Lecture 7 - Critics of the Enlightenment

Question 1

Why is the Dialektik der Aufklärung by Horkheimer & Adorno often perceived as a difficult read? By whom was this style of writing inspired?

Answer 1

It does not consist of clear chapters, but of philosophical fragments and deliberations

Inspired by Wittgenstein

Question 2

What is the Dialektik a critique of?

Answer 2

The notion of rationality in modern Western culture

Question 3

Why do Horkheimer & Adorno take the Enlightenment as their main focus in their critique of modernity? (2)

Answer 3

1. The notion of rationality is rooted in the Enlightenment
2. They feel that modern rationality is a betrayal of the Enlightenment

Question 4

In what way do Horkheimer & Adorno see the modern notion of rationality as a betrayal of the Enlightenment?

Answer 4

1. The concept of rationality that become popular is the belief that increase of knowledge should liberate the individual
2. They felt Enlightenment philosophers simply replaced one superstition by the other: Christianity with a ‘faith’ in the natural sciences

Question 5

Horkheimer & Adorno use De Maistre to make a philosophical point. Which point to they make?

Answer 5

The point that empiricism is a way of thinking that merely touches upon the surface of things, not their essences

Question 6

What do Horkheimer & Adorno combine with their critique of empiricism?

Answer 6

A Nietzschean philosophy of power

Question 7

In what way do Horkheimer & Adorno identify a Nietzschean philosophy of power in the Enlightenment?

Answer 7

Francis Bacon, the father of empiricism, had intended the pursuit of knowledge to increase our power over nature -> he was out to dominate nature, rather than learn about its secrets

Question 8

What do Horkheimer & Adorno identify as wrong with the element of a ‘will to power’ in the Enlightenment?

Answer 8

The Enlightenment was not aimed at liberating, bur rather at subjugating through gathering power

Question 9

In what way do Horkheimer & Adorno introduce a Marxist element in their critique of Enlightenment?

Answer 9

They see the Enlightenment/empiricist tendency to want to reduce nature to mathematical formulas as a bourgeois obsession and an improper way of philosophy

Question 10

Why do Horkheimer & Adorno feel that reducing nature to mathematical formulas is improper philosophy? Who had also been critical of this?

Answer 10

It contains the assumption that nature can be structured according to mathematics

At the ‘end’ of the Enlightenment, Kant had already been critical of this supposition

Question 11

What do Horkheimer & Adorno feel should have been the goals of the Enlightenment?

Answer 11

1. To question the nature of thought itself -> philosophy as an essentially reflective exercise
2. To question the purpose of supposedly logical reasoning

Question 12

What do Horkheimer & Adorno see as wrong with logical reasoning?

Answer 12

It builds on the axion that statements are either true or false; conceals the fact that there may be things beyond our binary attitude

Question 13

Horkheimer & Adorno see logical reasoning as being favourable to those already in power. Why?

Answer 13

Its binary attitude demonstrates an unwillingness to explore alternatives; this benefits those who are already in power: the goal of liberation has been betrayed by the Enlightenment

Question 14

In which area of philosophy do Horkheimer & Adorno see the most evident example of false rationality? Why?

Answer 14

Moral philosophy; despite attacking Christian morality, the Enlightenment never came up with a credible alternative.

Question 15

What is the main message of Enlightenment moral philosophy?

Answer 15

The most important moral drive we all share is the drive for self-preservation

Question 16

What is dangerous about the main message of Enlightenment moral philosophy according to Horkheimer & Adorno?

Answer 16

The belief that the most important drive we all share is the drive of self-preservation makes it easy to justify exploitation of the masses by capitalists

Question 17

Who is, according to Horkheimer & Adorno, responsible for the strenghtening of the belief that we are all self-serving utilitarians?

Answer 17

Mass media

Question 18

What are Horkheimer & Adorno’s grievances with mass media?

Answer 18

It creates a cultural industry, aimed at deceiving the masses. These mass media propagate the status quo: the American dream of individual success and achievement

Question 19

What do Horkheimer & Adorno see as the pinnacle of mass media? What fault do they see in it?

Answer 19

Hollywood; it tries to reproduce reality closely in art, thus taking away the aspect of art that feeds our imagination, and that enables us to think about worlds other than the one we live in

Question 20

Why do Horkheimer & Adorno argue that American culture does not really exist?

Answer 20

Culture has become part of the entertainment industry

Question 21

What is Horkheimer & Adorno’s stance on the relation between the Enlightenment and the holocaust?

Answer 21

Horkheimer see the holocaust as the final & most gruesome product of Enlightenment

Question 22

On the basis of which meditations do Horkheimer & Adorno connect the Enlightenment and the holocaust? (2)

Answer 22

They do so based on two meditations:
1. A meditation on antisemitism
2. They way Enlightenment has shaped thinking into problems and solutions

Question 23

What is Adorno & Horkheimers meditation on how the Enlightenment connects to antisemitism?

Answer 23

Antisemitism is the inability to come to terms with something alien to you. This is a product of the Enlightenment’s failure to accomodate for that what is different.

Question 24

In what way has the Enlightenment’s way of shaping thinking into ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ contributed to the holocaust?

Answer 24

The Nazis identified a problem and decided to respond with a rational solution: to remove the problem. They did so with a mathematical & scientific approach: the holocuast is the triumph of instrumentalist reason

Question 25

In what way can Horkheimer & Adorno’s view that the holocaust was a product of rationality be contested?

Answer 25

The Nazis put great effort into the extermination of Jews, whilst they were losing the war -> they could have used these resources in a different way, making it highly illogical

Question 26

What was Popper’s answer to Horkheimer && Adorno?

Answer 26

A liberal assesment: The Open Societies and Its Enemies

Question 27

Where does Popper see the main origins of totalitarianism?

Answer 27

In both Plato’s & Hegel’s antidemocratic and absolutist philosophies. The ambition to realize these ideals leads to totalitarianism.

Question 28

What is Popper’s answer to prevent totalitarianism?

Answer 28

Not to strive for ideal societies, but for open societies, in which there is room for debate and gradual improvement

Question 29

Jacob Talmon mostly agrees with Popper’s assesment that both Plato and Hegel are antidemocratic thinkers. He adds a third. Who, and why? (2)

Answer 29

Rousseau

1. For he turns anything into part of the political, much like totalitarianism does
2. Rousseau has the belief that it is plausible that citizens have to be forced to accept their freedom/the General Will

Question 30

What does Talmon propose to avoid everything becoming part of the political?

Answer 30

Liberals should claim spaces in which politics do not reach and have no influence

Question 31

Why is a considerable portion of 20th century experts on the Enlightenment Jewish?

Answer 31

These authors seek the origins of modernity in the Enlightenment, to answer the question what part of modernity allowed the holocaust to take place. In essence, the Enlightement came to serve as a mirror against the background of the Second World War.

Question 32

Many argue that modernity is a product of the 18th century and of Enlightenment in particular. How can this be argued against?

Answer 32

Many references of Enlightenment authors (such as in Bayle’s Dictionnaire or Diderots’ Encyclopédie) are based on classical antiquity. One could therefore pose the question: how modern was the 18th century?