[FRA:] Reason

[Ralph Dumain]

I'm curious about this because of my sympathies for Horkheimer's 1930s 
programme.  The irony, though, is that Horkheimer seems to give up on 
reason in a productive sense after THE ECLIPSE OF REASON, and becomes more 
of a religious person without religion.  On the other hand, Adorno becomes 
more intellectually productive than ever.  Horkheimer, who presumably is 
more rationalistic at the beginning, practically throws in the towel at the 
end, while Adorno, more skeptical, forges ahead.  We should account for 
this somehow.

Somehow I don't have Adorno's "The Actuality of Philosophy", which I 
suppose is his basic philosophical text of the '30s.  Would someone like to 
send it to me?

At 09:48 PM 2/12/2006 +0000, simon smith wrote:
>In message <s3eea7a2.082 at IGATE.NEWSCHOOL.EDU>, Alexei Procyshyn 
><proca430 at newschool.edu> writes
>>Simon,
>>
>>I suggest you read the preface to to the Dialectic of Enlightment --
>>where Adorno and Horkheimer write,
>>
>>"we have no doubt -- and herein lies our petitio principii -- that
>>freedom in society is inseperable form enlightenment thinking" (xvi).
>
>I think it has become clear that the almost exact identification of 
>Adorno's and Horkheimer's work on DoE was wishful thinking on the part of 
>Adorno, in deference to his mentor and friend.
>
> From Dialectic of Enlightenment, Editor's afterword, page 221:-
>
>" "Preface": This is present among Horkheimer's posthumous papers in a 
>number of typed sections which bear numerous handwritten corrections by 
>Horkheimer and a few corrections by Adorno. No draft is to be found in 
>Adorno's posthumous papers." "
>
>(As I remember Robert Hullot-Kentor, in "Back to Adorno," Telos 81, does a 
>detailed dissection the authorship of DofE, but I would have to go to the 
>local university library to read it. Hullot-Kentor is at great pains to 
>distinguish Adorno's thought from Horkheimer's.)
>
>Stealing from Ralph Dumain's recent post:-
>
>"As Susan Buck-Morss has shown, on this point Adorno stood much closer to 
>the "dialectic of enlightenment" than to the concept of "interdisciplinary 
>materialism" and precisely this emphasis was probably what hindered his 
>line of thought from achieving more influence on the development of early 
>critical theory. For Horkheimer at the beginning of the 1930s, there could 
>be no question of anticipating the "dialectic of enlightenment." Like 
>Adorno, he saw an increasing trend toward irrationalism but did not 
>interpret these symptoms of a crisis as an irreversible destruction of 
>reason. Rather, they appeared as a temporary, socially conditioned 
>regression that was to be illuminated by the positive, specialized 
>sciences. And the integration of these sciences, in turn, was understood 
>to be fundamentally rational, inasmuch as the "detour" of analyzing the 
>regression would uncover the possibility of bringing about a realization 
>of reason."
>
>Wolfgang BonB, "The Program of Interdisciplinary Research and the 
>Beginnings of Critical Theory," p120.
>
>
>Again stealing from Ralph Dumain: Habermas:
>
>"Horkheimer is troubled by this aporia. He shies away from the conclusion 
>that the very act of enlightened knowledge is affected by the process of 
>self-destruction, depriving it of its liberating effect. He would rather 
>entangle himself in contradictions than give up his identity as an 
>enlightener and fall into Nietzscheanism. The old trust was obstinately 
>reaffirmed in the preface: "Enlightenment must reflect on itself if 
>humanity is not to be totally betrayed" "(DA, 5/DE, xv). Jurgen Habermas, 
>"Remarks on the Development of Horkheimer's Work," p56-59.
>
>
>My feeling is that for Adorno 'instrumental reason' was _intrinsic_ to the 
>Enlightenment (god I'm fed up of typing that word) and to its success as a 
>form of domination, a new myth.
>Yet somehow Enlightenment also clears room for the possibility of a 
>substantive reason, one that is open to non-identity. Quite how though, is 
>not elucidated in DofE.
>
>I'll come back to you if the library lets me see the Telos Hullot-Kentor 
>essay.
>
>--
>Simon Smith