Horkheimer’s Materialist Critique of Heidegger

Abstract

This paper aims to reconstruct Max Horkheimer’s philosophical critique to Martin Heidegger existential analytic, that can be found in his early critical theory. With this in mind, the materialist theory of society will first of all be described in its fundamental contours and assessed as a response to philosophical idealism, the most notable expressions of which include Heideggerian analytics. After that, Horkheimer’s critique of Heidegger will be followed addressing the differences in three fundamental aspects: the distance between society and existence as an object of study, the different understandings of history as a theoretical problem and the role of reason in the efforts to overcome the crisis of philosophy.