Introduction

the Frankfurt school and the problem of religion

pp. 1-12

in: Margarete Kohlenbach, Raymond Geuss, The early Frankfurt school and religion, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

Abstract

The work and development of the Institute of Social Research is well documented. Martin Jay's and Rolf Wiggershaus's histories offer detailed accounts of the foundation of the Institute by Felix J. Weil in Frankfurt in 1924, its work in Weimar Germany, after January 1931 under the directorship of Max Horkheimer, its metamorphosis during its period in the United States and its slow, partial and painful resettlement in West Germany after the war.¹ Jay and Wiggershaus also document the intellectual, political and cultural differences among the members and associates of the Institute, and the diversity of their work. Many, sometimes conflicting, interests, talents, convictions, doubts, temperaments and idiosyncrasies went into what did not become known as "The Frankfurt School" until 1950.