Positivism dispute

Frankfurt School critical theory, by contrast, denies that sociology can be severed from its metaphysical heritage; empirical questions are necessarily rooted in substantive philosophical issues.

Drawing on concepts from Hegelian and Marxian traditions, critical theory conceives society as a concrete totality, a social environment, e.g. family, authorities, peers or mass media shape individual consciousness.

In 2020, philosopher Carl Sachs contended that the Frankfurt School and Vienna Circle, rather than Popperian adherents tout court, comprised the two sides of the debate.

"[3] Vienna Circle members, especially Popper, likewise misconstrued the Frankfurt School, specifically Adorno and Horkheimer, as omitting or repudiating "a better future" for society and physical science.

The Vienna Circle believed that "the commitment to the unity of science, the explication of a purely formal conception of objectivity, and the use of mathematical logic to do so are not epistemological projects."

In fact, they had already arrived at a similar conclusion, that "speculative metaphysical systems such as those of Henri Bergson or German Idealism were useless for science because they could not satisfy the formal conditions of objectivity."

The Vienna Circle instead wished to design a "formal semantics of declarative assertions" that could "be [universally] said to anyone by anyone," thereby furthering a "neglect of subjectivity" and, conversely, an "explication of objectivity" in "mathematical or symbolic logic" that produced "scientific explanations."

Rather, "the Frankfurters" were principally concerned with assessing conceptual underpinnings, including the development of a given "philosophy of language," that could potentially advance "irrationality and short-sightedness," both of which Sachs associated with "contemporary neoliberalism."

The Frankfurt School, at least in its "first generation" (and, with a young Habermas, the beginning of the second), believed that "the truth-content of German Idealism had to be interpreted allegorically as the hope for a truly rational society."

Sachs noted the compatibility element: "there is no reason why a purely formal explication of objectivity [by the Vienna Circle] should interfere with a diagnosis and critique of social pathologies of rational subjectivity and intersubjectivity [by the Frankfurt School].