In Eclipse of Reason (1946), Max Horkheimer shows how thinking has degenerated since the Enlightenment into what he characterizes as instrumental classification and calculation:

This type of reason may be called subjective reason. It is essentially concerned with means and ends, with the adequacy of procedures for purposes more or less taken for granted and supposedly self-explanatory. It attaches little importance to the question whether the purposes as such are reasonable.

Horkheimer evokes on the one hand the objectivity of the human situation as an individual’s relation to moral norms. On the other hand, he shows how this universality of rationality has gradually devo

This article in full comprises 2062 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

Published 02 March 2005

Citation: Wood, Kelsey. "Eclipse of Reason". The Literary Encyclopedia. 2 March 2005.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16370, accessed 9 February 2010.]