Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical FragmentsThis new translation of the Frankfurt School’s seminal text includes textual variants and discussion of the work’s influence on Critical Theory. 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. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer trace a wide arch that connects the birth of Western history—and of subjectivity itself—to the most threatening experiences of the present. 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. 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 show why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization. |
From inside the book
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... magic rituals. From now on matter was finally to be controlled without the illusion of immanent powers or hidden properties. For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of calculability and utility must be viewed ...
... magic rituals. From now on matter was finally to be controlled without the illusion of immanent powers or hidden properties. For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of calculability and utility must be viewed ...
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... magic. In the earliest popular epics this theoretical element of ritual became autonomous. The myths which the tragic dramatists drew on were already marked by the discipline and power which Bacon celebrated as the goal. The local ...
... magic. In the earliest popular epics this theoretical element of ritual became autonomous. The myths which the tragic dramatists drew on were already marked by the discipline and power which Bacon celebrated as the goal. The local ...
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... magic was not single or identical; it changed with the cult masks which represented the multiplicity of spirits. Magic is bloody untruth, but in it domination is not yet disclaimed by transforming itself into a pure truth underlying the ...
... magic was not single or identical; it changed with the cult masks which represented the multiplicity of spirits. Magic is bloody untruth, but in it domination is not yet disclaimed by transforming itself into a pure truth underlying the ...
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... magical stage dream and image were not regarded as mere signs of things but were linked to them by resemblance or name. The relationship was not one of intention but of kinship. Magic like science is concerned with ends, but it pursues ...
... magical stage dream and image were not regarded as mere signs of things but were linked to them by resemblance or name. The relationship was not one of intention but of kinship. Magic like science is concerned with ends, but it pursues ...
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... magic applies only to the more realistic form of world domination achieved by the greater astuteness of science. The autonomy of thought in relation to objects, as manifested in the reality-adequacy of the Ego, was a prerequisite for ...
... magic applies only to the more realistic form of world domination achieved by the greater astuteness of science. The autonomy of thought in relation to objects, as manifested in the reality-adequacy of the Ego, was a prerequisite for ...
Contents
Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment | |
Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality | |
Enlightenment as Mass Deception | |
Limits of Enlightenment | |
Notes and Sketches | |
Editors Afterword The Position of Dialectic | |
The Disappearance of Class History in Dialectic | |
Cultural Memory in the Present | |
Common terms and phrases
Adorno advertising already animals anti-Semitism become behavior blind bourgeois capitalism Christianity civilization commodity compulsion concept consciousness contradiction Critical Theory critique culture industry Dialectic of Enlightenment domination economic edition element everything expression fascism fate fear film finally Frankfurt am Main freedom Friedrich Pollock function German Gesammelte Schriften Hays Office Homer Horkheimer Horkheimer's human Ibid idea identity ideology individual intellectual Jews judgment Juliette knowledge labor language liberal logic longer magic material Max Horkheimer means mediated merely mimesis monopoly moral myth mythical nature Nietzsche object Odysseus Odysseus’s once one’s organized philosophy pleasure political posthumous papers powerlessness praxis prehistory principle production rackets radio rational reality reason reflection relationship religion replaced represented rulers sacrifice Sade self-preservation social society sphere subjugated takes tendency terror Theodor W theoretical things thought totalitarian truth unity universal victim violence whole Wilamowitz word