Horkheimer And Adorno

14 Pages 3395 Words

n of reason and freedom to Hegel’s and Nietzsche’s recognition of the dialectic of enlightenment. The enlightenment’s concept of reason, expressed clearly by Kant, it is argued, has a dual structure. The dialectic is between these two aspects of reason: reason as universal, common to every being, and reason as domination of the particular. The first aspect has provided the ideals and legitimations which have become embedded in people’s interpretations of their activities, while the second has generated the structure of conventions which have actually conditioned day-to-day practice. The enlightenment can be seen as a unity of enlightened thought, myth and domination.

The dialectic of enlightenment can be characterised in two short theses: ‘myth is already enlightenment’ and ‘enlightenment reverts to mythology’. They see enlightenment as subject throughout history to a dialectic wherein it all too easily gives itself an absolute status over and against its objects, thereby constantly collapsing into new forms of the very conditions of primeval repression which it earlier set out to overcome. Through the development of this thesis, Horkheimer and Adorno hope to reassess many of the traditional problems posed by German idealist thinking. In particular, they sought to recast, within a historical and dialectical context, the concern with reason and truth.

What once characterised God now characterises men. What once belonged to myth now features as a theme of science. Nature has become a matter of mere objectivity and object for control. It is losing its distinctness and uniqueness, and is thus rendered open to control. Objects found in nature are seen as mere examples, which have utility only if humans bestow it upon them (pg 10, Dialectic of enlightenment). For Horkheimer and Adrono, then, the domination of nature denotes a particular type of relationship between human beings and nature. Nature has meaning, so far as ...