Dialectic of Enlightenment is quite justifiably one of the most celebrated & often cited works of modern social philosophy. It has been identified as the keystone of the Frankfurt School of which Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer were the leading members & does not cease to impress in its wide-ranging ambition & panache. Adorno & Horkheimer addressees themselves to a question which went to the very heart of the modern age namely why mankind instead of entering into a truly human condition is sinking into a new kind of barbarism. Modernity far from redeeming the promises & hopes of the Enlightenment had resulted in a stultification of mankind & an administered society characterised by simulation & candy-floss entertainment. To seek an answer to the question of how such a condition could arise Adorno & Horkheier subjected the whole history of Western catagories of reason & nature from Homer to Nietzsche to a searching philosophical & psychological critique. Drawing on psychoanalytical insights their own work on the culture industry deep knowledge of the key Enlightenment & anti-Enlightenment thinkers as well as fascinating considerations on the relationship between reason & myth
- the rational & the irrational
- the authors exposed the domination & violence towards both nature & humanity that underpin the Enlightenment project.