Yet the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity

The Frankfurt School's Critique of the Enlightenment

Abstract

Reflecting upon the horrors of the twentieth century, the Frankfurt School philosophers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer avowed to have found their source in the Enlightenment. In their co-­authored book, Dialectic of Enlightenment, they set forth their arguments; the spirit of which was that the Enlightenment enthroned a certain species of reason—instrumental reason, which was aimed at making humans masters of nature. Thus, they argued, knowledge became equated with power, which meant that knowledge was supplanted by know-­how. Humans ceased pondering the goodness of ends; instead, they reasoned solely about developing the most efficient means to whatever ends that were given to them. This form of rational insanity culminated in the mass industrial slaughter of the twentieth century, Adorno and Horkheimer contend. In order to assess this critique of the Enlightenment, I return to the eighteenth and seventeenth century primary sources it is predicated upon. Moreover, I attempt to read beyond the texts that Adorno and Horkheimer specifically analyze in order to test the broader validity of their critique.

Discipline: History

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kelly Summers