Hubertus Buchstein

• My first encounter with Horkheimer's seminal 1931 speech “The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research” dates back to 1981 when I was struggling as a young student to read the final chapters of Jürgen Habermas's just published Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas made a strong case for Horkheimer's program of interdisciplinary materialism in his book. He reconstructed Horkheimer's original program and presented an ambitious update (see Habermas, 1987, pp. 374–403). This encouraged me to read Horkheimer's famous speech of January 1931 and became the inspirational starting point for my ongoing interest in the history of the Frankfurt School.