What is Enlightenment? The Dialectic of Enlightenment

Contents

Introduction to Enlightenment in Modernity

Adorno and Horkheimer, Concepts of Enlightenment

Michel Foucault, What is Enlightenment?

Conclusion – Modernity, Ethos, Knowledge, Dialectic

Bibliography

Disclaimer for the illustrations:

The illustrations are not meant to be simplifications. Since semiotics teaches us that language (English) is only one sign-system among many, we can think of the illustrations as a separate language, without words. Though we acknowledge that one sign cannot express as much as text could (which is a more complex temporal sign chain, since a text is made up of several meanings, which enhance, supplement, specify or contradict a former one. We cannot grasp the ‘one’ meaning of it in a glance, as for an illustration.), we still can see that the simplifying character of an illustration stands in contrast to the vagueness of a text's complexity. In this sense the illustration is rather a blueprint than a building. We shall see the illustration as a supplemental form of expressing the same idea, where, of course, unsaid or unsignified has to be extended by the reader's own way of thought. This the illustration has in common with text.

Introduction to Enlightenment in Modernity

While we live in a post-modern World - having the age of Enlightenment, the eighteenth century, far in our rear view mirror - the concept of Enlightenment is still a basic philosophical task. Its origin, its constitution and its goal are wildly disputed, unknown or undefined, whatever point of view might here be adequate. Still, Enlightenment is seen to be a determining part of human nature, of “what we are, what we think, what we do.” (Foucault, p.32) We still live (and an interesting question here would be: will we always live?) within the ‘shadow’ of the eighteenth century Enlightenment, even though the new era of modernity or post-modernity has been introduced. Since Enlightenment "dissolve[d] the injustice of the old inequality" (Adorno, p.12) of church, nobility, Bourgeoisie and the people, of mastery and serfdom with reason as its mediator, we face the problem of its side effects and its results, and - most importantly - its limits. Must man define his border to experience freedom (which is still within limits though they are not consciously felt, if these limits are wide enough), or can he overcome a reasonable reason in some way? Alternatively has institutionalised knowledge (with the help of religion) established a "building" of ideologies^[1] that is of eternal character?

This leads to the question of possible "exits" from Enlightenment which already happens to have been a "way out" (Foucault, p.34) from immaturity, but is now mutilated to a new "prison" of human beings in post-modernity. Is the human mind ever to reach a state of "nirvana" or its secular utopia, a never available dream world; liberty of universals, the ultimate freedom ? Will man ever be able to come back to paradise, now that he has eaten from the "tree of knowledge"? (Kantos, p.239)

This essay tries to elaborate on the post-modern view of Enlightenment through the perspective of Adorno and Horkheimer's "Dialectic of Enlightenment" and the contrary perspective of Foucault's essay, "What is Enlightenment?”

Adorno and Horkheimer, Concepts of Enlightenment

Enlightenment in Adorno and Horkheimer's view is in many aspects disconnected from the common understanding. When we think of Enlightenment, we think of its prosperity in the eighteenth century - the age of Enlightenment - with the rise of reason, which has Kant and Descartes as its primary authorities. We also think of the liberation of knowledge of the doctrines of clerical and aristocratic classes, church and politics.

In contrast, Adorno and Horkheimer not only see the emergence of Enlightenment much earlier in history, but at the same time give Enlightenment a new face as a “totalitarian” (Adorno, p.6) and “radical” (Adorno, p.16) influence on man. This influence results in humanity’s biggest cultural shift ever, the change “from chaos to civilisation” (Adorno, p.17). Here we encounter a major discrepancy compared to the concept that Foucault uses. Adorno and Horkheimer locate the creation of enlightenment somewhere in the transition from prehistory to history and show a literary place in Homer's Odyssey where the moment of transition is preserved. (Adorno, p.34)

To give a rough overview of the change Enlightenment introduced into human culture,^[2] Adorno and Horkheimer explicate the difference before and after its emergence at the ‘alteration’ in language and the awareness of its function.^[3]

Before Enlightenment, there was the prehistoric age. Man was ruled (or dominated) by nature (Adorno, p.3), as he was part of it. Man in an enchanted world did not know that the world is round and circles around the sun in rotation, they did not know that summer and winter are repeating periods due to this, but they knew everything they needed to survive the changing seasons. They knew their hunting tools - how to make them, how to use them. They knew which fruit can be eaten and which are poisonous. But the will of nature was nevertheless a mystery to them. Their lives could only be understood as an "organic unity" (Kantos, p.228) between human and nature. Myth occupied the place reason does in an enlightened world.

Language existed in a form that today is hardly possible to explain without being contradictive. In this stage, language expressed the contradiction of something being identical and not identical at the same time. (Adorno, p.15) Within this language system, for example, the Olympic deities were directly identical with the elements; they were not their representation. (Adorno, p.8) Sign and image was not differentiated. Language was in a sense tautology (Adorno, p.15), not separated from concepts. One could say: language was part of human nature and nature was mana.

Mana is for Adorno and Horkheimer the principle of indistinctiveness, equivalence. (Adorno, p.14) With mana, sign and image are one and the same. When modern humans use language they always use concepts (or words) which signify a meaning in the world. The concept (or the word) is in every case consciously distinct from its meaning in the world^[4] . Mana in respect to language represents the case when meaning and word are not differentiated for all words of the language.^[5]

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Mana is nature's “alias that signifies omnipotence”. (Adorno, p.39)

Since man can still use nothing else than words to speak, the case of mana can be seen as the unawareness of the difference between sign and image and the unconscious treatment of language as being identical with its objects (and subjects). This unawareness is lost with the rise of Enlightenment, though the attempt to by-pass the concept and to deal with the original element of the world still exists in religion.

Adorno and Horkheimer refer to the Jewish belief system, where mana is approximated by prohibiting the image or name, or idea of God. (Adorno, p.23) Prohibiting the idea shows on the contrary the awareness of the non-identity of God and its concept. Hegel calls this deliberate act of denying 'determinate negativity'. (Adorno, p.24) It is meant to extend human thought in that direction, which was lost when Enlightenment was introduced to culture. 'Determinate negativity' in this view represents that feature of cognition which cannot be grasped by “apprehension, classification and calculation”. (Adorno, p.27) The denial of the concept of God should bring the spirit of man closer to God and in general should bring man closer to the origin of things. The denial of the concept embodies a "militant antirational mystical form", and only then can this "religious phenomenon be considered as a particular case of subordination to passion". (Atlan, p.98)^[6]

Here we can see: with the separation of sign and image man becomes alienated from nature. Not only religion seeks a way to deal with this dilemma, but philosophy itself is defined by the attempt to close the “gulf” (Adorno, p.18) that opened with the separation of sign and image.

[...]

^[1] Ideologies here and later in the positive meaning, including capitalism.

^[2] This concerns at least European culture, though Adorno and Horkheimer always seem to globalise in their historical statements; but this is a subject for another discussion.

^[3] Here Adorno and Horkheimer depart from the traditional argument that “reason was unthinkable without language, and without reason, no language was thinkable.” (Rieken, p.145)

^[4] Here we can argue that this is not always the case, for instance with children. In this case on might say that children treat language in terms of mana, and maybe this is part of the reason, why children are commonly seen as innocent creatures.

^[5] Despite its paradoxical occurrence of being itself a concept (or a word), which is distinct from its meaning, but since man is enlightened he has no other choice than to accept a concept of paradox when explaining concepts outside of reason.

^[6] Here closes the circle of analogy, which Enlightenment promised to break: that man first is a creature ruled by nature. Then with Enlightenment he is liberated from its domination and becomes sovereign, but in religion man seeks a substitute for nature to be still a creature under domination and immaturity. He conceptualises the ruler as the idea of God, which at the same time in many religions (at least in Christianity and Judaism) must be deliberately denied to protect it from the destructive access of reason.