdisciplinarity. In contrast to positivist “traditional theory,” the Frankfurt School argues that subject and object are socially preformed and that social theory necessarily entails an ethical and political stance. Second, the article reconstructs the Frankfurt philosophy of power through three key moments: the interpretation of The Odyssey in Dialectic of Enlightenment, the studies on authoritarianism, and the analysis of hidden totalitarian tendencies in postwar American democracy. The article concludes that critical theory remains a fundamental framework for understanding power relations in advanced societies and continues to be relevant to contemporary debates on human emancipation.