The diagnosis of social integration in the critique of instrumental reason of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno

• Grant number: 14/16541-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: November 01, 2014
• End date: April 26, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Severino Nobre
• Grantee: Raphael Eduardo Alves Concli
• Supervisor: John Abromeit
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: State University of New York, Buffalo State (SUNY), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 14/00964-2 - Adaptation and selfpreservation in a freudian key: returning to the critique of instrumental reason of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, BP.MS

Abstract

In the development of Max Horkheimer's work one finds in the end of 1930s the beginning of a transition in his theoretical orientation which would represent the inauguration of a new model of his critical theory informed by a new time diagnosis. If this reorientation is traceable from key texts such as The Authoritarian State (1939) and The End of Reason (1941) the problems and themes presented there would find its most radical elaboration in two major works among the tradition of critical theory, Dialectic of Enlightenment, by Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, and Horkheimer's Eclipse of Reason, both published in 1947.The aim of this project thus is to return to this period of Max Horkheimer and also Theodor Adorno's writings, usually known as the "critique of instrumental reason", in order to investigate the idea of social integration developed there. As a first step of my investigation concerning the emergence of this critical model in Horkheimer's texts during the transition to the 1940s has been already done, two other tasks remain: at first, I would like to establish the relation between the concept of integration and those of adaptation and selfpreservation, developed along Horkheimer and Adorno's critique of reason. The second step will be the search for which historically situated issues both authors consider regarding the process of social integration; in this regard my perspective will be mainly directed towards the phenomena related to mass culture and media, such as the effects and operation mode concerning fascist propaganda. (AU)