Instrumental reason

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Instrumental reason is a term coined by Max Horkheimer . With it, Horkheimer describes the dominance of a technical-rational reason , which is sibling with social domination , over practical reason. It stands for a reason that reflects the means but not the goals of action . In addition, it denotes the interest in technical control and submission of nature that has been formulated since Francis Bacon . The concept of instrumental reason is closely related to that of purpose rationality in Max Weber and the concept of reification in Georg Lukács . One also speaks of end-means-rationality , which denotes the technical-rational adequacy of the means to achieve an arbitrarily chosen end. The ends themselves can be unreasonable, even irrational, like the Holocaust , while the means to carry it out were rational and technically effective.

The critique of instrumental reason is also a critique of the domination of nature , that is to say of the instrumental relationship between (Western) culture and nature. Horkheimer criticizes that nature, including animals, is seen today as “a mere tool of man” and is “an object of total exploitation”. He establishes a connection between the suppression of nature (both internal and external) and intra-human forms of domination and oppression; Since the history of man's efforts to subjugate nature is also the history of man's subjugation and mastery of nature includes mastery of mankind, the reverse is valid: "In the process of his emancipation, man shares the fate of the rest of the world."

The concept of instrumental reason is the key category that Horkheimer used following the Dialectic of Enlightenment co-authored with Theodor W. Adorno for five public lectures at Columbia University on Society and Reason in February and March 1944. Rolf Wiggershaus characterized these lectures as "Horkheimerisch colored outline of the dialectic of the Enlightenment ". The five lectures were published in 1947 under the title Eclipse of Reason . The German translation was published in 1967 under the title On the Critique of Instrumental Reason , which in five chapters critically analyzes the transformation of traditional philosophical concepts such as reason, truth, nature and the individual into categories of end-means-rationality, mastery of nature and self-assertion.

While Max Weber still regards the purposeful rationality of modern reason as the decisive factor in its success, for Horkheimer and Adorno the failure of the Enlightenment is already inherent in instrumental reason. With the attempt to dominate nature, the once mythical approach to the world is cleared up and dialectically strikes back into myth as “domination” and “new barbarism” (this is a central thesis of the Dialectic of the Enlightenment ). In “ positivism ”, instrumental reason leads to an affirmation of the existing and ultimately has a destructive effect. In place of enlightenment and liberation from the constraints of nature, there is subordination to economic and political interests. In fascism, Horkheimer recognizes "a satanic synthesis of reason and nature [...] - the exact opposite of that reconciliation of the two poles that philosophy has always dreamed of".

reception

According to Jürgen Habermas , the concept of instrumental reason is reminiscent of the “purposeful rationality expanded into totality”; Reason has therefore assimilated power and withdrawn from the distinction between “what claims validity and what is useful for self-preservation”. In the dialectic of the Enlightenment , Horkheimer and Adorno would have perceived “only an amalgamation of reason and rule, power and validity”.

See also

literature

  • Max Horkheimer: On the critique of instrumental reason (German version of Eclipse of Reason , 1947). Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1967
  • Max Horkheimer: Gesammelte Schriften , Vol. 6: 'To the critique of instrumental reason' and notes 1949-1969 . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1991

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Henning Ottmann : History of political thinking. From the beginnings with the Greeks to our time. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar, Vol. 4/2: The 20th Century. From critical theory to globalization. 2012, p. 69.
  2. ↑ Max Horkheimer: On the Critique of Instrumental Reason . In: Collected Writings Volume 6: 'On the Critique of Instrumental Reason' and 'Notes 1949-1969' . Frankfurt a. M. 1991, pp. 19-186, p. 119.
  3. ↑ Ibid., P. 106.
  4. ^ Rolf Wiggershaus: The Frankfurt School. History, Theoretical Development, Political Significance . Hanser, Munich 1986, p. 384.
  5. ↑ Arnd Pollmann : On the critique of instrumental reason . In: Axel Honneth (Ed.): Key texts of the critical theory . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, p. 35.
  6. ↑ Cf. Armin G. Wildfeuer: Vernunft. In: New Handbook of Basic Philosophical Concepts. Alber, Freiburg 2011, p. 2357.
  7. ↑ Max Horkheimer: On the Critique of Instrumental Reason (note 2), p. 131.
  8. ↑ Jürgen Habermas: The discourse of modernity. Twelve lectures . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt Main 1985, p. 144.
  9. ↑ Jürgen Habermas: The discourse of modernity. Twelve lectures . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt Main 1985, p. 146.