Naturalism, critics and reflection: reappraisal of Neurath-Horkheimer controversy

Abstract

The Frankfurt School has played a leading role in the subsequent reception of Logical Empiricism. Nonetheless, the historical revision of Logical Empiricism has revealed that this vision was based on certain simplifications that didn’t make justice to the diversity and complexity of postures that the movement included. In “The Latest Attack on Metaphysics” Horkheimer postulates that Positivism is necessarily thoughtless and ahistorical in its explanation of the sciences and how the lack of social theory to contextualize them makes it incapable of criticizing their role and the instrumental reason in their acceptance of the established order, comitting it to a conservative vision of politics. The attribution to Logical Empiricism of sustaining a generalized conception of “instrumental reason” will be questioned, and it will be postulated that, from Neurath’s perspective, the self-reflective character of science admits a critical consideration of the ends and purposes of knowledge.