Alienation and Autonomy: Critical Theory after the Critique of Instrumental Reason Restricted; Files Only
Walsh, Jason (Spring 2024)
Abstract
This dissertation undertakes a study of the tradition of critical theory known as the Frankfurt School, arguing that its major representatives including Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas share a central misunderstanding about the empirical and normative logic of capitalism. In the first half of the project, I trace this misunderstanding to the Frankfurt School’s collective adoption of the “critique of instrumental reason” and I argue that this is responsible for two of critical theory’s often noted and recently debated failures: its Eurocentrism and its tendency to devolve into freestanding normative theory. I claim that in order for critical theory to overcome these limitations, it must leave behind the critique of instrumental reason. In the second half of the project, I elaborate a critical theoretical perspective on both the empirical and normative logic of capitalism that does not rely on the critique of instrumental reason. I combine an empirical perspective drawn from alternative critical theories of capitalism with a normative position developed from the philosophy of the life sciences. I use this perspective to rethink several central categories of critical theory, primarily alienation and autonomy. I show that advancing beyond the critique of instrumental reason allows critical theory to renew its original task, what Marx called “the self-clarification of the struggles and wishes of the age.”
Table of Contents
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………… 1
Chapter One: What is the critique of instrumental reason? ……………………………………. 12
1. A prehistory of the critique of instrumental reason ……………………………………. 16
2. Horkheimer and Adorno’s critique of modernity ……………………………………… 26
3. Habermas and the normative turn ……………………………………………………… 39
Chapter Two: Is instrumental reason the logic of capitalism? …………………………………. 52
The disappearance of capitalism and the domestication of critical theory …………….. 54 The critique of instrumental reason as a critique of political economy ………………... 56 Is instrumental reason the logic of capitalism? ………………………………………… 60
Chapter Three: Whose linguistics? Which normativity? ………………………………………. 74
1. The methodological turn and the normativity of critique ……………………………… 75
2. What counts as a good reason? ………………………………………………………… 81
3. Towards a new normative horizon ……………………………………………………. 102
Chapter Four: Alienation: From work to non-work …………………………………………... 110
The Frankfurt School and alienation …………………………………………………. 112 Redescribing alienation: From the concrete to the abstract …………………………... 124Interlude: Alienation versus ongoing primitive accumulation ………………………... 133
Redescribing alienation: From the abstract to the concrete …………………………... 137
Chapter Five: Autonomy and beyond…...……………………………………………………. 147
1. Naturalizing normativity and autonomy ……………………………………………… 150
2. Capitalism as a form of power ………………………………………………………... 154
3. Decentering wage labor ………………………………………………………………. 158
4. Crises of non-reproduction …………………………………………………………… 162
About this Dissertation
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File download under embargo until 22 May 2026 | 2024-04-04 11:22:15 -0400 | File download under embargo until 22 May 2026 |
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