[FRA:] Language, Mythology, and Enlightenment

[matthew piscioneri]

Dear Claus,

thanks for your reply. To be honest, I read that Honneth article as a 
"pro-Habermas" plant. In other words, Honneth -- in 1977 -- was very much a 
younger player in Habermas's ideological campaign in the *internal* FS 
culture wars. So, I am not surprised that he was heavily criticized for the 
partisan leanings of that particular article :-).

The distance Honneth has since then achieved between himself and his mentor 
Habermas is a sign of Honneth's unique and very important critical 
capabilities, IMO.

Mind you, a critique of emancipatory potentials drawn from aesthetic sources 
also need to be contextualized. The liberatory significance attached to 
aestheticism in the radical European milieu of the '70s was -- shall we say 
-- perhaps excessive. I am not sure, even now. It seemed at the time pretty 
damned imperative. In part, I was radicalized by the work of the great 
European conceptualists of that time -- the Kassel Documenta was my mecca 
;-). In posting on Honneth's article, i thought of the Baader-Meinhof Group 
of an extension of the most radical of the artistic ideas floating around at 
that time -- the fusion of art-as-practice, of revolutionary political 
praxis as art as aesthetics as praxis etc: a form of performance 
art-as-political-praxis.

The reason I cited Honneth's critique of Adorno is a lingering doubt about 
the the emancipatory potentials of the aesthetic/mimetic as a counterbalance 
to the reifying consequences of "cognitive rationality".

As far as I can tell, aesthetic reason is as much penetrated by the logic of 
identity as cognitive reason is penetrated by aesthetic reason ;-). The 
notion that there are hermetically-sealed boundaries between the posited 
categories of reason (aesthetic, cognitive-logic of identity, communicative) 
IMO, doesn't hold up empirically.

best regards,

mattP


>From: "Claus D. Hansen" <claushansen at pc.dk>
>Reply-To: Discussion of Frankfurt School Critical 
>Theory<theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org>
>To: "'Discussion of Frankfurt School Critical 
>Theory'"<theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org>
>Subject: Re: [FRA:] Language, Mythology, and Enlightenment
>Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 04:35:41 +0100
>
>Matthew,
>
>I would hesitate quoting that particular text from Honneth without making
>some reservations. Honneth was indeed very critical of Adorno in the 1980's
>something which 'culminated' in his book on Power: 'A Critique of Power'
>where he raises a very harsh criticism of Adorno and Horkheimers work - not
>so much the Dialectic of Enligtenment but more the implications of some
>their 'hypotheses' (e.g. those related to the culture industry).
>
>Honneth was afterwards heavily criticized for not taking into consideration
>the aesthetic parts of especially Adorno's argument and as far as I know he
>has left behind his critique of Adorno and in fact embraced some aspects of
>it.
>
>(The Possibility of a Disclosing Critique of Society: The Dialectic of
>Enlightenment in Light of Current Debates in Social Criticism in
>Constellations, Vol 7(1), 2000)
>
>Claus
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: theory-frankfurt-school-bounces at srcf.ucam.org
>[mailto:theory-frankfurt-school-bounces at srcf.ucam.org] On Behalf Of matthew
>piscioneri
>Sent: 31. januar 2007 00:26
>To: theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org
>Subject: Re: [FRA:] Language, Mythology, and Enlightenment
>
>Ralph,
>
> >Schmidt would argue that your conclusion is patently false, that 
>Horkheimer
> >and Adorno intended no such thing.
>
>H& A's pessimism/nihilism: theoretical or practical? Honneth in
>"Communication and reconciliation: Habermas's Critique of Adorno" (Telos 39
>(1979), pp.45-61.) writes:
>
>"Adorno's theory is so strongly determined by its view of history as a
>series of catastrophes that it cannot commit itself to an idea of 
>historical
>
>progress which goes beyond total reification." (p47)
>
>""Adorno's critical theory retracts both claims concerning the emancipatory
>significance of aesthetic theory and negative dialectics." (p47)
>
>Still, I have conflated "pessimism" with "nihilism". Clearly, "nihilism" is
>far more normatively-laden, and you're right, it's inappropriate to label
>Horkheimer and/or Adorno as such.
>
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