Origin myths in the social sciences: Fromm, the Frankfurt School and the emergence of critical theory

The Frankfurt School provides rich material for the sociology of knowledge since it is an example of how a once marginal school of thought gained widespread influence and crossed the boundaries between disciplines, social movements, psychoanalysis, Marxism and national traditions. Originally a Marxist think-tank funded by the wealthy son of a German millionaire, the Frankfurt School helped create an innovative brand of philosophically oriented radical social science known as critical theory. Critical theory has had an enormous influence on post-1960s intellectual life, and today is most commonly associated with Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Waiter Benjamin and Jurgen Habermas. Erich Fromm's central role in the early development of the Frankfurt School has largely been ignored in the literature. This article is a sociologically informed history of the Frankfurt School with a focus on the bitter and contentious break between Erich Fromm and its other members in the late 1930s, particularly Adorno, Horkheimer and in the 1950s with Marcuse. The break between Fromm and the Frankfurt School is explained with reference to both ideational (different interpretations of Freudian theory and the nature of left ideology) as well as institutional factors (competition over resources within the Frankfurt School and the professionalization of psychoanalysis). Unpacking the history of how Fromm was once seen as a major figure in the Frankfurt School and then gradually written out of thr history of critical theory is a case study in the sociology of knowledge that looks at how origin myths are constructed within schools of thought and intellectual movements.