Between philosophy and social science Book

This collection of essays focuses on his Horkheimer's contributions to critical theory in the 1930s. Included are his inaugural address as director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, in which he outlines the interdisciplinary research programme that would dominate the initial phase of the Frankfurt School; his first full monograph; and a number of other pieces published in the 1930s. The essays, most of which have not appeared in English before, are surprisingly relevant to current post-philosophy debates, notably On the Problem of Truth, with its focus on pragmatism, and The Rationalism Debate in Current Philosophy, a sustained critique of the post-Cartesian philosophy of consciousness. Horkheimer's 1933 critique of Kantian ethics, Materialism and Morality, is of particular interest given the current foundations debate within Continential philosophy, and the rationality/relativism question is sustained throughout the volume.