Enlightening: Adorno’s and Kant’s Contrasting Answers to the Question “How to Write About the Enlightenment?”
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The content of Kant’s Enlightenment text has received much critical reception, but the very stance Kant takes as its author has been largely ignored. Similarly, there has been much critical discussion of Horkheimer and Adorno’s “Dialectic of Enlightenment” in terms of the theses they (purportedly) endorse, while their authorial voice has mostly received either no attention or been criticised as problematically rhetorical. In this paper, I take a different approach, focusing on the two respective writerly stances. I suggest that Kant’s text harbours an implicit epistemic authoritarianism, in contrast to the self-therapeutic stance Adorno and Horkheimer’s text exemplifies.
Source: Kantian Review
Author: Fabian Freyenhagen
Institution: University of Essex
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W7130510702