ABSTRACT
What is distinctive about the work of Theodor W. Adorno and Jürgen Habermas is its potent combination of philosophy and social science in the interest of developing a critical theory of Western society. Although a generation separates Adorno from Habermas, both theorists were affiliated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt – also known as the Frankfurt School – which once housed thinkers as diverse as Walter Benjamin, Eric Fromm, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse. Habermas’ sojourn at the Institute may have been brief, but he continues to pursue the project that animates the Institute’s interdisciplinary studies: to formulate a critical theory of society that examines the impact of economic and political institutions on social life and the development of individuals. Addressing perennial philosophical issues in the course of pursuing this project, Adorno and Habermas often cross over into critical sociology. Their work has ranged from theoretical accounts of morality, aesthetics, and epistemology to empirical analyses of democratic and fascist tendencies in the West, and the psychological and social pathologies prevalent today. In addition, their views on methodological problems, such as the relative merits of understanding and explanation, and value-freedom in the social sciences, have had a lasting influence on the disciplines of sociology and anthropology.1
