ABSTRACT
Critical theory has become the subject of a vast number of inquiries, interpretations, readings, and critical reflections on the history of ideas. This chapter shows that studying sociology in Frankfurt for roughly the decade between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s was equivalent to studying at the Institute for Social Research and potentially equivalent to a major in critical theory. The responsibility for this course of study within the philosophy department was carried out by the Institute for Social Research. The institutional and epistemic terrain was marked out and the foundations laid for what would become influential and well known as the Frankfurt School. This explains the peculiar situation in which the institute, which followed its own theoretical program as a private social science research institute, took over general responsibility for the officially recognized sociology education at the University of Frankfurt. It was thus torn between two institutional tasks as of 1955.
