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Dialectic of Enlightenment (Paperback)
Max Horkheimer, Theodor W Adorno; Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noeri; Translated by Edmund Jephcott
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R749
Discovery Miles 7 490
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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"Dialectic of Enlightenment" is undoubtedly the most influential
publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written
during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared
in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to
do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to
explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is
sinking into a new kind of barbarism."
Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary
events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of
Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle
against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a
wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present.
The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected,
together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses
concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical
life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment
culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in
aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment.
The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the
tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent
in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical
analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the
background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National
Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was
rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western
civilization.
Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as
grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the
domination of external nature and society. They trace
enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its
mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not
irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of
both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment,
and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the
fundamental thesis of the book.
This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of
the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary
upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work
in the development of Critical Theory.
In his most important work, Max Horkheimer surveys and demonstrates
the gradual ascendancy of Reason in Western philosophy, its
eventual total application to all spheres of life, and what he
considers its present reified domination. First published in 1947,
Horkheimer here explores the ways in Nazism - that most irrational
of political movements - had co-opted ideas of rationality for its
own ends. Ultimately, the book is a warning of the ways this might
happen again and, as such, this is a book that has never appeared
more timely.
These essays, written in the 1930s and 1940s, represent a first
selection in English from the major work of the founder of the
famous Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. Horkheimer's
writings are essential to an understanding of the intellectual
background of the New Left and the to much current
social-philosophical thought, including the work of Herbert
Marcuse. Apart from their historical significance and even from
their scholarly eminence, these essays contain an immediate
relevance only now becoming fully recognized.
These essays, written between 1949 and 1967, focus on a single
theme: the triumph in the twentieth century of the
state-bureaucratic apparatus and 'instrumental reason' and the
concomitant liquidation of the individual and the basic social
institutions and relationships associated with the individual.
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Dialectic of Enlightenment (Hardcover)
Max Horkheimer, Theodor W Adorno; Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noeri; Translated by Edmund Jephcott
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R3,454
Discovery Miles 34 540
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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"Dialectic of Enlightenment" is undoubtedly the most influential
publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written
during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared
in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to
do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to
explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is
sinking into a new kind of barbarism."
Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary
events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of
Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle
against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a
wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present.
The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected,
together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses
concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical
life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment
culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in
aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment.
The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the
tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent
in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical
analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the
background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National
Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was
rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western
civilization.
Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as
grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the
domination of external nature and society. They trace
enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its
mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not
irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of
both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment,
and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the
fundamental thesis of the book.
This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of
the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary
upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work
in the development of Critical Theory.
2013 Reprint of 1947 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original
edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "Eclipse
of Reason" discusses how the Nazis were able to project their
agenda as "reasonable." It is broken into five sections: 1] Means
and Ends, 2] Conflicting Panaceas, 3]The Revolt of Nature, 4] The
Rise and Decline of the Individual and 5] On the Concept of
Philosophy. It also treats the concept of reason within the history
of western philosophy.
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the
1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly
expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable,
high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the
1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly
expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable,
high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Max Horkheimer is well known as the director of the Frankfurt
Institute for Social Research and as a sometime collaborator with
Theodor Adorno, especially on their classic Dialectic of
Enlightenment. These essays reveal another side of Horkheimer,
focusing on his remarkable contributions to critical theory in the
1930s.Included are Horkheimer's inaugural address as director of
the Institute, in which he outlines the interdisciplinary research
program that would dominate the initial phase of the Frankfurt
School, his first full monograph, and a number of other pieces
published in the 1930s. The essays, most of which have not appeared
in English before, are surprisingly relevant to current
post-philosophy debates, notably "On the Problem of Truth," with
its focus on pragmatism, and "The Rationalism Debate in Current
Philosophy," a sustained critique of the post-Cartesian philosophy
of consciousness. Horkheimer's 1933 critique of Kantian ethics,
"Materialism and Morality," is of particular interest given the
current reaction to the neo-Kantian aspect of Habermas's work.
There are also essays relevant to the current foundations debate
within Continental philosophy, and the rationality/relativism
question is sustained throughout the volume.
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer are the leading figures of the
Frankfurt School and this book is their magnum opus. Dialectic of
Enlightenment is one of the most celebrated works of modern social
philosophy that continues to impress in its wide-ranging ambition.
Writing just after the Second World War and reflecting on the
bureaucracy and myths of National Socialism and the inanity of the
dawn of consumerism, Adorno and Horkheimer addressed themselves to
a question which went to the very heart of the modern age: 'why
mankind, instead of entering into a truly human condition, is
sinking into a new kind of barbarism'. Modernity, far from
redeeming the promises and hopes of the Enlightenment, had resulted
in a stultification of mankind and administered society,
characterised by simulation and candy-floss entertainment. Tracing
humanity's modern fall to the very rationality that was to be its
liberation, the authors exposed the domination and violence that
underpin the Enlightenment project.
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