Adorno and Horkheimers Idea of Enlightenment

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ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER'S CONCEPT OF 'ENLIGHTENMENT'

Y. Sherratt
To cite this Article Sherratt, Y.(2000) 'ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER'S CONCEPT OF 'ENLIGHTENMENT'', British
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British Journal for the History of Philosophy 8(3) 2000: 521–544
ARTICLE
ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER’S CONCEPT OF

‘ENLIGHTENMENT’
Y. Sherratt
Few concepts in the history of twentieth-century thought have been so per-

Downloaded By: [Australian National University Library] At: 09:58 9 May 2010
petually misrepresented as ‘enlightenment’ in the work of Theodor Adorno

and Max Horkheimer.1 Some writers perceive Adorno and Horkheimer, the
principal members of the Early Frankfurt School, to offer a vague historical
concept. 2 For instance Young writes of ‘the obsessive iteration of “mod-
ernity” as a watchword for enlightenment, which is to be found in writers
such as Adorno and Horkheimer’.3 Others, with more philosophical inter-
ests, express a similar annoyance, due no doubt, as Rosen expresses it, to
the ‘aphoristic and allusive style’ of Adorno (and Horkheimer’s) prose.4 In
short, Adorno and Horkheimer are seen to produce a vague notion of the
period of enlightenment and, moreover, one riddled with conceptual
unclarity.
In this paper we suggest that these criticisms are based upon a lack of
sensitivity to Adorno and Horkheimer’s intellectual project and to the
intention behind it. As Rosen writes: ‘it would be a grave (if common)
mistake to think of [Adorno and Horkheimer’s work] as disjointed or incon-
sistent’.5 We address the common misunderstanding of Adorno and
Horkheimer’s use of ‘enlightenment’ by offering an elaboration of their
mode of conceptualization and critique.
1 This paper focusses upon the concept of ‘enlightenment’ as elaborated in Dialectic of

Enlightenment which was co-authored by Adorno and Horkheimer – indeed both authors
assume full responsibility for every word. It is, however, important to bear in mind that
there are also some subtle differences between the two authors in their overall projects
and perspectives. For an examination of these see the excellent discussion by Rosen, M.,
in Mitchell, S. and Rosen, M. (eds) The Need For Interpretation: Contemporary Concep-
tions Of The Philosophers Task (London: Athlone Press, 1983) – henceforth Rosen, M.
(1983).
2 A note on chronology. Adorno was born in 1903 and died in 1969. For the history of the
Frankfurt School see Jay, M. The Dialectical Imagination: A History Of The Frankfurt School
And The Institute For Social Research, 1923–1950 (Boston: Brown Little, 1973).
3 Young, B. Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth Century England: Theological Debate
from Locke to Burke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 5.
4 See Rosen, M. (1983), 99.
5 See Rosen, M. (1983), 99.
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522 Y. SHERRATT
We have divided the discussion into two sections, ‘enlightenment con-

ceptualized’ and ‘enlightenment criticized’. The rst half of this essay,
‘Enlightenment Conceptualized’, presents an account of Adorno and
Horkheimer’s concept of’enlightenment’. In the second half of my essay,
‘Enlightenment Criticized’, we discuss their critique and illustrate their
views, not by drawing upon their German idealist, or indeed materialist,
inheritance which has been well covered in the secondary literature; 6 We
focus instead upon a debt which, in spite of its centrality, is almost entirely
neglected, namely the inuence of the ideas of Sigmund Freud.7
ENLIGHTENMENT CONCEPTUALIZED
The historical concept of Enlightenment is the subject of much debate: its

period or duration and the nature and extent of its values.8 Despite many
differences, there is a broad consensus of debate. Enlightenment, it is more
or less agreed, denotes the period circa 1660–1800 – from the foundation of
the Royal Society to Kant. Further, historical conceptions demonstrate a
consistency about whom they consider representative; most, for example,
would include Locke, Newton, the French Philosophes, and, in particular,
Kant.9 Let us refer to this, then, as the ‘historical concept’ of the Enlighten-
ment and denote its distinctness by using the upper case.
Adorno and Horkheimer’s concept of enlightenment – which I will
denote by the use of the lower case – relates to the historical one in that they
regard this latter as the most ‘predominant manifestation’ of their object of
study. Adorno and Horkheimer in fact, open their discussion of the concept
of enlightenment with reference to Francis Bacon’s programme
(DA.15–20/4–7) and their discussion of ‘Juliette’ with Kant’s denition from
Was ist Aufklarung? (DA.100/81).10 As such, c. 1620–1790 is paradigmatic
6 See for instance Bernstein, J. M. (ed.) The Frankfurt School: Critical Assessments (London,
Routledge, 1994), Bubner, R. Dialektik und Wissenschaft (Frankfurt, Suhramp, 1973),
Rosen, M. Hegel’s Dialectic and its Criticism (CUP, 1982).
7 There are very few texts that focus upon Adorno and Horkheimer’s use of Freud. Two possi-
bilities are Alford, F. C. Narcissism, Socrates the Frankfurt School and Psychoanalytic
Theory (New Haven and London: Yale U.P, 1988) and Whitebook, J. Perversion and Utopia:
A Study in Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory (London: MIT, 1995).
8 For example Gay, P. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 Vols. (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1967–9), Outram, D. The Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P, 1995), Porter, R.
and Teich, M. (eds) The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P, 1981).
9 See, as an example, the thinkers Outram (1995) selects as representative of enlightenment.
10 Adorno and Horkheimer, T.: All references of the original are to the Gesammelte Schriften,
ed. Rolf Tiedemann (20 vols. in 23, Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1973–86). Adorno
and Horkheimer, T. and Horkheimer, M. Dialektik Der Aufklarung: Philosophische Frag-
mente 2nd edn., Vol. 3 (1984). Adorno and Horkheimer, T. and Horkheimer, M. Dialectic
Of Enlightenment, trans. J. Cumming (London: Verso, 1979). Subsequent citations will use
the abbreviated DA and cite the original proceeded by the translation.
ADORNO, HORKHEIMER AND ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ 523
for them, a span which ts well with the historians (DA.14–60/3–42).Adorno
and Horkheimer’s concept is, however, quite distinct from historical
Enlightenment for they use it in a way which extends it well beyond that
which any historians would accept. In fact, for Adorno and Horkheimer,
enlightenment has been present in some form ever since the dawn of
Western culture. For instance, they say of the Odyssey: ‘the poem as a whole
bears witness to the dialectic of enlightenment’ (DA.61/43). Moreover, they
regard enlightenment to span (in certain of its features) as far as the twen-
tieth century. Their concept is thus, in historical terms, very broad indeed
(DA.61–99/43 –80).
This historical breadth of Adorno and Horkheimer’s concept would
render it, by any historical criterion, so vague as to be completely useless.
In fact, misunderstanding of their concept errs in their ‘favour’: they are

regarded as viewing enlightenment to span only from c. 1660 to the present
day. 11 The weight of any historical dismissal might be considerably
increased by the awareness that they conceive of ‘enlightenment’ as stretch-
ing from Ancient Greek to contemporary times.
If not historical, does Adorno and Horkheimer’s concept gain worth
through philosophical criteria? Philosophical conceptualizations of En-
lightenment, as with historical ones, are the focus of considerable dis-
cussion; often to determine the principal intellectual content constitutive of
enlightenment. To this end, views are proffered about which concepts,
ideas,12 texts and thinkers are pivotal – for example both Klein’s and
Pocock’s study of the English Enlightenment regards Shaftesbury as key, a
view others might dispute.13 In spite of these differences, there is again an
overall consensual framework within which debate occurs, the generally-
accepted view being, as in the historical case, that Kant’s treatment in Was
ist Aufklarung? is central. (We refer to the philosopher’s use of Enlighten-
ment together with the historical one and denote them both through use of
the upper case).
Adorno and Horkheimer’s ‘enlightenment’ is formulated more with philo-
sophical than historical intent for they wish to analyse ideas rather than, for
11 Young (1998) perceives that Adorno and Horkheimer stretch the concept of enlightenment
to incorporate ‘modernity’. Outram agrees, demonstrating that Adorno and Horkheimer
use the concept to include twentieth-century Europe (Outram, 1995) 9–10.
12 See for example Cassirer, E. The Philosophy of Enlightenment (Princeton, 1951), Hazard,
P. The Crisis of the European Mind, 1675–1725, (Hamondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963);
Goldmann, L. The Philosophy of Its Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 1973). These
display a very wide range of conceptualizations within which they offer quite distinct
perspectives.
13 Shaftesbury’s Characteristics is discussed as a key text of English Enlightenment philosophy
by Lawrence Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural
Politics in Early–Eighteenth Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1994) and by J.
G. A. Pocock, ‘Clergy and Commerce: The Conservative Enlightenment In England’, in
L’eta dei Lumi: Studi Storici Sul Settecento Europa In Onore Di Franco Venturi (Naples:
Jorent Press, 525–62).
524 Y. SHERRATT
example, assess extent or duration.14 Moreover, their conceptualization

focusses upon much that is of interest to philosophers: for instance, they dis-
cusses Bacon (DA.15–20/4–7) Voltaire (DA.14/3) and Kant (DA.14–60/ 3–42).
However, just as their concept stretches the historical boundaries, so they
challenge the wildest philosophical imagination: Adorno and Horkheimer
include certain ideas from the early twentieth century, most notably those of
Sigmund Freud (DA.91/71,note 40), and include certain texts of the Ancients,
for instance, Homer (DA.50,84/33,65). A qualication should be made:
Adorno and Horkheimer are careful to use the notion ‘proto–enlightenment’
when they refer to the Ancients and are very selective about which particular
aspects of Homer’s thought are relevant. Nevertheless, both Freud and Homer
are important inclusions to their concept and this fact is so striking that we are
led to wonder what indeed underlies their project.

The signicant point about Adorno and Horkheimer’s conceptualization
of enlightenment is that it is made with a specic intention in mind. In their
words, they wish to ‘enlighten the enlightenment about itself’ (DA.11–18./
xi–xvii). In fact their aim is neither historical understanding nor even straight-
forward philosophical denition but the specic one of critical theorizing.15
It should be noted that the critical theoretical tradition has its roots in
German Idealism, and materialism developed from the work of Kant,
Hegel, Marx and Lukacs. The term was coined by Horkheimer who was the
principal founding member of the Frankfurt School. It became crucial to
both Horkheimer and Adorno, who, with Marcuse, constituted the main
members of the early generation of the School. It was also central to Haber-
mas, the key member of the later generation.16
Critical theoretical conceptualizations, as with historical and philosophi-
cal ones, contain certain distinctions between them, such that the Frankfurt
School’s own modes of critical theorizing are not always identical.17 Some
14 This is not, of course, to imply that historians are not interested in ideas or texts or indeed
that philosophers do not concern themselves with period. Ours is a heuristic division
enabling us to locate Adorno and Horkheimer’s project.
15 I use the term ‘critical theorizing’ rather than, say ‘critical theory’ because my purpose is to
illuminate Adorno and Horkheimer’s concept of enlightenment rather than discuss the
concept of a critical theory itself. For this latter see Benhabib, S. Critique, Norm and Utopia:
a Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory (New York: Columbia U.P., 1986), Kortian, G.
Metacritique. Trans. Raffan, J. Intr. Monteore, C. and Taylor, C. (Cambridge: Cambridge
U.P., 1980), or Rosen, M. (1983).
16 For a depiction of the early generation Frankfurt School’s notion of a critical theory see
Horkheimer, M. ‘Traditional and Critical theory’ in Critical Theory: Selected Essays. Trans.
O’Connell, M. J. O. et al. (New York: Seabury Press, 1972). See also Marcuse, H. One
Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968); Habermas, J. Theory and Praxis. Trans.
Viertel, J. Beacon, (1973).
Note that I only use the notion of ‘critical theorizing’ in the ‘strict sense’ to refer specically
to the Frankfurt School’s mode of theorizing developed from the ideas of Hegel and some-
times also Marx. It has been used in a much looser sense to include any theorist who criticizes
a phenomenon (for instance Foucault is sometimes referred to as a ‘critical theorist’).
17 See Rosen (1983) for a discussion of these from Hegel to the late Frankfurt School.
of the differences between these modes of theorizing are reected in the

School’s conceptualizations of enlightenment itself. One set of distinctions
centre around historical issues. Habermas, for instance, conforms to a
generally-accepted historical view in that he regards enlightenment as orig-
inating c. 1660. He then diverges from this by conceiving enlightenment’s
occurrence as continuing to the present day.18 Adorno and Horkheimer, in
contrast, although almost ubiquitously perceived as sharing this view, in
fact, believe aspects of enlightenment to stretch back as far as Ancient
Greece.19
Moving on to examine the ‘philosophical content’ of critical theoretical
‘enlightenments’ we encounter important similarities as well as signicant
differences. For example, Adorno and Horkheimer agree in the main with
Habermas, about the nature of enlightenment values: Enlightenment

centres around ‘enlightenment’ understood as gaining true knowledge or
understanding (that is, the Subject’s ‘becoming enlightened’).20 However,
they differ in their views about what constitutes the foundations of
enlightenment. Adorno and Horkheimer emphasize the importance of the
Subject’s relationship with the external world – henceforth, ‘the Object’ –
and, to this end, focus upon certain issues in this relationship between
Subject and Object.21 Habermas, meanwhile, focusses upon the realm of
inter-Subjectivity by looking to a particular kind of social arena: ‘the public
sphere’ and within this, he focuses upon a particular kind of ‘communicative
rationality’.22
In spite of these historical and philosophical differences Frankfurt School
thinkers operate within the overall framework of a critical theoretical per-
spective.23
18 See Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation Of The Public Sphere: An Enquiry Into A
Category Of Bourgeois Society. Trans. Burger, T. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989),
especially pp. 32 –3 wherein he depicts the beginnings of enlightenment c. 1688 with the
opening of the coffee houses which created a ‘public’ space for debate. For the generally
accepted interpretation of their views, see Outram on Habermas (Outram, 1995) 10–11.
19 Ibid. 9–11.
20 Many authors have also focussed upon a linguistic component to Adorno and Horkheimer’s
notion of ‘Enlightenment’. Their claim is that Adorno and Horkheimer consider ‘Enlighten-
ment’ to entail a sceptical demythologization which encompasses the loss of a mimetic com-
ponent in language. See, for example, Schmidt, J. ‘Language, Mythology and Enlightenment:
Historical Notes on Horkheimer and Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment
in Social Research, 65 (Winter 1998): 307–38. Although linguistic issues go beyond the scope
of this particular paper, it is important to take into account their signicance for Adorno and
Horkheimer: In this regard, I have outlined my view of Adorno and Horkheimer’s notion
of mimesis in relation to their concept of Enlightenment in ‘Negative Dialectics: A Positive
Interpretation’, International Philosophical Quarterly, XXXVIII,. 1 (149) (March 1998).
21 I am not claiming that this is the only focus, nor even the most important one, but that it is
both a distinctive and crucial one.
22 See Habermas, J. (1989).
23 See Geuss, R. The Idea of a Critical Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1981) or Rosen (1983).
526 Y. SHERRATT
Critical Theory
Critical theoretical modes of thought arose from a particular historical set

of circumstances. The early Frankfurt School witnessed the rise of Nazism
all around them. They wanted to understand why mid-twentieth-Centur y
Europe, founded, in their view, on the principles of Enlightenment, should
have degenerated into ignorance and barbarism. It was for this reason that
they deployed the particular critical theoretical mode of conceptualizing
enlightenment – in order to draw attention to and understand its internal
failure.
Critical Theoretical modes of thought were a response to these circum-
stances. They were a response which incorporated a belief and an intention.
The belief was that ‘Late Modern’ society, in spite of its aspirations to
progress, was in fact characterized by social repression. From the earlier
Marxist belief that the source of this repression resided in social and econ-
omic factors, the Frankfurt School moved on to argue that the source of
societal repression lay in inadequate forms of reason. These were ‘objecti-
fying’, ‘reifying’, ‘instrumental’ and ‘rigid’, designed for survival not human
emancipation or indeed enlightened understanding of any kind.
The intention of the Frankfurt School was to oppose these objectifying
and rigid forms of reason. The early generation, in particular Horkheimer
and Adorno, believed they could achieve this, in fact, by developing self-
reective modes of reasoning which revolved around, on the one hand,
recognizing standards, and, on the other hand, demonstrating instances of
the failure to live up to those standards. To do this they offered a project of
critique which they termed ‘Critical Theory’.
An instance of a critical theory was their own Dialectic of Enlightenment.
Herein, they offered a critique which they believed would allow the
‘Enlightenment’ to see its own limitations: show how it failed to live up to
its own standards. This would allow enlightenment to become ‘self-reec-
tive’, they thought. In their words, they wanted ‘to enlighten the enlighten-
ment about itself’ (DA.11–18./xi–xvii).24
The Critical Theoretical Formulation
For the purposes of critical theorizing, Adorno and Horkheimer thought that
concepts should inherently be of a specic nature. These ‘critical–theoreti-
cal concepts’, must, according to their view, be both ‘open to’ and ‘conducive
24 Also referenced in Note 15.

of’ critique. There are many features that they would consider necessary to
achieve this.25 We can note the principal six.26
The rst feature of the critical–theoretical concept, for Adorno and
Horkheimer, is that it is always based upon a standard. In fact, they con-
ceptualize enlightenment as a particular series of aims. What is signicant
about a standard is that it is something that might or might not be attained.
Thus, in being founded upon a standard, the concept is dened in such a
way that it might or might not attain its own ‘identity’. With respect to
enlightenment, enlightenment is conceptualized as a series of aims which it
might, or might not, attain.
Secondly, the standard within the critical–theoretical concept is a nor-
mative one. In this respect, Adorno and Horkheimer would regard their
conceptualization of enlightenment as distinct from that of historians,

whom, in their view, would make their denitions on the basis of empirical,
non-value laden criteria, such as, for example, the duration of enlighten-
ment or the extent and impact of its inuence.27
Thirdly, the critical–theoretical concept’s normative standard has the
feature of internality. That is to say, the standard is internal to that which is
to be dened. One way of understanding this feature is by explaining it
metaphorically. If, hypothetically, that which is to be conceptualized could
‘speak’ for itself, then the normative standard is that which it would set
itself.28 The concept’s standard is its own and not any that might be exter-
nally imposed. For example, enlightenment, according to Adorno and
Horkheimer, if it could, let us say, ‘speak for itself’ would set the normative
standard within itself of the particular series of aims that it has. These aims
are thus internal to enlightenment itself.
Fourthly, the feature of internality relates to a further point. Not only is
the normative standard that which the Object aims to be; it is also that which
the Object believes itself to be. Thus the concept of enlightenment, accord-
ing to Adorno and Horkheimer, captures that which enlightenment would
conceive itself to be. Enlightenment believes that it is the attainment of its
particular series of aims.
Fifthly, the concept has the feature of being inherently something ‘open
to critique’. We can see that this feature, in fact, arises as the consequence of
the accumulation of the other four features. For Adorno and Horkheimer,
what matters about the critical–theoretical concept is that, on the one hand,
25 For a full discussion see Geuss (1981) 55–95.

26 My purpose is not to pin-point the distinction between the various members of the Frank-
furt School’s modes of critical theorizing. The features I discuss are general to most of the
Frankfurt School as well as being particular to Adorno and Horkheimer. See Rosen (1983).
27 I am not suggesting that all or even most actual historians would be in this category. Neither
am I suggesting that if they were this should be criticized. I am distinguishing intellectual
projects and their vicissitudes.
28 From this we can see that Adorno and Horkheimer does not dene enlightenment in such
a way that it can be criticized ‘objectively’.
528 Y. SHERRATT
it denes itself according to the attainment of a normative standard. On the

other hand, it believes that it has attained that standard. This, according to
Adorno and Horkheimer, leaves open the possibility of critique. It leaves
open the possibility of demonstrating that the concept can be mistaken
about itself because a discrepancy occurs between the standard the concept
believes it has attained and the standard it actually attains. For example, if I
dene myself as an analytical philosopher, this denition contains a stan-
dard: concepts are rigorously dened, they relate logically to each other etc.
If it can be shown that I fail to meet this standard, my concepts are loosely
dened, do not relate logically to each other etc., then I am mistaken in
believing that I attain my own standard. My denition of myself fails to live
up to the standard contained within the denition. I am therefore mistaken
in believing myself to be an analytical philosopher. For Adorno and

Horkheimer, this represents a central point about the conceptualization of
enlightenment. Enlightenment can be shown to fail to meet its own stan-
dard and thus be mistaken in believing itself to be enlightenment.
Finally, a signicant feature about the kind of critique that the
critical–theoretical concept is ‘open to’ is that it is internal to the concept in
question. That is to say, the concept is judged according to its own norma-
tive standard. No external standards are introduced. For example,
enlightenment is judged according to its own, internal aims. Enlightenment
succeeds or fails in being enlightenment entirely in accordance with whether
it meets or fails to meet its own internal standards. No external criteria of
judgement are introduced which is why this critical process is referred to as
internal critique.
All these features are unique to a critical–theoretical conceptualization.
Expressed concisely, Adorno and Horkheimer’s concept of enlightenment
captures a normative standard internal to enlightenment which allows us to
criticize enlightenment with reference to its own standards.
It might be surprising to us, given Adorno and Horkheimer’s criteria of
denition, that they chose the same term ‘enlightenment’ as the historians
and philosophers. In fact, Adorno and Horkheimer’s terminology echoes
that of the historians and philosophers for a very particular reason. In spite
of the historical breadth of their concept, Adorno and Horkheimer chose the
term ‘enlightenment’, rather than any other, because, as we have seen, they
believe that historical Enlightenment is the most ‘predominant’ instance of
the phenomenon which they dene – and moreover, they believe that con-
ceptually Kant offers the most vivid portrait of enlightenment’s own nor-
mative standard. Nevertheless, Adorno and Horkheimer hold the particular
historically-broad view that they do because, for them, any promotion of the
particular normative standard internal to enlightenment is (by denition) an
instance of enlightenment. Thus, although a particular set of aims are gener-
ally perceived as constituting historical Enlightenment only, they were still
relevant and were present throughout ‘modernity’ – thus the occurrence of
what, in Young’s words, is Adorno and Horkheimer’s ‘obsessive iteration of
Enlightenment as a watchword for modernity’. Adorno and Horkheimer

also believe that these standards occurred in ‘proto-typical’ form in Ancient
Greece. Hence the inclusion of the Ancients in a concept that would other-
wise be considered to refer to a ‘project’ initiated more than 1,500 years later.
Enlightenment’s Standard, And Its Opposite
We have argued that Adorno and Horkheimer dene enlightenment

according to an internal normative standard. There are two points about
this standard which are signicant. First, Adorno and Horkheimer express
this normative standard as a series of aims. Secondly, they argue that this
series of aims is dened with reference to an opposite.

Adorno and Horkheimer believe that the enlightenment has a particular
series of aims which are the following: the central aim is ipso facto ‘being
enlightened’, understood by Adorno and Horkheimer as the acquisition of
knowledge. 29 This is linked, they argue, to a series of further aims, namely,
the attainment of maturity, freedom, security and peace – all of which con-
stitute, for the enlightenment, progress (DA.19,100/3,81).
Enlightenment is dened with reference to an opposite. Consider that if
Adorno and Horkheimer’s concept of enlightenment refers to the pursuit
of a series of aims, this begs the further question: if enlightenment is dened
according to its aims, then enlightenment can only be dened as actual
enlightenment if it achieves its aims. However, aims are inherently of the
nature that they might or might not be achieved. Thus enlightenment, in
setting out with its series of aims might fail, in which case, it could no longer
be so dened. That is to say, in failing it could no longer maintain its de-
nition as actual enlightenment. What therefore becomes of enlightenment?
Adorno and Horkheimer argue that if it fails, enlightenment is inherently
bound to regress into its opposite. They refer to this opposite as a condition
of myth: ‘enlightenment reverts to mythology’ (DA.16/xvi).30
Adorno and Horkheimer’s conceptualization of myth, like enlightenment,
is very particular.31 Historically speaking, myth, like enlightenment, has been
present in some form ever since the dawn of western civilization. Moreover,
it spans from ancient times through to the mid twentieth-Century Europe
29 See note 20 above.

30 Adorno and Horkheimer believe that enlightenment and myth are dialectically related.
They explain that not only does enlightenment revert to mythology but that ‘myth is already
enlightenment’. This means that, on the one hand, they are inextricably linked and, on the
other hand, they are in opposition. To say that they are inextricably linked is to say rst, that
there is always an element of one in the other. Hypothetically speaking there can never be
a condition of pure ‘enlightenment’ or pure ‘myth’. Second, for Adorno and Horkheimer, if
enlightenment fails, it is inherently bound to do so in the ‘form’ of becoming myth – rather
than in any other way. (DA. 100/81).
31 See note 10.
530 Y. SHERRATT
wherein Nazism was, for Adorno and Horkheimer, in many respects an

instance of myth.
Conceptually-speaking, Adorno and Horkheimer’s concept ‘myth’
should neither be confused with any notion of a non-western, ‘primitive’
society, nor with a literary genre. For them, ‘myth’ is derived from the
interpretation of certain aspects of ‘classical’ or ‘ancient’ western societies.
However, they also regard ancient western societies as containing non-
mythic elements, for instance, elements of enlightenment itself – as we have
seen. Furthermore, they would consider it to possess, in general, traits that
are both inherently positive and elements that are inherently negative.
What we can say about Adorno and Horkheimer’s conceptualization of
myth is that they consider it to refer to something wholly negative.32
Adorno and Horkheimer’s ‘myth’ lies within a critical–theoretical mode

of formulating concepts. The most signicant feature of their myth is that it
is dened internally to the enlightenment. Their concept of myth is that
which they believe the enlightenment conceives to be myth (DA.61–99/
43–80). That is to say, their concept of myth is enlightenment’s own view of
its opposite:
The programme of the enlightenment was the disenchantment of the world; the
dissolution of myths and the substitution of knowledge for fancy.33
(DA.14/3)
As Enlightenment denes itself according to its aims, we would expect its

opposite therefore to be the opposite of those aims. That is, we would
expect myth to be the opposite of enlightenment’s aims. In fact, it transpires
that in Adorno and Horkheimer’s view, the traits of myth are not even
derived from any set of aims at all. Thus myth is the opposite of enlighten-
ment fundamentally in that, for Adorno and Horkheimer, it is not based
upon any aims at all.
Myth, as they conceptualize it, basically speaking, is centred around a way
of relating to the world which is ‘animistic’. This involves a particular system
of knowledge acquisition for which Adorno and Horkheimer deploy the term
animism.34 They regard this as a ‘false’ system of knowledge acquisition
32 This is a point that is often mistaken. Authors sometimes regard Adorno and Horkheimer
as considering that myth could potentially be redemptive.
33 Note that here Adorno and Horkheimer are paraphrasing what they believe is representa-
tive of Bacon and Voltaire.
34 Two points about terminology. First, Adorno and Horkheimer refer to the enlightenment’s
mode of knowledge acquisition with the terms ‘enlightenment knowledge’, ‘instrumental
knowledge’, ‘reason’, ‘conceptualization’ and ‘conceptual thought’. For our purposes, their
usage sufces and I do not need to distinguish between these categories, thus I have grouped
these together under the notion of ‘enlightenment knowledge’, but it should be noted that
the category of ‘knowledge acquisition’ is rather broad and somewhat vague in Adorno and
Horkheimer’s work. Second, I am not, of course, implying that they invented the term
‘animism’ themselves for it is, of course, used both by Freud and anthropologists before them.
including the traits of ignorance and delusion. Thus, in contrast to the

enlightenment’s aim of (true) knowledge, myth entails ignorance and delu-
sion.
Adorno and Horkheimer argue that animism is related to a further set of
traits in myth, namely, immaturity – as distinct from enlightenment’s aim of
maturity; secondly, social domination – in contrast to enlightenment’s
freedom; thirdly, an expression of fear and barbarism – as opposed to
enlightenment’s security and peace. Together these traits of ignorance,
delusion, immaturity, domination and barbarism constitute an extremely
regressive kind of society. This is in contradistinction to enlightenment’s
nal aim of progress (DA.61–99/43 –80).35
ENLIGHTENMENT CRITICIZED
In conceptualizing enlightenment in a critical–theoretical way, Adorno and

Horkheimer believed they could make an internal critique. They could criti-
cize enlightenment according to its own standards and reveal what they
believed: namely, that in mid-twentieth-century Europe, enlightenment had
become mistaken about its own nature and had in reality degenerated into
its own opposite, namely, an instance of myth.36
One dimension of Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique of enlightenment
centres around issues in Subjectivity.37 They dene the ‘enlightenment
Subject’ as the one who can secure the series of aims of the acquisition of
knowledge, security, peace etc. Thus, the enlightenment Subject is only such
a Subject in so far as he attains those aims: should he fail, he is not in fact
‘enlightened’ but mythic.
Why should the ‘enlightenment Subject’ regress to become mythic? This
was Adorno and Horkheimer’s central question: in order to answer it, they
turned to the ideas of Sigmund Freud.
35 Note that although Adorno and Horkheimer use the concept of myth in a very particular
way, to capture what they consider to be internal to enlightenment: it is Adorno and
Horkheimer’s view of the enlightenment’s view of myth. This is quite distinct from other
kinds of conceptualizations of myth and is one which certain authors, including Habermas,
fail to perceive. See Habermas, J. (1982) ‘The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: re-
reading the Dialectic of Enlightenment’, New German Critique, 26, Spring/Summer.
36 Inevitably, perhaps, in the context within which they wrote.
37 My claim is that this is one important strand only, not that it is the only strand nor even the
most important. For examples of readings of Adorno and Horkheimer which emphasize
different aspects of their critique of enlightenment see Jay, M. (1973), Kortian, G. (1980)
and Rosen (1983). For the few interpretations of Adorno and Horkheimer’s use of Freud
see Alford, F. (1988); Sherratt, Y. ‘Dialektik Der Aufklarung: A Contemporary Reading’,
in History of the Human Sciences 4, (1999).
532 Y. SHERRATT
Subjectivity Conceptualized: Freud
It is of the utmost importance to understand the exact tenor of Adorno and

Horkheimer’s relationship with Freud. Adorno and Horkheimer chose
Freud’s ideas (and indeed those of Homer as we shall discuss later) to analyse
enlightenment Subjectivity. They chose Freud for a very particular reason.
This was not because they entirely agreed with Freud. (It should always be
born in mind that there is an extremely complex relationship between
Freud’s a-historical ‘scientic’ view of (the basis of) Subjectivity and
Adorno and Horkheimer’s deeply historical – material/Idealist – conception
of the self). They selected Freud because they considered that Freud’s view
of Subjectivity was internal to enlightenment. In fact, enlightenment sub-
jectivity, for Adorno and Horkheimer, was precisely that depicted by Freud.
To use Freud to analyse and criticize enlightenment, Subjectivity is, in
Adorno and Horkheimer’s view, important because it entails using a theor-
etical apparatus internal to enlightenment itself. By taking internal ideas
about Subjectivity they are thus in keeping with their critical–theoretical
mode of formulating concepts.
There are many distinct strands to Freud’s ideas, some of which Adorno
and Horkheimer deploy. One such important strand, and the one we shall
focus upon here, is that of the self, conceived by Freud as consisting of
certain drives.
Freud saw the self as consisting of the ego-drive and the id-drive.38 The
most signicant features of these drives are, rst, that both the ego and the
id drives are directed towards an Object. Secondly, this Object is predomi-
nantly external reality.39 Thirdly, through their Object, the drives can satisfy
an aim.40
The satisfaction of the Subject’s drives leads to very different conse-
quences for the nature of the Subject’s experience of the Object. This is due
to the quite distinct traits of the two drives. First, focussing upon the id
drive, this is regarded by Freud as primitive. It relates to the Object in an
uncontrolled, spontaneous, and pleasure seeking way.41 Through the id, the
self experiences Objects as pleasurable and also, importantly, as ‘meaning-
ful’. (Freud, 1930: 261–70). This kind of meaning from the id is, for Freud,
38 Freud, S.: All references are given to the Penguin Freud library, 15 vols., trans. James
Strachey, ed. Angela Richards (Harmondsworth, 1973–86). Specically see Freud, S. ‘The
Ego And The Id’, 11 (1923), 364. Note that he rst mentions these categories in Freud, S.
‘Formulations On The Two Principles Of Mental Functioning’, 11, (1911), 345 although his
full exposition is given in Freud, (1923) 357–408.
39 Although it could (sometimes abnormally) be the self or even ‘illusions’. Note that ‘Exter-
nal reality’ refers to objects in the world including other people, etc. The term illusion will
be dened later.
40 Freud writes: ‘the object of a drive is the thing in regard to which or through which the drive
is able to achieve its aim’ Freud, S. ‘Instincts And Their Vicissitudes’, 11, (1915b), 119.
41 Freud, S. ‘Civilisation And Its Discontents’, 12, (1930), 261–70 and 272.
very distinct from that associated with the ego. An example of the kind of
meaning associated with the id can be found in the experience of falling in
love. The meaning imbued upon a ‘love object’ is quite distinct from, for
instance, the kind of meaning contained in the knowledge of how the human
organism functions (Freud, 1930: 261). The former, id-derived kind of
meaning could be considered ‘substantive’.42 On the other hand, the latter
meaning related to knowledge is, as we shall see, derived from the ego (and
is related to ‘instrumental’ meaning).43
Secondly, turning to examine the ego, this is construed by Freud as quite
distinct from the id. It is a highly-developed drive. It relates to the Object
with the aim of self preservation.44 Furthermore, the ego-drive exerts
control and this is the source of instrumental behaviour. Finally, it is the ego
that is responsible for the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge contains a

specic ego-derived kind of meaning according to Freud, which we have
indicated above.45
Using Freud’s concepts of the id and the ego drives, Adorno and
Horkheimer developed a particular view of the enlightenment Subject.
They saw the enlightenment Subject as constituted by the predominance of
one of these drives over the other. We can see this by considering the aim
of enlightenment.
On the one hand, there are certain psychological traits which are not
included in the aims of enlightenment, namely, spontaneity, pleasure and
meaning. These as explained, are traits derived from the id. Therefore,
enlightenment, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, places little empha-
sis upon the id. On the other hand, the central aim of enlightenment, the
acquisition of knowledge, and the further aims of security and peace are
closely connected to self-preservation. This is the province of the ego.
Further, the enlightenment’s aim of maturity is also the province of the ego.
Finally, many of enlightenment’s aims – particularly the acquisition of
knowledge and security – require a highly-developed faculty of control, also
acquired through the ego. Adorno and Horkheimer conclude, that in order
to achieve its aims, enlightenment pursues a form of Subjectivity constituted
by the predominance of the ego-drive.
This forms the basis of how Adorno and Horkheimer conceptualize
enlightenment Subjectivity. The enlightenment Subject is constituted by the
42 Freud, (1930), 270.

43 How Adorno and Horkheimer develop their notions of instrumental and substantive
meaning from these drives is more complex than I have space for here. Therefore, I am
simply treating this as a claim. For more analysis see Sherratt, Y. 1999.
44 See Freud, (1911), 37 –8 and also Freud, (1915b), 105–38.
45 Knowledge acquisition does, of course, contain a kind of meaning, recognized by both Freud
and Adorno and Horkheimer, and referred to by the latter as ‘instrumental meaning’. I
include this kind of meaning in the term ‘knowledge acquisition’ but do not single it out for
discussion as it is not the focus of the one paper. See Freud, (1930), 261.
534 Y. SHERRATT
pursuit of a strong ego.46 In this way he aspires to attain the aims of

enlightenment.
Subjectivity Characterized: Homer
Adorno and Horkheimer’s second important inuence in understanding

enlightenment Subjectivity is Homer, who, as already outlined, in many
respects displays certain ideas constitutive of enlightenment. In fact, they
actually believe that Odysseus represents the ‘prototype’ of enlightenment
Subjectivity. Therefore, to understand the Subjectivity of their contempor-
ary society, which is also to understand the enlightenment Subject and his
degeneration to myth, Adorno and Horkheimer turn to an interpretation of

the Odyssey.
Odysseus, (Adorno and Horkheimer believe), embodies the most crucial
feature of the enlightenment Subject. His behaviour is ‘goal orientated’.47
That is to say, Odysseus guards himself against spontaneity and does not
merely venture into the world with an openness to contingency as Adorno
and Horkheimer believe the mythic Subject would. Odysseus has a goal and
in this respect is prototypically enlightened.
According to Adorno and Horkheimer’s interpretation, Odysseus
pursues a series of aims. Moreover, Odysseus is enlightened not just by
virtue of this fact, but because of the very nature of those aims. For instance,
Odysseus has a thirst for knowledge and a quest to steer his ship safely home
to Ithaca. The former aim is the central one of enlightenment whilst the
latter – to steer his ship safely home to Ithaca – is tantamount to enlighten-
ment’s goal of security.
In order to achieve, say, ‘security’, Odysseus, in Adorno and Horkheimer’s
view, has an absolutely paramount need to establish control. He needs to
control his external world in order to avoid its dangers. He must control his
ship, his crew, and, as much as possible, himself. Adorno and Horkheimer
outline certain characteristics of Odysseus resulting from this aim.
Odysseus’s need of control over other Objects gives him the feature of an
instrumental or ‘functional’ attitude towards the world in general, an
46 It is important to underline that Adorno and Horkheimer’s own emancipatory ideal also
consists in the formation of a strong and autonomous ego. Their ideal and what they per-
ceive to be the enlightenment’s aims are always identical (as should be clear from our dis-
cussion of a critical-theoretical approach on pp. 10–11). However, as we shall see during the
course of this essay, the enlightenment ideal of a strong ego precludes the id drive and in so
doing, causes the weakening of the ego itself. For Adorno and Horkheimer, a strong ego
cannot be achieved by excluding the id. In their view, this is the fundamental mistake which
the enlightenment makes. This is a point which we elaborate in some detail in the second
half of this essay.
47 This is in contrast to any trait of mythic subjectivity wherein, for Adorno and Horkheimer,
there would be no aims.
organizational mind and an overall administering and administered ‘per-

sonality’. Odysseus’s trait of self-control leads Adorno and Horkheimer to
write that Odysseus ‘is the self who always restrains himself’ (DA.73/55).48
Adorno and Horkheimer then move on to outline a terrible price paid in
the constitution of this kind of Subjectivity. They depict the price of control
through the story of Odysseus’s encounter with the Sirens.
In order to keep his ship on course, Odysseus must avoid being drawn in
by the Sirens’ singing (DA.49–52,77 –8/32–4,58 –9). To achieve this he plugs
the ears of the rowers so that they should not be exposed to the temptation
of the song. Odysseus has himself tied to the mast, from where he can hear
the song but is secure from the danger of responding to it. Adorno and
Horkheimer explain how Odysseus thereby suppresses the impulse for pleas-
ure in his fellow humans – in plugging the rowers’ ears so that they cannot
even hear the song. Odysseus also suppresses his own pleasure in rendering
himself unable to jump overboard and submerge himself in the music. In
being unable to respond to the Sirens, Odysseus receives only a diluted aes-
thetic experience. Both he and the rowers therefore (virtually) ‘know only
the song’s danger and nothing of its beauty’ (DA.51/34). The price of
Odysseus’s control, quite simply, is an impoverishment in the quality of pleas-
ure. Furthermore, Adorno and Horkheimer, following Freud, believe that
pleasure is accompanied by an experience of the Object as substantively
meaningful.49 Odysseus’s loss of pleasure in the world entails a loss of experi-
ence of the world as substantively meaningful (DA.78/59).
It is important to notice that this negative characterization of Odysseus
cannot amount to an internal critique of enlightenment. Although the loss
of pleasure and meaning are indeed, by any standards, terrible, they do not
amount, in and of themselves, to an internal critique of enlightenment. An
internal critique must demonstrate that it is the very aims internal to
enlightenment which it fails to attain. Herein enlightenment does not aim
for that which it fails to attain, namely pleasure etc. It aims for knowledge,
security and peace. Adorno and Horkheimer’s internal critique must there-
fore show that enlightenment Subjectivity is insufcient for enlightenment
to attain knowledge, security and peace.
Subjectivity Criticized: Freud and Homer
Half Myth
In order to make their internal critique of enlightenment Subjectivity,

Adorno and Horkheimer conjoin Homer with Freud. This is achieved in the
specic form of a Freudian interpretation of the ‘enlightenment prototype’,
48 Herein Adorno and Horkheimer focus upon very distinct issues from Habermas.
49 See Note 43.
536 Y. SHERRATT
Odysseus. Adorno and Horkheimer, through their Freudian analysis of

Odysseus, show that enlightenment fails to procure its aims due to the inad-
equacy of its form of Subjectivity.
Adorno and Horkheimer’s main point about the constitution of
enlightenment Subjectivity – the strong ego and depleted id – is that this
constitution is inherently unstable. It is this instability that heralds the
decline of enlightenment to myth.
The instability of enlightenment Subjectivity originates in the enlighten-
ment Subject’s predominance of the ego drive at the expense of the id. This
entails a split in the Subject’s relationship with reality, evident in Adorno
and Horkheimer’s characterization of Odysseus, as the prototype of the
enlightenment Subject: Odysseus attained immense control at the expense
of pleasure. Through the use of Freud’s ideas, Adorno and Horkheimer

conceptualize Odysseus’s Subjectivity as the deployment of the ego-drive
upon the Object at the expense of the id-drive.
Adorno and Horkheimer now go on to make an internal critique by
depicting two problems that arise on the basis of the split between id and
ego. First, the enlightenment Subject has a depleted experience of reality.
From their interpretation of Freud, Adorno and Horkheimer see that pleas-
ure in all its aspects is derived from the id-drive. When the Subject loses the
experience of pleasure he suffers a ‘depreciation’ of the id-drive. The pro-
totypical enlightenment Subject, Odysseus, loses not simply pleasure, but
pleasure in relation to reality: reality is no longer the Object of the satis-
faction of the id-drive. Thus reality as an Object of experience becomes
depreciated.
Secondly, Subjectivity itself suffers. The withdrawal of the Subject’s id-
drive from reality, and indeed any withdrawal of the drives, constitutes an
impoverishment in Subjectivity for Freud.50 Adorno and Horkheimer thus
consider that enlightenment Subjectivity is impoverished in one ‘psycho-
logical’ sphere.
However, this impoverishment is not only problematic per se but also
because of where it leads. Impoverishment is an unsustainable condition.
The lack of deployment of half the Subject’s drives upon reality renders
them without an Object. What therefore becomes of these drives?
Freud argued that all human drives aim to have an Object upon which
they can satisfy themselves. As a consequence of the increasing loss of
reality as an Object, Freud explains a likely outcome: ‘[when] the connec-
tion with reality is . . . loosened; satisfaction is obtained from illusions’.51
The id seeks an alternative Object. It turns to illusion.
Freud argues that the earliest stage of human development is that of
infantile narcissism. In this condition the self, not properly formed, is unable
50 More details are necessary for a complete understanding but this is beyond the scope of this
essay.
51 Freud, (1930), 268.
to discriminate between the internal and the external. One aspect of this
lack of discrimination encompasses an inability to discern between sensa-
tions derived from Objects in the external world and the self’s own impulses
or wishes. The self in such a primitive condition simply wishes and then
satises its drives upon these wishes. In the ‘adult’ self this process can also
occur. It constitutes a regression in Subjectivity and thus a loss of maturity,
one of the enlightenment’s aims. Narcissism, for Adorno and Horkheimer,
is the psychological aspect of myth. Thus, in regressing towards narcissism
in one of the drives, enlightenment Subjectivity sees the onset of myth.
An instance of this regress of the id-drive towards narcissism is given by
Adorno and Horkheimer through their account of Odysseus’s experience
of the Lotus-eaters. The lotus is an obvious source of pleasure. Homer
describes it as ‘sweeter than honey’. However (unlike the song of the Sirens)
the lotus, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, does not embody any
reality-content. Whereas the Sirens knew ‘everything that has happened on
this so fruitful earth, including the events in which Odysseus himself took
part’ (DA.49/33), the lotus is a pleasure which is wholly disconnected from
reality. It is a ‘kind of idyll, which recalls the happiness of narcotic drug
addicts reduced to the lowest level’ (DA.81/62). Because of this lack of
reality content in the lotus eaters’ experience, then the pleasure itself,
according to Adorno and Horkheimer, ‘is actually the mere illusion of hap-
piness’ (DA.81/63). The pleasure is the mere production of infantile wish
impulses and the satisfaction of the id upon these. This ‘condemns [the
Lotus-eaters] to no more than to a primitive state’ (DA.81/62). This regres-
sion encompasses a loss of interest in reality. ‘Whoever browses on the lotus
. . . succumbs . . . [to] oblivion and surrender of the will’ (DA.81/62).
Adorno and Horkheimer continue to quote Homer’s narration: ‘All who ate
the lotus . . . thought no more of reporting to us, or of returning. Instead
they wished to stay there . . . forgetting their homeland’ (DA.81/62).
For Adorno and Horkheimer, an even more problematic consequence
emerges from illusory pleasure. They follow Freud’s claim that there is an
interconnection between pleasure and meaning; for Freud, as we know, the
pleasure that emerges out of the satisfaction of the id-drives upon their
object is accompanied by a sense of the object as (substantively) ‘meaning-
ful’.52 According to Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis, when illusion
becomes the new source of pleasure, because pleasure is inherently linked
to substantive meaning, then illusion also of course becomes the new source
of substantive meaning. Illusions therefore come to replace reality not
merely as a source of pleasure but as a source of this kind of meaning. This
marks a further regress. Illusions, for Adorno and Horkheimer following
Freud, are infantile fantasies which are intrinsically meaningless. Therefore
when they become experienced as ‘meaningful’, that which is intrinsically
52 See the section above ‘Subjectivity Conceptualised: Freud’.

538 Y. SHERRATT
substantively meaningless comes to be taken as meaningful. This is a state

of actual delusion.53
Delusion is even more regressive than illusion. It occurs in the instance
of the lotus eaters when their experience ‘is like yet unlike the realization
of utopia’ (DA.81/63). That is, their experience begins to imitate utopia but
lacks the meaning that such experience would hold.
In regressing to narcissism and delusion, half of ‘enlightenment’ society
starts to decline into myth. The regression, however, only occurs in the
external sphere – that is to say, the sphere which is not in fact concerned
with enlightenment’s aims. Enlightenment proper, the sphere of society
pursuing the aims of enlightenment, is successful and strong. The ego-drives
are still satised upon reality so that the enlightenment experiences an ever-
spiralling increase in control, according to Adorno and Horkheimer. This is

apparent, they argue, in Odysseus’s growth in cunning, in his manipulative
abilities and in his increase in strength to control his ship, his fellow men
and his own desires.54
The enlightenment at this stage consists of a split. The internal sphere –
‘enlightenment proper’ – is successful and increasing in strength relative to
the external sphere. This, in the meantime, is regressing to encompass
certain features of myth.
The Onset Of Total Myth
This situation, however, further deteriorates. We have depicted the feature

of delusion as belonging to the external realm. However, delusion spreads
into the internal realm of ‘enlightenment proper’.
Adorno and Horkheimer illustrate the spread of delusion into enlighten-
ment proper, not only with reference to Odysseus (DA./ 67–9) but with
reference to their own contemporary society. They offer examples of this
regression from twentieth-century European culture. For instance, they
refer to the appearance of what they despise as the ‘real absurdity’ of
‘occultists’ who are ‘drawn towards childish monstrous scientic fantasies’
such as ‘astrological hocus-pocus, which adduces the impenetrable connec-
tions of alienated elements – nothing more alien than the stars – as know-
ledge about the subject’.55 Here there is an increase in delusion, for a
‘monstrous scientic fantasy’ does not merely replace ‘real’ meaning with
false meaning but actually poses as knowledge. The astrological ‘hocus
pocus’ posits itself as knowledge. There thus occurs false knowledge.
53 Note that the concept ‘delusion’ will be used throughout the text to refer to the notion of
either mistaken meaning or knowledge. In particular, it refers to meaning or knowledge that
is mistaken about its own nature or validity.
54 In the lm industry for instance, we have a growth in the technological systems of com-
munication, administration, production and distribution, see: (DA/120–68).
55 Adorno, T. Minima Moralia, Frankfurt am Main, (1973–86) Vol. 4, 241: henceforth, MM.
This provides an example for Adorno and Horkheimer, of the way delu-
sion crosses over from the realm of pleasure to that of knowledge. This rep-
resents a more serious problem than the previous stage of decline because
the delusion, in this way, affects the realm of enlightenment ‘proper’. That
is to say, the enlightenment regresses not only in the sphere of pleasure,
which is its ‘external sphere’ and hence not a part of its aims, but in the
sphere of knowledge itself, that is its ‘internal sphere’, its self-declared aims.
With further ‘progress’, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, the
enlightenment worsens and enters a decline towards total myth.
In the stage of half myth the only set of drives engaged upon reality are
those of the ego. According to Adorno and Horkheimer, these as a result
grow more and more powerful and exert more and more control over the id.
Eventually the id-drives become more restricted so that they become unable
to generate ‘wish objects’. That is, the enlightenment subject becomes
increasingly unable to generate illusions.56 Adorno and Horkheimer write:
With the technical easing of life the persistence of domination brings about a
xation of the drives by means of heavier repression. Imagination atrophies.
(DA.52–3/35)
However, the drive of the id, if weakened, persists. To what, therefore, can
it turn in order to attain satisfaction?
In fact, there is a readily available ‘Object’ with which the id can satisfy
itself. For example, in its predominance in the modern era, the ego has
generated a complex web of instrumental ‘knowledge’, a world of science,
logic, technical designs and processes. This complex technical system is a
readily available ‘Object’. The id in fact turns to this for satisfaction. Thus,
in this stage of enlightenment, the technological system produced by the ego
becomes the new object for the id. What are the results of this? We know
that the id has the characteristic of experiencing objects in terms of pleas-
ure; therefore when the ego’s products become the object of the id, instru-
mentality becomes a source of pleasure. Adorno and Horkheimer see this
phenomena as ubiquitous in the onset of total myth. Many examples of a
shift away from escapist fantasy towards an appreciation of ‘instrumental
systems’ themselves permeate the ‘culture industry’. For instance, Adorno
and Horkheimer depict a shift from the enjoyment of escapism provided by
the technology of ‘special effects’ in the cinema to an enjoyment of the
technology of the special effects themselves. Further examples can be found
in the realm of popular music. For instance, although initially Adorno and
56 It is important to bear in mind a distinction between Adorno and Horkheimer’s notion

of’imagination’ as a positive force and ‘illusion’ as a negative. Although both of these traits
are derived from the id, imagination contains ‘truth’ and ‘meaning’ and is an intensely medi-
ated and highly developed ‘experience’ of the Object. ‘Illusion’, in contrast, contains no truth
or meaning and is a regressive ‘experience’ of the Object.
540 Y. SHERRATT
Horkheimer analysed the pleasure of syncopation in jazz as offering an illu-

sory relief from a pattern which imitated the uniform, machine-like rhythm
of the industrialized workplace,57 eventually popular culture ‘developed’ so
that the instrumental working of technology began to become taken as plea-
surable itself (DA.170–1/148). Another example is offered in Adorno’s dis-
cussion of the pleasures of travel, wherein he argued that the sensual
pleasure of the slow, opulent, long-distance train was becoming replaced by
the love of technological ‘progress’ in the enjoyment of high speed:
The express train that in three nights and two days hurtles across the continent
is a miracle, but travelling in it has nothing of the faded splendour of the train
bleu. What made up the voluptuousness of travel . . . has passed away.
(MM 119)
In fact, high speed is no longer merely an instrument of efciency, replac-

ing sensual pleasure, but it becomes itself the source of pleasure. Efciency
and the instrumental workings of technology become the overall new source
of pleasure as the id turns to satisfy itself upon the ego as its new object.
This stage I have characterized as the onset of total myth for the follow-
ing reason: previously, when the enlightenment was split into two halves
(enlightenment proper and mythic fantasy) there still remained two
separate spheres of experience. However, once the instrumental replaces
illusion as the object for the id, then experience loses distinctions. The ego-
drives are the only way of relating to reality itself and, although the id-drives
remain, they neither relate to reality nor even do they any longer generate
their own object. They can only experience the ego as Object. Thus the ego
provides on the one hand, the only way of experiencing reality and, on the
other hand, has come to replace reality as the experiential realm for any
other aspect of the self. The instrumental becomes the only kind of experi-
ence possible in both spheres. Enlightenment has become, say Adorno and
Horkheimer, one of the ‘[e]xplanations of the world as all or nothing . . .
mythologies’ (DA.40/24).
This marks the onset of a regression to myth. The rst feature to decline
is knowledge itself. This occurs in the following way:
The id experiences Objects as pleasurable and as substantively meaning-
ful. Hence the products of the ego – all that is instrumental – become experi-
enced not only as pleasurable but also as substantively meaningful. This
raises a question: can the instrumental contain substantive meaning? We
know that it bears close relation to knowledge, but this is entirely distinct
from pleasure-derived meaning. Adorno and Horkheimer write, with
respect to art, of ‘appearance becom[ing] abstract’ ‘after the catastrophe of
meaning’ (DA.39/22). When we experience instrumental abstraction as sub-
stantively meaningful then we are experiencing within it something which
it does not inherently possess. This is delusion.
57 Adorno and Horkheimer do not always regard this kind of pleasure as intrinsically regressive.
Adorno and Horkheimer perceive delusion to occur in thought, so that:

‘thought appears meaningful only when meaning has been discarded’
(DA.113/93). An instance of delusion in the realm of thought would be the
sense that an explanation of the subject along biological lines conveys a
sense of the meaningfulness of the Subject. Mathematics, according to
Adorno and Horkheimer, is the purest form of ‘instrumental abstraction’.
It too comes to be taken as substantively meaningful. For Adorno and
Horkheimer, the enlightenment equates pleasure-derived meaning with
ego-derived knowledge. They write: ‘enlightenment . . . is the philosophy
which equates the truth [which includes all possible kinds of meaning] with
scientic systematization [ego derived knowledge]’ (DA.104/85).
Enlightenment knowledge thus becomes deluded about its own nature.
The feature of delusion that begins with the narcissistic satisfaction of the
id-drives spreads further into the sphere of the ego-drives.
The second feature to decline is that of maturity. In ‘totalization’, now
that the id has turned to worship the products of the ego, the relationship
between the self and the external world alters. The id-drives, which previ-
ously had satised themselves with reality, now satisfy themselves with the
ego:
[T]he libido that has been withdrawn from the external world has been directed
to the ego and thus gives rise to an attitude which may be called narcissism.58
From reality, to fantasy, to the ego, the self has turned increasingly away
from the external world as its source of pleasure and meaning, and towards
its own ego. The self is thus becoming increasingly preoccupied with itself.
This, Freud describes as a return to ‘a primitive objectless condition’,59
and it as such marks a regression in subjectivity.60 The feature of maturity
is thus undermined. This is a regression of the enlightenment subject into
the mythic counterpart.
The third feature to decline is that of freedom. In totalization the only
relationship with reality is through the ego. Thus the subject relates to
reality only through forms of control. This excess of control leads to a
relationship of domination. Domination can be considered the opposite of
freedom, a point exemplied by the following: freedom in the enlighten-
ment consists of two aspects according to Adorno and Horkheimer. First,
there is the freedom of the subject in terms of his drives, referring in this
case to the id-drives. Total control disallows this kind of freedom. An
instance of this is given when Adorno and Horkheimer write of ‘the self-
dominant intellect, which separates from sensuous experience in order to
58 Freud, S. ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’, 11, (1914), 67.

59 Freud, S. ‘The Unconscious’, 11, (1915a), 202.
60 The ‘subject’ although declining in his ‘sense of self’ is, however, a subject in the sense that
he typies the subjectivity of his time.
542 Y. SHERRATT
subjugate it’ (DA.49–53/36). 61 This is of course a notion of freedom that is

‘external’ to the enlightenment. Domination also, however, prevents a
second kind of freedom – freedom conceived of as the subject’s ‘free will’
(DA.106–9/86–8, 9). The subject in dominating the external world (includ-
ing other subjects) becomes itself an object of such domination not merely
in terms of the faculty of pleasure but also in terms of its own independent
will. Domination as a characteristic of myth means that yet another of the
enlightenment’s features degenerates to myth. The third goal of the
enlightenment therefore becomes undermined.
Let us now look at the remaining relationship with reality. Access to
reality is solely through the ego and its products. The ego relates to its object
in terms of survival and when the world is related to solely in terms of
survival, it is treated as something that is exclusively a potential threat to

survival. Of course, in part the world had always been experienced as
dangerous but this had been offset by the pleasure it afforded. Now that
pleasure has gone and the world is experienced solely as dangerous, reality
becomes only a source of fear. This marks the emergence of another feature
of myth. Whereas enlightenment (Adorno and Horkheimer claim) aimed
for security, it results in a culture driven by fear: ‘enlightenment is mythic
fear turned radical’ (DA.32/16).62 The fourth aim of enlightenment, security,
therefore becomes undermined.
For Adorno and Horkheimer, fear leads to the loss of the fth aim of
enlightenment, namely, peace. It evokes a regression into barbarism. Fear,
they think, means that self-preservation becomes the omnipresent concern
of the enlightened self.63 Here ‘self-preservation’ should be understood as
psychological survival, that is, the preservation of a sense of self or identity,
rather than merely biological survival. For this kind of self-preservation the
self is threatened by that which is different for it fears that this may ‘con-
taminate’ the self’s identity. We can term that which differs from the self
‘the Other’.
Ordinarily, the self relates to the Other through both its drives so that the
Other is potentially pleasurable and meaningful as well as potentially
harmful. At the stage of totalization however, now that the ego’s products
are the only source of pleasure and meaning and external reality is devoid
of these qualities, then the world is no longer a source of signicant and
pleasurable experience but is only threatening. 64 Adorno and Horkheimer
argue that this sense of threat reaches paranoid proportions so that the
‘enlightened self’ fears obsessively everything that is not self.
61 See also DA/32–5.

62 My emphasis.
63 Freud, (1930), 264–72.
64 It is, of course true, that in the earlier stage of fantasy, the Subject also experienced the world
as threatening. However, he was then able to generate extreme escapist illusions, the result
of which, was that he could view the ‘world’ as unthreatening. However, he was not then
really engaged with the world at all but with his own fantasies.
This fear is at root a fear of difference: a sense that the different will
annihilate the self’s identity. It expresses itself in several ways. One is an
attempt to remove the threat. Adorno and Horkheimer believe that this can
manifest itself in a drive for the destruction of difference. It can be a drive
for the destruction of external reality or of any perceived Other.
Epistemologically, this manifests itself, Adorno and Horkheimer claim,
in the rigid closed systems of logic which are concerned with their own inter-
nal rules and reject all that lies without. These, Adorno and Horkheimer
argue, are a kind of megalomaniac dominance: ‘the system is the belly
turned mind . . . it eliminates all heterogeneous being’.65 It is a philosophi-
cal devouring, which leaves nothing outside of its own system: it equates
reality with itself thereby ‘exterminating’ any potential external (different)
reality.
A brutal manifestation of this becomes inevitable, Adorno and
Horkheimer claim. They see this in anti-Semitism. ‘The fascists do not view
the Jews as a minority but as an opposing race, the embodiment of the nega-
tive principle’ (DA.192/168). This fear of the difference of the Jews is, on
the one hand, a narcissistic worship of the self: ‘The nationalist brand of
anti-Semitism . . . asserts that the purity of the race and the nation is at
stake’ (DA.200/176). On the other hand, it is a drive to exterminate differ-
ence. ‘The I am, which tolerates no opposition’ (DA.201/177) was of such
paranoid proportions that it resulted in the brutality of the Nazi concen-
tration camps.
The attempt to remove the threat of difference which emanates from the
paranoid, narcissistic self, results in brutality, in barbarism. The fth aim of
the enlightenment, peace, has thus regressed to mythic barbarism.
The failure of enlightenment to attain knowledge, maturity, freedom,
security and peace represents the failure to attain progress, the nal aim of
enlightenment. Delusion, immaturity, domination, fear and barbarism con-
stitute the nal feature of myth, namely, regression. Enlightenment has
declined to myth.66
CONCLUSION
Adorno and Horkheimer formulated the concept enlightenment with a dis-

tinct intention in mind, namely critique: more specically, the critique of
mid-twentieth-century Europe. Enlightenment, they argued, regressed to
65 Adorno, T. Negative Dialektik, Vol. 6. (1973); Adorno, T. Negative Dialectics, trans, E. B.

Ashton. London (1973), 23, 26.
66 Adorno and Horkheimer, by virtue of their Hegelian stance, do not distinguish between the
nature of something as it is and what it might inherently become. As a result of this, their
critique of enlightenment amounts to a recognition that enlightenment is always linked to
myth and always at least, in part, mythic and moreover, always immanently bound to become
myth. It is for this reason that they are regarded as so pessimistic.
544 Y. SHERRATT
include features such as ignorance and barbarism constitutive of myth. For

Adorno and Horkheimer, the most extreme instance of myth in mid-
twentieth-century Europe was Nazism. However, their claim was that
culture, politics, science and even everyday life had also reverted to myth.
And they were adamant that these instances of myth in twentieth-century
Europe were not anomalous but arose from the very foundations of
enlightenment itself.
Pessimistically, as revealed through our discussion of Subjectivity,
Adorno and Horkheimer saw such regression as immanent. In setting out
with the aims that it did (in the way that it did), enlightenment founded itself
upon a kind of subjectivity which was awed. This awed Subjectivity
entailed the extreme likelihood of myth. Adorno and Horkheimer’s criti-
cal–theoretical mode of formulating the concept ‘enlightenment’ was a

response to this problem. They regarded their critical–theoretical project as
part of an attempt to rescue enlightenment, if only ‘negatively’. Adorno and
Horkheimer believed that through such a conceptualization of ‘enlighten-
ment’ they could highlight the occurrence of both enlightenment and myth
throughout western history, and highlight enlightenment’s ever-likely
regression. In this way, Adorno and Horkheimer’s is not, as Young claims,
‘the obsessive iteration of enlightenment as a watchword for modernity’ but
the ‘obsessive iteration of a critical–theoretical ‘enlightenment’ as a watch-
word for the omnipresence of myth’.67
Cambridge University
67 I would like to express gratitude to Robert Mayhew, Raymond Geuss, Michael Rosen and
Gareth Stedman-Jones for their extremely helpful comments at various stages of this essay.

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On: 9 May 2010

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER'S CONCEPT OF 'ENLIGHTENMENT'

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ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER’S CONCEPT OF

Few concepts in the history of twentieth-century thought have been so per-

petually misrepresented as ‘enlightenment’ in the work of Theodor Adorno

1 This paper focusses upon the concept of ‘enlightenment’ as elaborated in Dialectic of

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

We have divided the discussion into two sections, ‘enlightenment con-

The historical concept of Enlightenment is the subject of much debate: its

In fact, misunderstanding of their concept errs in their ‘favour’: they are

example, assess extent or duration.14 Moreover, their conceptualization

led to wonder what indeed underlies their project.

of the differences between these modes of theorizing are reected in the

Habermas, about the nature of enlightenment values: Enlightenment

Critical theoretical modes of thought arose from a particular historical set

The Critical Theoretical Formulation

24 Also referenced in Note 15.

conceptualization of enlightenment as distinct from that of historians,

25 For a full discussion see Geuss (1981) 55–95.

it denes itself according to the attainment of a normative standard. On the

in believing myself to be an analytical philosopher. For Adorno and

Enlightenment as a watchword for modernity’. Adorno and Horkheimer

Enlightenment’s Standard, And Its Opposite

We have argued that Adorno and Horkheimer dene enlightenment

series of aims is dened with reference to an opposite.

29 See note 20 above.

wherein Nazism was, for Adorno and Horkheimer, in many respects an

Adorno and Horkheimer’s ‘myth’ lies within a critical–theoretical mode

As Enlightenment denes itself according to its aims, we would expect its

including the traits of ignorance and delusion. Thus, in contrast to the

In conceptualizing enlightenment in a critical–theoretical way, Adorno and

Subjectivity Conceptualized: Freud

It is of the utmost importance to understand the exact tenor of Adorno and

that is responsible for the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge contains a

42 Freud, (1930), 270.

pursuit of a strong ego.46 In this way he aspires to attain the aims of

Subjectivity Characterized: Homer

Adorno and Horkheimer’s second important inuence in understanding

degeneration to myth, Adorno and Horkheimer turn to an interpretation of

organizational mind and an overall administering and administered ‘per-

Subjectivity Criticized: Freud and Homer

In order to make their internal critique of enlightenment Subjectivity,

Odysseus. Adorno and Horkheimer, through their Freudian analysis of

of pleasure. Through the use of Freud’s ideas, Adorno and Horkheimer

52 See the section above ‘Subjectivity Conceptualised: Freud’.

substantively meaningless comes to be taken as meaningful. This is a state

spiralling increase in control, according to Adorno and Horkheimer. This is

The Onset Of Total Myth

This situation, however, further deteriorates. We have depicted the feature

56 It is important to bear in mind a distinction between Adorno and Horkheimer’s notion

Horkheimer analysed the pleasure of syncopation in jazz as offering an illu-

In fact, high speed is no longer merely an instrument of efciency, replac-

Adorno and Horkheimer perceive delusion to occur in thought, so that:

58 Freud, S. ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’, 11, (1914), 67.

subjugate it’ (DA.49–53/36). 61 This is of course a notion of freedom that is

survival, it is treated as something that is exclusively a potential threat to

61 See also DA/32–5.

Adorno and Horkheimer formulated the concept enlightenment with a dis-

65 Adorno, T. Negative Dialektik, Vol. 6. (1973); Adorno, T. Negative Dialectics, trans, E. B.

include features such as ignorance and barbarism constitutive of myth. For

of the differences between these modes of theorizing are reected in the

it denes itself according to the attainment of a normative standard. On the

We have argued that Adorno and Horkheimer dene enlightenment

series of aims is dened with reference to an opposite.

As Enlightenment denes itself according to its aims, we would expect its

Adorno and Horkheimer’s second important inuence in understanding

In fact, high speed is no longer merely an instrument of efciency, replac-