Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is the first instalment of a two-part attempt at a critical engagement with the major figures of twentieth-century German philosophy. Among the philosophers who will appear in the second rather than the current instalment are: Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Georg Lukács, Max Scheler, Carl Schmidt, and Leo Strauss. This first instalment focuses on Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Habermas, the leading exponents of Frankfurt-based 'critical theory', and on Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer and Arendt, the leading exponents of Freiburg-based 'phenomenology'. Max Weber appears as a foundational influence on both traditions. Ever since Plato, philosophers have wanted to concern themselves with eternal things: with universal, necessary, 'transcendental' truths, truths that have no greater relevance to one time or place than another.