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Following Max Horkheimer, I will first attempt to reconstruct an anthropology that essentially wants to be understood as critical social research. I will then pursue the question of humanism in critical theory. In doing so, I want to show that a reference to a normatively substantive humanism does actually exist in critical theory. On the other hand, I want to show that this humanism is anything but unambiguously and systematically formulated but has been reflected and articulated differently by different representatives of critical theory. The two examples I will refer to here are Theodor W. Adorno and Erich Fromm. I will define Adorno’s humanism as ‘dialectical humanism’, whereas Fromm’s humanism could be described as ‘emphatic humanism’. My reading, however, attempts to interrogate the two positions as to their complementarity. Not ‘Adorno or Fromm’, but ‘Adorno and Fromm’ is the motto that guides me. Finally, I will relate this complementary reading of both approaches in such a way that the possibility of a ‘Critical Humanism’ can be derived from it, which above all also wants to be understood as a sociological research program.

El artículo reconstruye algunas ideas centrales sobre las que Erich Fromm construye su Teoría crítica. Me interesa especialmente la manera en que Fromm orienta su Teoría crítica por un humanismo que él extrae de su discusión con Freud y sobre todo con Marx. Las estaciones a través de las cuales nos conduce el desdoblamiento de estas ideas nos lleva a reparar en la relación que, según Fromm, existe entre crítica, psicoanálisis y humanismo, los conceptos de >carácter social< así como de >inconsciente social< y el tema de la alienación que Fromm define en clave humanista como deshumanización. En la última parte, el artículo trata de establecer algunas correspondencias entre el pensamiento humanista de Fromm y el pensamiento del poeta y ensayista mexicano Octavio Paz.