Abstract

This article investigates the reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy in Horkheimer’s critical theory of the 1930s. In his 1936 writings, “Egoism and Freedom Movement: on the Anthropology of the Bourgeois Era” and “Authority and the Family”, Horkheimer applies the concepts of internalization of instincts, bad conscience, nihilism, and resentment from On the Genealogy of Morality to bourgeois society aiming to expose how the psychic effects of repression obstruct the potentials for social emancipation even in the present. After relating Horkheimer’s interest in Nietzsche’s philosophy to his understanding of the historical phenomena of his time, this paper analyses the relationship between a certain interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy and key elements of critical theory: Marxist theory, interdisciplinary materialism, and the orientation towards emancipation.