Abstract

“In the ‘interdisciplinary materialism’ theorized by Max Horkheimer and practiced by the critical-theoretical consortium of the 1930s, the critique of political economy worked both as a more general model for the critique of available knowledge and as the focal point for different disciplinary approaches. In such a constellation, the internal connection between the critical attitude and the critique of political economy also meant that ‘theory’ was the result of ‘critique’, having the critique of political economy as its model. These two claims converge in that ‘theory’ was the same as producing critical diagnoses of the present time, Critical Theory’s most eminent task. Such a characterization of this first figure of Critical Theory allow us to see that the decline of the critique of political economy as a common language for collaboration from the 1940s on gave rise to a long-lasting dispute about its best substitute as the common ground for interdisciplinary research. Until today this dispute over the ‘best theory’ in the critical-theoretical field not only overshadows its most eminent aim but also threatens to blur the very distinction between Critical and Traditional contributions.”