ABSTRACT
Even more understanding may ensue if all remember that the sobriquet 'Frankfurt School' was only a late concoction of the 1960s and was never perfectly congruent with the Institute of Social Research out of which it came. The disparity between the research institute and the school of thought that emerged within walls has in fact led some observers to call into question the coherence of the phenomenon as a whole. It involves a figure than Jurgen Habermas has recently remarked that although the Institute continues, 'there is no longer any question of a school, and that is undoubtedly a good thing'. However, rather than abandoning the search for coherence because of the historical and nominal displacements of the institute and the school, more fruitful to acknowledge the unsettled nature of a cultural formation that nonetheless did retain a certain fluid identity over time. The staple of intellectual history to credit social or cultural marginality with stimulating heterodox or innovative ideas.
