Eclipse of Reason (Eclipse of Reason Ppr)

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Summary: Highly profitable work of social philosophy
Review: "Eclipse of Reason" is the product of one of the most important members of the Frankfurt School, a collection of Neo-Marxist philosophers who flourished between the World Wars. In it's pages the author, Max Horkheimer, works out nothing less than a total indictment of the creeping, cancerous nihilism that is slowly eating away at the core of Western civilization. The fundamental problem, he writes, lies in the fact that "objective reason" (by which he means the capacity of the human mind to discern real standards of goodness, beauty, and truth) has undergone a massive culture eclipse, so that only "subjective reason" (the ability to plot, plan, and calculate) has any intellectual respectability any longer; this inevitably leads to a society in which the worst forms of barbarism are catered to with the most refined methods of thought. In other words, he shows how the increasingly stiffling technological/bureacratic society we find ourselves trapped within is rooted in the developmental trajectory of mainstream Western thought. He also goes on to make arguments as to why certain neo-traditionalist revivals (e.g. Neo-Thomism) will ultimately fail to tame the modern beast and then offers a sketch of what a genuinely counter-modern philosophy would look like.

This is, to say the least, explosive material. It amounts to a claim that the present cultural crisis of the Western world is directly rooted in some of the very ideas that have come to define our modern way of life. That, perhaps, is the most interesting facet of the book: it is a work of Marxist philosophy which makes the same fundamental point that certain conservative thinkers (e.g. Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver) have been harping on for half a century or more: namely, that the foundation of most of our current social pathologies lies in the rejection, at the beggining of the modern era, of the classical philosophical project to discover real, true, objective standards of good and evil and the consequent loss of any means of rationally choosing one thing over another on the basis of goodness or beauty. Thus, this work will be interesting and profitable to a large variety of readers. Marxists and other members of the Left will find in it an exemplar of what intelligent leftist critique is supposed to be and a clear explanation of who their real enemy is (hint: it is NOT traditionalist right-wingers); conservatives (especially Christians who are attached in one way or another to the various revivals of pre-modern philosophy) will find in it both a diagnosis of the West's disease that is as clear as any they have produced, and a stern warning that they cannot compromise with what they struggle against. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to any and all of the above groups of readers.

Rating:
Summary: Reason as Failure
Review: Horkheimer's book, Eclipse of Reason deals with the concept of "reason" within the history of Western philosophy. Horkheimer defines true reason as rationality. He details the difference between objective and subjective reason and states that we have moved from objective to subjective. Objective reason deals with universal truths that dictate that an action is either right or wrong. Subjective reason takes into account the situation and social norms. Actions that produce the best situation for the individual are "reasonable" according to subjective reason. The movement from one type of reason to the other occurred when thought could no longer accommodate these objective truths or when it judged them to be delusions. Under subjective reason, concepts lose their meaning. All concepts must be strictly functional to be reasonable. Because subjective reason rules, the ideals of a society, for example democratic ideals, become dependent on the "interests" of the people instead of being dependent on objective truths.

Horkheimer is writing in 1946 and is influenced by Nazi power in Germany. He is outlining how the Nazis were able to make their agenda appear "reasonable". He is also issuing a warning against this happening again. Horkheimer believes that the ills of modern society are caused by the misuse and misunderstanding of reason. If people use true reason to critique their societies, they will be able to identify and solve their problems.