Felix Weil

Félix José Weil
Born	(1898-02-08)February 8, 1898 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died	September 18, 1975(1975-09-18) (aged 77) Dover, Delaware, United States
Nationality	Germany Argentina
Other names	Felix Weil
Alma mater	University of Frankfurt
Known for	Institute for Social Research

Félix José Weil (German: [vaɪl]; 8 February 1898  – 18 September 1975) was a Jewish German-Argentine Marxist, who provided the funds to found the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Biography

Weil was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and was the son of the wealthy grain merchant Hermann Weil and his wife Rosa Weil. At the age of 9 he was sent to attend school in Germany at the Goethe-Gymnasium, Frankfurt.

He attended the University of Tübingen and the University of Frankfurt, where he graduated with a doctoral degree in political science. While at these universities he became increasingly interested in socialism and Marxism. His thesis topic was "Socialization: An Attempt at a Conceptual Foundation, with a Critique of the Plans for Socialization".

In 1923 he financed the Erste Marxistische Arbeitswoche ("First Marxist Workweek"), a conference in the German town of Ilmenau. The event was attended by various leftist figures such as Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch, Richard Sorge, Friedrich Pollock, and Karl August Wittfogel. The success of this event led him and his friend Friedrich Pollock to, with the help of an endowment from his father, found the Institute for Social Research in 1924.

Works

• Argentine Riddle (1944)

See also

• Institute for Social Research
• Frankfurt School
• Critical theory (Frankfurt School)
• Friedrich Pollock

Sources

• Jay, Martin (1973). The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown & Company.
• Wiggershaus, Rolf (1995). The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories and Political Significance. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

External links

• History of the Institute of Social Research from the Institute for Social Research
• The Frankfurt School at Marxists.org