Appropriately, inside the developing a beneficial “dialectic regarding enlightenment” the new authors on the other hand make an effort to do a dialectical enlightenment out-of enlightenment perhaps not unlike Hegel’s Phenomenology away from Spirit. “Determinate negation” (bestimmte Negation) suggests that immanent issue is the answer to wrest insights out of ideology. A dialectical enlightenment out of enlightenment “discloses for each and every photo just like the software. They will teach me to read out of [brand new image’s] enjoys this new entryway off falseness hence cancels their power and you can give it over to knowledge” (De 18). Past and courtesy including determinate negation, a good dialectical enlightenment of enlightenment and remembers the foundation and you may goal away from think by itself. Such remember ‘s the works of the style since worry about-meditation of think (der Begriff als Selbstbesinnung de l’ensemble des Denkens, De- thirty-two). Conceptual care about-reflection shows that consider comes from the corporeal demands and desires that get shed whenever consider will get just appliance away from people mind-preservation. In addition it demonstrates the goal of envision isn’t so you can remain new blind domination ragnatela from character and you can people but to suggest to the reconciliation. Adorno works out the main points in the conception in his after that lectures toward Kant (KC), ethics (PMP), and you may metaphysics (MCP) along with his guides to the Husserl (AE), Hegel (H), and you can Heidegger (JA).
Dialectic of Enlightenment presupposes a significant societal theory in debt to Karl Marx. Adorno reads Marx due to the fact an effective Hegelian materialist whose criticism regarding capitalism unavoidably includes a critique of ideologies that capitalism sustains and you will means. Initial of them is exactly what Marx entitled “the latest fetishism off commodities.” Marx aligned his complaints off commodity fetishism facing bourgeois public scientists exactly who just establish new capitalist economy but, in that way, in addition misdescribe they and you will recommend an incorrect personal sight. Based on Marx, bourgeois economists necessarily ignore the exploitation intrinsic so you can capitalist manufacturing. It fail to understand that capitalist manufacturing, for everybody its skin “freedom” and “fairness,” have to pull surplus worth regarding work of your own working-class. Such ordinary manufacturers and people not as much as capitalist requirements, bourgeois economists get rid of this new commodity as the a good fetish. It treat it because if it was in fact a neutral target, with a lifetime of its own, you to individually makes reference to other merchandise, from inside the versatility about person interactions that really sustain every merchandise. Marx, by contrast, contends one to any type of can make a product or service a product extends back so you can people demands, wishes, and you will techniques. The newest item have no “have fun with worthy of” in the event it didn’t see peoples wants. It can not have “replace well worth” in the event that not one person wished to change it to possess something different. And its own change really worth could not getting determined when your commodity didn’t give most other products good “value” developed by brand new expenses out of individual labor strength and you will mentioned because of the the typical work time socially needed to write products of various forms.
Adorno’s societal theory attempts to make Marx’s main knowledge appropriate to “later capitalism.” Though for the contract that have Marx’s studies of your item, Adorno thinks his complaints off item fetishism doesn’t go far sufficient. Significant change keeps occurred in the structure off capitalism as Marx’s day. This involves news into the enough topics: the newest dialectic ranging from pushes away from production and connections from creation; the partnership between state and you can discount; new sociology from categories and class understanding; the sort and you will aim of ideology; and the role away from professional societies, particularly modern ways and you may personal idea, from inside the criticizing capitalism and needing the brand new conversion regarding people due to the fact an entire.
The primary clues to those news are from an idea out-of reification proposed because of the Hungarian socialist Georg Lukacs on the 1920s and you can out-of interdisciplinary ideas and arguments used because of the members of the Institute out-of Public Lookup throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Building to the Maximum Weber’s idea regarding rationalization, Lukacs contends your capitalist cost savings has stopped being you to markets of neighborhood next to anyone else. Instead, product exchange is just about the main tossing idea for everybody sectors out-of community. This permits product fetishism so you’re able to penetrate every social organizations (elizabeth.grams., law, government, journalism) as well as all the informative disciplines, including thinking. “Reification” identifies “brand new structural techniques in which the product means penetrates lifestyle when you look at the capitalist people.” Lukacs is actually particularly concerned about exactly how reification produces humans “feel like simple things obeying the new inexorable guidelines of your markets” (Zuidervaart 1991, 76).