Rethinking The Criticism On Kant’s Enlightenment Philosophy In Dialectics Of Enlightenment

This paper analyzes the criticism of Kant’s enlightenment philosophy in Dialectics of Enlightenment,and tries to clarify the theoretical origin,main content and theoretical defects of Dialectics of Enlightenment after criticizing Kant’s enlightenment philosophy.The first chapter of this paper discusses the role of neo-Kantianism and early Western Marxism in horkheimer and Adorno’s formation of some views on Kantian enlightenment philosophy,the purpose of which is to reveal the formation process of the views on Kantian enlightenment philosophy in Dialectics of Enlightenment.This chapter will prove that horkheimer and Adorno’s ideological change from Neo-Kandy to Western Marxism in their youth is an important reason for their critique of Kantian philosophy in Dialectics of Enlightenment.The second chapter focuses on the critical logic of Dialectics of Enlightenment to Kant’s enlightenment philosophy,so as to show how Horkheimer and Adorno criticize Kant’s enlightenment philosophy.This chapter will prove that Horkheimer and Adorno’s critique of Kant’s enlightenment philosophy in Dialectics of Enlightenment is carried out in two parts.First,it regards Kant’s enlightenment reason as the theoretical reason of the Critique of Pure Reason in Dialectics of Enlightenment,and believes that the theoretical reason will change into a kind of computational thinking in the process of capitalist production,so that people will be firmly controlled and lose their freedom.Second,it believes that enlightenment rationality will become an immoral force in People’s Daily life,which has been deeply revealed by Sade and Nietzsche.However,Kant’s restriction on theoretical rationality by practical rationality is only an optimistic attitude,lacking realism.Through this criticism,Horkheimer and Adorno completely negated the critical power contained in Kant’s concept of enlightenment,but reduced Kant to a defense theory of totalitarianism.The third chapter reflects on the style of Dialectics of Enlightenment and its theoretical consequences,and on this basis leads to Habermas’ overcoming of this dilemma and his return to Kant.This chapter will prove that Dialectics of Enlightenment launches its criticism of Kant’s enlightenment philosophy in a radical way,and the radical way is the result of the common influence of many factors.This radical criticism oblases the positive factors in Kant’s concept of enlightenment,which is also the deficiency of the criticism of Kant’s enlightenment philosophy in Dialectics of Enlightenment.Overcoming this deficiency also became the starting point for the second generation of Frankfurt school theorists to revise the critical theoretical paradigm.