Practice question · Multiple choice
Horkheimer and Adorno distinguish between liberating thought and instrumental reason that serves domination. What follows from this distinction for interpreting eighteenth-century intellectual projects?
Hints
- Does the application of systematic reason automatically dismantle absolute power?
- How might administrative rationalisation serve both state efficiency and human subjugation?
Show the answer
C. They view enlightened reform as masking new mechanisms of control
Why
Treating the era as purely emancipatory misses how rationalised administration and imperial commerce reinforced control. The critique shows that systematising thought did not merely combat tradition; it also provided modern states with powerful techniques for centralising authority and managing human labour.
Practise The Late Eighteenth Century and the Debate over Modernity
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