Horkheimer: Traditional & Critical Theory (4)

[Ralph Dumain]

(15)

"The concept of necessity in the critical theory is itself a critical 
concept; it presupposes freedom, even if a not yet existent freedom. But 
the idea of freedom as a purely interior reality which is always there even 
when men are enslaved is typical of the idealist mentality. The tendency 
immanent in this not wholly false but surely distorted conception of 
freedom was most clearly expressed by the young Fichte: "I am now fully 
convinced that the human will is free and that the purpose of our existence 
is not to be happy but only to deserve happiness." Here we see the real 
identity underlying fundamental metaphysical polarities and schools. The 
claim that events are absolutely necessary means in the last analysis the 
same thing as the claim to be really free here and now: resignation in 
practice.

"The inability to grasp in thought the unity of theory and practice and the 
limitation of the concept of necessity to inevitable events are both due, 
from the viewpoint of theory of knowledge, to the Cartesian dualism of 
thought and being. That dualism is congenial both to nature and to 
bourgeois society in so far as the latter resembles a natural mechanism. 
The idea of a theory which becomes a genuine force, consisting in the 
self-awareness of the subjects of a great historical revolution, is beyond 
the grasp of a mentality typified by such a dualism. If scholars do not 
merely think about such a dualism but really take it seriously, they cannot 
act independently. In keeping with their own way of thinking, they can put 
into practice only what the closed causal system of reality determines them 
to do, or they count only as individual units in a statistic for which the 
individual unit really has no significance. As rational beings they are 
helpless and isolated. The realization that such a state of affairs exists 
is indeed a step towards changing it, but unfortunately the situation 
enters bourgeois awareness only in a metaphysical, ahistorical shape. In 
the form of a faith in the unchangeableness of the social structure it 
dominates the present. Reflecting on themselves men see themselves only as 
onlookers, passive participants in a mighty process which may be foreseen 
but not modified. Necessity for them refers not to events which man masters 
to his own purposes but only to events which he anticipates as probable. 
Where the interconnection of willing and thinking, thought and action is 
admitted as in many sectors of the most recent sociology, it is seen only 
as adding to that objective complexity which the observer must take into 
account. The thinker must relate all the theories which are proposed to the 
practical attitudes and social strata which they reflect. But he removes 
himself from the affair; he has no concern except--science.

"The hostility to theory as such which prevails in contemporary public life 
is really directed against the transformative activity associated with 
critical thinking. Opposition starts as soon as theorists fail to limit 
themselves to verification and classification by means of categories which 
are as neutral as possible, that is, categories which are indispensable to 
inherited ways of life. Among the vast majority of the ruled there is the 
unconscious fear that theoretical thinking might show their painfully won 
adaptation to reality to be perverse and unnecessary. Those who profit from 
the status quo entertain a general suspicion of any intellectual 
independence. The tendency to conceive theory as the opposite of a positive 
outlook is so strong that even the inoffensive traditional type of theory 
suffers from it at times. Since the most advanced form of thought at 
present is the critical theory of society and every consistent intellectual 
movement that cares about man converges upon it by its own inner logic, 
theory in general falls into disrepute. Every other kind of scientific 
statement which does not offer a deposit of facts in the most familiar 
categories and, if possible, in the most neutral form, the mathematical, is 
already accused of being theoretical.

"This positivist attitude need not be simply hostile to progress. Although 
in the intensified class conflicts of recent decades rulers have had to 
rely increasingly on the real apparatus of power, ideology is nonetheless 
still a fairly important cohesive force for holding together a social 
structure threatened with collapse. In the determination to look at facts 
alone and to surrender every kind of illusion there still lurks, even 
today, something like a reaction against the alliance of metaphysics and 
oppression.

"It would be a mistake, however, not to see the essential distinction 
between the empiricist Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and that of 
today. In the eighteenth century a new society had already been developed 
within the framework of the old. The task now was to free an already 
existent bourgeois economy from its feudal limitations and to let it 
operate freely. Bourgeois scientific thought, too, needed, fundamentally, 
only to shake off the old dogmatic chains in order to progress along a path 
it had already mapped out. Today, on the contrary, in the transition from 
the present form of society to a future one mankind will for the first time 
be a conscious subject and actively determine its own way of life. There is 
still need of a conscious reconstruction of economic relationships. 
Indiscriminate hostility to theory, therefore, is a hindrance today. Unless 
there is continued theoretical effort, in the interest of a rationally 
organized future society, to shed critical light on present-day society and 
to interpret it in the light of traditional theories elaborated in the 
special sciences, the ground is taken from under the hope of radically 
improving human existence. The demand therefore for a positive outlook and 
for acceptance of a subordinate position threatens, even in progressive 
sectors of society, to overwhelm any openness to theory. The issue, 
however, is not simply the theory of emancipation; it is the practice of it 
as well."

(Excellent.)

(16)  In an extended analysis of the history of capitalism and hence of the 
social theory associated with it, Horkheimer touches on the issues of the 
relationship between thought (theory) and time (the essential or changing 
nature of the object of investigation), and the related consequences of the 
relation between subject and object (the theoretician and society).  In the 
present historical period of crisis, slouching toward barbarism, "true 
theory is more critical than affirmative".

(17) POSTSCRIPT: Horkheimer commences a postscript to his essay by stating:

"In the preceding essay I pointed out two ways of knowing: one is based on 
the Discourse on Method, the other on Marx's critique of political economy. 
Theory in the traditional sense established by Descartes and everywhere 
practiced in the pursuit of the specialized sciences organizes experience 
in the light of questions which arise out of life in present-day society."

I am not entirely happy with this formulation.  The point on which 
interpretation turns is the phrase "two ways of knowing".  I don't agree 
that two ways of knowing are involved at all, but rather two ways of 
orienting oneself with respect to social being that determine how the 
enterprise of knowing is ideologically contoured. I fear that this 
distinction may be lost on my reader without careful deliberation; it is a 
distinction I've been aiming at all along.  Similarly, in tracing the 
methodology of modern science to Descartes, Horkheimer does not distinguish 
the philosophical/ideological framework of Descartes (corresponding to an 
emergent form of social organization) from the intrinsic nature of 
theoretical scientific reasoning distinct from the former and 
distinguishable from the dualism that serves a social, ideological role 
formulated in philosophical terms.

(18) Critical social theory agrees with German idealism in the dynamic 
relation of subject to object in opposition to the conformist worship of 
brute fact.  Critical theory agrees with materialism in its understanding 
of labor and class and their impact on subjectivity.  Traditional theory 
corresponds to the social role of the specialist.  Critical theory 
corresponds to the emancipatory interest in the rational reorganization of 
the whole of society for human benefit and not just the interest of an 
increase in knowledge, analogous to the function of ancient Greek 
philosophy in a certain period.

"Critique, however, is not identical with its object. Philosophy has not 
provided a teaching on national economy. The curves of the mathematical 
political economics of our day are no more able to maintain a link with 
essentials than are positivist or existential philosophy. Concepts in these 
disciplines have lost any relation to the fundamental situations of the 
age. Rigorous investigation has always required the isolating of 
structures, but today the guidelines for this process are no longer being 
supplied, as in Adam Smith's time, by conscious, inspiring, historical 
concerns. Modem analyses have lost all connection with any rounded 
knowledge that deals with historical reality. It is left to others or to a 
later generation or to accident to establish a relation of the analyses to 
reality and specific goals. As long as there is a social demand for and 
recognition of such activity, the sciences are not disturbed by reality or 
leave the care of it to other disciplines, for example sociology or 
philosophy, which of course act the same way in turn. The forces which 
guide the life of society, those rulers of the day, are thereby tacitly 
accepted by science itself as judges of its meaning and value, and 
knowledge is declared powerless."

Critical theory also differs from specialized science in that it continues 
to be a philosophical discipline and not just economic science; its content 
is the transformation of the concepts dominating economic 
organization.   Thereupon follows a critique of economism.

(19) FINIS.  Horkheimer's essay is of very high quality and subtle in its 
analysis, but there is a subtle distinction missing from it I have tried to 
pinpoint now and again, albeit with insufficient precision and 
clarity.    I will pursue a summary overview if my time permits and other 
people's interest warrants it.