Dialectic of enlightenment

Abstract

This chapter examines the one-sided interpretations of circle of enlightenment, and argues that it is from the experience of contradiction, and not its presupposition as positive or negative, that the education of our philosophical consciousness is determinative. It explores the despairing teacher as being precisely the self-defeating dialectic in which enlightenment traps itself. The overcoming of myth by enlightenment is present even in its most primitive outpost, because the gift is nothing less than a rational calculation of the amount of gift which this unknown merits. The totality of myth which enlightenment undermines becomes the myth of the totality of enlightenment. The most recent attempt to escape from the negativity of the dialectic of enlightenment can be found in the work of Jurgen Habermas, and in particular in his theory of ‘communicative action’. Dialectics is the circle; it is not an empty and insubstantial enlightenment about the truth of the circle.

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