Adorno

The Institute of Social Research 155

highly individual, modern-sounding theory of research on ideology. This
forces us to inquire: what is research on ideology?

In league with Horkheimer against a second school of

sociology under the same roof

The differences between Adorno’s language-based critique of inter-
pretation and Horkheimer’s interdisciplinary materialism did not rule
out an alliance between the two men. Whereas Adorno had previously
been strongly influenced by Benjamin, he now, in his new role as social
theorist, began to adapt ideas he had found in Horkheimer – needless
to say, he did so in his own highly individual way. The bonds between
them grew in strength the more Adorno, who had his roots in a variety
of intellectual positions, began to align himself with Horkheimer. This
had the effect of putting him in opposition to Karl Mannheim, who
had earlier disapproved of Adorno’s inaugural lecture. This is hardly
surprising, given that towards the end of his lecture Adorno had mounted
an attack on Mannheim’s ‘nominalist’ sociology, which was alleged to
have deprived the concept of ideology of its point. ‘It is defined form-
ally as the ascription of particular ideas to particular groups, without
inquiring about the truth or untruth of those ideas. Sociology of this kind
becomes part of a kind of universal relativism.’^80 Despite this criticism,
Mannheim’s basic thesis never quite loses its grip on him. Only in that
way can we explain the fact that, in the years to come, he keeps return-
ing to the foundations of the sociology of knowledge.^81 The main bone
of contention between the two schools of sociology was the question:
Now that the great traditions of philosophy have fallen into decline,
what is the right way to establish a social theory adequate to the crisis-
experience of the modern age? Both Horkheimer and Mannheim had
espoused the cause of criticism. This meant that, since the arrival of
Mannheim from Heidelberg, there were now two sociologists in the
same faculty, and even in the same building, competing to establish a
discipline that aimed to be critical, and even critical of ideology. The
newly created sociology seminar presided over by Mannheim, as the
representative of a modern, value-free sociology, was housed at the time
in the Institute for Social Research. The personal presence of Mannheim,
together with his colleagues such as Norbert Elias and Günther Stern,
was not regarded as an opportunity for cooperation by the dominant
colleagues in the institute. On the contrary, Horkheimer felt sufficiently
challenged by Mannheim’s presence to greet him with an extremely
pointed criticism of the central concept of his new colleague’s theory
of sociology. He launched a frontal attack on Mannheim in an essay
entitled ‘A New Concept of Ideology?’,^82 in which he accused him of
adapting Marx’s concept of ideology in a wholly inadequate way. On
the one hand, he maintained that, by confining himself to taking over