Formes de vie et dynamique historique chez Max Horkheimer

This article explores the meanings of the term “forms of life” in Horkheimer’s essays and the theoretical role it plays in his project of a critical theory of society developed over the 1930s. Horkheimer considers forms of life as conducts and habits that are constituted within the framework of specific relations of production. But he also uses the term “form of life” to refer to culture and its proper domains, which, interwoven with each other, constitute forces capable of preserving or breaking up a given social form. Moreover, by “form of life” he means the result of the interrelations between the material processes of a society and the development of cultural phenomena that influence institutions and men.