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Yvonne Sherratt

Instrumental reason’s

unreason

Abstract In this article I argue that Adorno makes an internal critique of instrumental reason. I depict Adorno’s notion of instrumental reason byshowing how he combines Freud’s materialistic epistemology with his ownGerman Idealist inheritance. I outline his argument for the decline of instru-mental reason into mythic ‘animism’.

Key words Adorno · animism · enlightenment · Freud · instrumentalreason · myth

Introduction

We are all by now familiar with Adorno’s critique of enlightenment.Enlightenment fails: it declines and becomes myth. Enlightenment failsbecause it consists of a flawed kind of reason. The flawed kind of reasonis depicted by Adorno as instrumental reason.1

Adorno’s critique of instrumental reason is ordinarily regarded aspart and parcel of his critique of enlightenment. According to Adorno,enlightenment fails to achieve its aims because its form of reason, namelyinstrumental reason, is inadequate. Thus we see a critique of instru-

mental reason itself. This takes the form of the notion that instrumentalreason is inadequate as a means for the enlightenment to attain its aims.2

Such a critique of instrumental reason leaves space to argue that inAdorno’s work there remains a possibility for a defense of this kind of reason on alternative grounds.3 Instrumental reason might be defendedas an instrument to attain basic human survival.4 Let us term the twouses to which instrumental reason is put ‘the substantive aim’ for theachievement of the enlightenment’s aims; and ‘the more basic aim’ forthe achievement of sheer survival.

PSCPHILOSOPHY & SOCIAL CRITICISM • vol 25 no 4 • pp. 23–42

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We are less familiar with Adorno’s critique of instrumental reasonin terms of its failure to attain the ‘more basic aim’ of survival. In thispaper I explore such a critique.

My position is that Adorno believes instrumental reason regressesinto myth and that this encompasses, for Adorno, the idea that instru-mental reason fails according to both the ‘substantive’ criterion and thatof ‘the more basic aim’ of human survival. I focus upon the latter pointand show that, by the criterion of human survival, instrumental reasonis, for Adorno, a form of unreason.

The structure of my argument is as follows. First I clarify Adorno’soverarching concepts of enlightenment and myth. Secondly, I depictAdorno’s notions of mythic ‘unreason’ and ‘instrumental reason’ by

showing how he builds upon the ideas of his great forebear, Freud.Thirdly, for my more detailed analysis of instrumental reason, I dividethis into two categories, namely, representation and identification.Finally, I depict Adorno’s criticism of instrumental reason and demon-strate how it regresses to become mythic.

I Enlightenment and myth

1 EnlightenmentLet us first be clear about Adorno’s concept of enlightenment. Although‘enlightenment’ is often used by historians to refer to a specific period(circa 1660–1800 – from the foundation of the Royal Society to Kant)which emphasized a certain set of values,5 it is important to note thatAdorno uses the notion of enlightenment in a way that extends it wellbeyond that which any historians would accept. In fact, for Adorno,enlightenment has been present in some sense ever since the dawn of western culture. Adorno’s concept of enlightenment concurs, however,

with that of the historians in that he uses enlightenment to refer to thesame set of values as they do.6 In Adorno’s language, enlightenment isdefined according to its aims. These are the attainment of knowledge,freedom, security, peace and progress (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979:81 [DA 100]).7

2 Myth

According to Adorno, enlightenment, through its aims, is, and sees itself

as, the complete opposite of myth.8

Adorno writes:. . . the program of the enlightenment was the disenchantment of the world;the dissolution of myths and the substitution of knowledge for fancy.(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 3 [DA])9

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Myth is permeated by a certain set of attitudes which differ from theenlightenment in that they are not derived from any set of aims at all.In Adorno’s view, myth simply ‘is what it is’. The traits of myth are a

form of ‘reason’ which is ‘animism’,10 social domination, an expressionof fear and barbarism, all of which constitute regression (Adorno andHorkheimer, 1979: 43–80 [DA 61–99]).

3 Enlightenment to myth

The enlightenment sees itself as having transcended myth; as havingovercome myth’s negative features of animism, immaturity, domination,fear, barbarism and regression. According to Adorno, the entire self-

conception of enlightenment is formed in opposition to myth. Adorno,however, believes that enlightenment fails. Adorno argues that thisfailure is of the nature of a regression to myth.

As we stated at the outset, the regression of enlightenment to mythresults from the inadequacy of its form of reason, namely, instrumentalreason. At this point, although enlightenment regresses to myth, instru-mental reason could itself be regarded as remaining intact. That is to say,although the inadequacy of instrumental reason results in the enlighten-ment’s regression to myth, it, itself, might survive and retain its instru-mental capacities. If this were the case it would mean that althoughinadequate to achieve any substantive goal, instrumental reason mightbe able to procure ‘the instrumental’ itself, namely survival.

For Adorno, the inadequacy of instrumental reason to secure thesubstantive aims of enlightenment feeds back upon instrumental reasonso that this too is undermined. That is, part and parcel of the regressionof enlightenment to myth is the regression of instrumental reason itself.Instrumental reason regresses to become mythic. It becomes a form of animism.11

II Reason

1 Myth’s unreason: animism

(a) Freud Adorno takes over his conception of animism from Freud:12

‘The term “animism” . . . [is] used to denote the theory of the living char-acter of what appear to us as inanimate objects’ (Freud, 1913: 132).Mythic cultures

. . . people the world with innumerable spiritual beings both benevolent andmalignant; and these spirits and demons they regard as the causes of naturalphenomena and they believe that not only animals and plants but all theinanimate objects in the world are animated by them. (Freud, 1913: 133)

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Sherratt: Instrumental reason’s unreason








Through this belief that the world is populated by spirits and demons,societies in the grip of myth provide explanations of phenomena. Freudexplains: ‘animism is a system of thought. It does not merely give an

explanation of a particular phenomenon, but allows us to grasp thewhole universe’ (Freud, 1913: 134).

(b) Adorno For Adorno, following Freud, animism is the mythic formof reason. He regards this form of reason as being, in the eyes of enlightenment, regressive. It is seen by enlightenment as the contrary of its own notion of reason, instrumental reason. As such, it is seen as anactual form of ‘unreason’.

Let us now look more closely at the features of animism. Adorno

agrees with the enlightenment’s perception of myth: ‘enlightenment hasalways taken the basic principle of myth to be anthropomorphism, theprojection onto nature of the subjective’ (Adorno and Horkheimer,1979: 6 [DA 22]). This, for Adorno, is animism’s definitive feature,namely, projection. Freud writes that animistic ‘spirits and demons . . .are only projections of man’s own emotional impulses’ (Freud, 1913:150). Projection is a psychoanalytic term for the placing of internalimpulses onto the external world. Mythic man ‘turns his emotionalcathexes into persons, he peoples the world with them and meets hisinternal processes again outside himself’ (Freud, 1913: 150). Projectionscan consist of the placing of ‘evil impulses into demons’, such that itappears to be demons wishing or enacting harm upon others rather thanthe individual himself (Freud, 1913: 121). Projection can be a defenseagainst a prohibited emotional impulse, a destructive wish towards afamily member, etc. However, as Freud explains, ‘projection was notcreated for the purpose of defense; it also occurs where there is no con-flict’ (Freud, 1913: 120). In fact, Freud quotes Hume to say that ‘thereis an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings likethemselves, and to transfer to every Object those qualities with which

they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately con-scious’ (Freud, 1913: 134). Projection allows the Subject to satisfy hiswishes and desires by conceiving the world to be as he would like it tobe. He sees in the world his own wishes and, furthermore, he sees theworld as being just like himself: ‘animism came to man naturally and asa matter of course. He knew what things were like in the world, namelyjust as he felt himself to be’ (Freud, 1913: 149). We can express this bysaying that in animism the faculty of discrimination between internalsubjective impulses and external Objects is poor.

In animism, Objects in the external world are discerned on the basisof their ‘characterization’ as demons or spirits, etc. Now these are notvery sophisticated categories in the sense that they do not allow us todiscriminate between Objects very precisely: to characterize a rock as

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having demonic potential, or a tide or current likewise, may enable usto discern its nature as a source of danger but cannot provide us withvery precise demarcations of the variety which enable us to steer a ship

with any accuracy. Animism, according to Adorno, has a poor facultyof discrimination between external Objects.

Related to the poor capacity for discrimination shown by this formof reason is, for Adorno, the capacity for control. In being unable to sep-arate his internal impulses from external Objects, the Subject is alsounable to exert control in his reasoning about them. Projection there-fore is a form of reasoning with the feature of a lack of control.

In lacking a capacity for control, animism fails to be an effectiveinstrument for survival. Therefore, with animistic forms of ‘reason’ the

Subject does not have an instrument through which he can procure sur-vival. As a result, animism fails as a form of instrumental reason. There-fore, according to its own standards of reason, for instrumental animismis a form of ‘unreason’.

2 Enlightenment’s instrumental reason

Let us now depict instrumental reason. We can begin our discussion of this by seeing how Adorno builds it, as he does the notion of animism,from the ideas of Sigmund Freud.13

(a) Freud For Freud, the capacity for any kind of reason is derivedfrom the ego. The ego instinct is connected to a ‘reality principle’. Thisattempts to protect the self against damage: ‘the reality-ego need donothing but strive for what is useful and guard itself against damage’(Freud, 1911: 40–1). To achieve this protection it needs to exert controlboth upon itself and upon the external world. Reason, therefore, accord-ing to Freud, is bound up with the feature of control .

The second most significant feature of reason for Freud is discrimi-nation. The ego develops this faculty in a way that provides a greaterdiscrimination than the mere pleasure/unpleasure faculty of the id:

Consciousness now learned to comprehend qualities in addition to thequalities of pleasure and unpleasure which hitherto had been of interest toit. (Freud, 1911: 37)

For Freud, the self develops a way of discriminating between the Objectsthat comprise the external world. These discriminations are between

what Freud terms the ‘impressions of Objects’. He writes:It is probable that thinking was originally unconscious, in so far as it wentbeyond mere ideational [re]presentations and was directed to the relationsbetween objects. (Freud, 1911: 38–9)14

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After receiving these sense impressions, the ego then according toFreud has a faculty for ordering and retaining them. He argues that‘probably a system of notation was introduced, whose task it was to lay

down the results of this periodical activity of consciousness – a part of which we call memory’ (Freud, 1911: 38).15 Freud moves on to talk less,in fact, about the processes of reasoning vis-à-vis the external world andmore about the representation of knowledge to the self. Freud assertsthat impressions of Objects are represented and linked to a ‘word’ sothat the Subject forms representations of Objects in the mind in the formof ‘words’. He claims that thinking ‘did not acquire further qualities,perceptible to consciousness, until it became bound to verbal residues’(Freud, 1911: 39). The words that represent Objects develop into propo-

sitional statements and it is these propositional statements that consti-tute knowledge.Thus, for Freud, the process of reasoning occurs through the pro-

cesses of control and discrimination of sense impressions. Knowledgeitself consists of representations of these sense impressions in the formof words.

(b) Adorno: representation Adorno’s notion of the process of reason-ing has certain similarities to and certain differences from that offeredby Freud. First, we will consider the similarities. Adorno follows Freudin positing that reason consists of a representative aspect and that it hasthe features of discrimination and control.

In Adorno’s depiction of ‘representation’ he agrees with Freud thatObjects are represented in the mind in the form of propositional state-ments. However, whereas Freud argued that representations of Objectsare held in the form of words, Adorno argues that they occur in the formof concepts. That is to say, for Adorno knowledge of Objects is repre-sented in the mind through concepts. Adorno claims that ‘the concept’is ‘the organon of thinking’ (Adorno, 1973a: 15 [ND 27]). He reiterates

this point when he quotes Kant as saying that: ‘understanding . . .[occurs through the] construction of concepts’ (Adorno and Hork-heimer, 1979: 81 [DA 100]). These concepts are then developed intosystems. The goal, Adorno writes, is to ‘make “a certain collective unitythe aim of the operations of the understanding,’’ and this unity is thesystem’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 81 [DA 100]).16 These con-ceptual systems, for Adorno, form the propositional statements. Thusone aspect of reason is representation, which consists of propositionalstatements in the form of a conceptual system.17

Let us now look at how Adorno’s view of instrumental reason differsfrom that depicted by Freud. Freud holds an ‘empiricist’ perspective:for him, sense impressions of Objects enter the mind, and words arederived from these. The contrary of this perspective, which was also a

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predominant view of reason in the Enlightenment, is a rationalist per-spective. Adorno does not conceive of instrumental reason as beingrationalist in the absolute sense – which is that we are born with a

rational ‘schema’ through which all knowledge is derived. He does,however, certainly differ from Freud’s strict empiricism. Adorno thinksthat reason implies a mastery of concepts, which in a given context are

prior to sense impressions: ‘the conceptual apparatus determines thesenses, even before perception occurs’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979:84 [DA 103]). For Adorno, instrumental reason depends upon concep-tual statements being priorly formed. This is a fundamental differencebetween Adorno and Freud. This difference is conflated with a furtherone: for Adorno, in contrast to Freud, the fundamental basis of all

reason is the process of identification.

(c) Adorno: identification To depict Adorno’s notion of identificationlet us step back a moment and analyze his view of how the impulsetowards the process of reasoning occurs. Adorno claims that reasoningemanates from a condition in which the Subject feels himself to be sep-arated from his external world, that is, from the Object. Adorno writes:

everything unknown and alien . . . whatever in things transcends the con-fines of experience; whatever in things is more than their previously known

reality. What the primitive experiences in this regard is . . . the intricacy of the Natural in contrast to the individual. (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979:15 [DA 31])

This separation, according to Adorno, is a source of great anxiety andeven of fear: ‘the unknown . . . [is] terror’ (Adorno and Horkheimer,1979: 15 [DA 31]). The result of this is that, through the drive for self-preservation, the Subject seeks to overcome this separation. He does soin a particular way. To overcome the threatening separation he canidentify the external Object with himself, and one way of the Subject’s

doing this is to make the Object like himself . Adorno describes how thiscan be done: ‘the gasp of surprise that accompanies the unusual becomesits name’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 15 [DA 31]). In this way,through identifying the Object with the human gasp, Adorno argues thatthe Object can become ‘familiar’. Adorno describes how this ‘fixes thetranscendence of the unknown in relation to the known, and thereforeterror as sacredness’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 15 [DA 31]). Inthis primitive example, the Subject in identifying the Object with thesound emanating from his own voice makes the Object like himself.

Adorno depicts this simple instance as illustrative of the basis to all‘explanation’. He writes that ‘myth and science, originate in human fear,the expression of which becomes explanation’ (Adorno and Horkheimer,1979: 15 [DA 31]).

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law-governed. Adorno writes that ‘knowledge consists of subsumptionunder principles’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 82 [DA 100]). Theselaws, or ‘principles’, are those of logic, and they are very precise, so

allowing the conceptual system to be ‘finely tuned’. ‘Cognition’, asAdorno puts it, does not occur ‘by chance’ but is ‘attained by a rational,systematically unified method’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 25 [DA41–2]).

A further property of the system is that it attempts to be compre-hensive. It endeavors to grasp the whole of the Object leaving nothingwithout – there is no residual part of the Object believed to be leftbeyond the system. Systems of conceptual thought20 attempt to embraceentire complexes of Objects, so that the system, according to its own

rules, can eventually conceive of itself as capturing the entirety of theexternal world. Comprehensiveness (the attempt to grasp the entirety of the Object world) combined with organization (the attempt mentally tomanipulate it) leads to the idea that the whole of the external world of Objects can potentially be controlled in these systems.

If we add together these properties of concepts and the system, thatis, the conceptual system, we get a capacity for discrimination and control . The conceptual system is, of course, the representative aspect of reason, so we have seen which properties of the conceptual system allowfor discrimination and control. In fact we can group all these properties– precision, clarity, distinctness, organization and comprehensiveness –together as comprising the overall property of determinacy. Represen-tation in instrumental reason is determinate: it is this overarching prop-erty of determinacy which allows for the possibility of discriminationand control. The determinacy of the conceptual system allows theenlightenment process of identification to occur.

Having offered a brief depiction of Adorno’s notion of instrumentalreason, let us now move on to view his critique of it. This critique takesa particular form. Adorno claims that instrumental reason regresses to

become mythic. We will analyze this claim for both the realms of instru-mental reason – that is, representation and identification.

III Critique of instrumental reason

In understanding Adorno’s criticism of the enlightenment it is importantto note that Adorno systematically refuses to make a number of dis-tinctions which would ordinarily be found in (Cartesian) philosophical

discussions of knowledge. Such discussions would make a distinctionbetween notions of what a conceptual system is, that is, its propertiesetc., and how systems change to allow knowledge to develop. Adornointentionally transgresses these boundaries and links the very features of

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concepts to the development of knowledge. He believes that the featuresof conceptualization themselves lead to the incapacity of reason to de-velop, and, moreover, lead to its eventual regress.

Adorno believes instrumental reason regresses in both its spheres,representation and identification, to become animistic. First, let us lookat representation.

1 Representation

Representation has the property of being determinate. For Adorno,problems arise for the conceptual system, due to this very determinacy.Let us divide our discussion of these problems into those that arise from

the features of the actual ‘concept ’, and those that arise from the systemitself.First, looking at ‘the concept’ we see that its features of precision,

clarity and distinctness comprise its determinacy. Adorno argues that theconcept’s determinacy regresses. It regresses, he believes, in the follow-ing way.

The determinate nature of concepts allows for highly sophisticateddemarcations between them. These become increasingly ‘fixed’. This‘fixed’ nature of the demarcations leads concepts to become rigid cat-egories, ‘immune’ to any internal or external development. Adornoargues that this problem of rigidity means that concepts become less likethe vehicles of thought they ought to be and more like mere ‘facts’. Allthey can then do is simply convey fixed categories of ‘meaning’. Adorno’scriticism goes further. In their immunity to development, he argues, it isnot simply that concepts cannot facilitate reasoning, but that, indeed,they actually come to prevent it. Adorno states that the ‘rigidity . . .which concepts were generally compelled to assume’ (Adorno andHorkheimer, 1979: 22 [DA 39]), leads to a ‘frame-covered, never-changing realm’ (Adorno, 1973a: 33 [ND 43]), and this ‘frame-covered,

never changing realm, is true for untruth only’ (Adorno, 1973a: 33 [ND43]). For Adorno, determinate concepts have an in-built tendency toprevent further reasoning by becoming rigid.21

Secondly, there are problems arising from the determinacy of thesystem. The determinacy of the system is founded upon its organizationand comprehensiveness. These aspects regress in the following way,according to Adorno. On the one hand, the organization of the systemdeclines. Organization in the system consists, according to Adorno, of the administering of concepts into various groups, which are themselves

then compiled into various broader groups. The relations between theconcepts, and between the various groups and subgroups of concepts,are governed by a series of laws. The administrating and law-governingnature of the system facilitates thought. It also comes to prevent it: the

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‘administrative apparatus of thought’ and its laws have an inherent ten-dency to lose flexibility and become rigid. As a result the mind cannotmanoeuvre information in any on-going attempt to know it. In this way

the laws actually disallow the manipulation of the elements of ‘thought’.Instead, the whole administrative apparatus of the system itself comesto organize the relations between concepts and this entails their actuallydictating the propositions that form knowledge. Thus, for Adorno,through rigidity the administrative apparatus actually comes to dictatethe content of knowledge. Adorno refers to this as the trend of domi-nation. He describes how the conceptual system, the apparatus of thought, thereby becomes like a bureaucratic mode of ‘thought’:

The decisions of bureaucracy are frequently reduced to . . . drafts submit-

ted to it; the bureaucratic way of thinking has become the secret model forthought allegedly still free. (Adorno, 1973a: 32 [ND 42])

The regression of the feature of organization to domination encompassesa regression in reason to myth.22 Adorno writes:

. . . the ‘domination,’ which Freud anachronistically ascribes to magic, cor-responds to realistic . . . domination only in terms of a more skilled science.(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 11 [DA 27])23

A further aspect of the system’s determinacy is its comprehensive-ness. Comprehensiveness, for Adorno, with respect to the system, refersto the property whereby the system attempts to ‘know’ the world of Objects in its entirety. The system aims to ‘incorporate’ all Objectswithin itself. No aspect of the world of Objects remains outside of thesystem. This feature regresses. Through comprehensiveness, the systemattempts to incorporate the Object, but in actual fact, in the very processof incorporation, the system annihilates the Object that it incorporates.Adorno describes this process through the metaphor of ‘eating’. Hewrites that ‘the system is the belly turned mind’ (Adorno, 1973a: 23 [ND

34]). The system attempts to ‘eat’ or ‘devour’ the Object. That which weeat is, of course, destroyed. The comprehensiveness of the system there-fore incurs a destruction of the Object. It destroys the Object by con-struing the Object as like the system. It thereby destroys any inherentdifference in the Object: to express it another way, it ‘annihilates’ theObject’s own, intrinsic ‘being’. Adorno terms the elements of the Objectthat differ from the system ‘the heterogeneous’. The system, therefore,he writes, ‘eliminates all heterogeneous being’ (Adorno, 1973a: 26 [ND37]). Adorno regards this phenomenon of ‘devouring’ as a kind of domi-

nation. The system in ‘devouring’ the Object brings it under its ownlaws, etc., so denying it any possibility of ‘autonomy’. In this way, itimposes its ‘own voice’ upon the Object and this for Adorno, is a kindof domination of the Object’s own intrinsic ‘being for itself’.

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Looking at the regression of the features of the concept and those of the system we have the following. For Adorno, the determinacy of theconcept regresses to rigidity. The determinacy of the system, in both its

features, organization and comprehensiveness, regresses to domination.Rigidity entails the lack of an ability of the concept to respond to theObject. Domination is even more regressive in that it encompasses, notonly a lack of responsiveness to the Object, but an actual imposition of the system’s own voice upon the Object. In this way, the system actuallycomes to ‘ignore’ and supplant the Object. That is, it regresses to encom-pass the feature of hypostasis.24

The hypostasis of the representative conceptual system consists of three aspects. First, it ignores the Object:

The system, the form of presenting a totality to which nothing remainsextraneous, absolutises the thought against each of its contents and evapo-rates the content in thought. (Adorno, 1973a: 24 [ND 35])

Secondly, it becomes a world unto itself governed by its own laws.Adorno claims that we get

. . . a system of detached signs devoid of any intention that would transcendthe system. (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 18 [DA 34])

This, he writes, is

. . . the game which mathematicians have for long proudly asserted is theirconcern. (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 18 [DA 34])

Thirdly, it mistakenly believes that this internal world of detached signsactually ‘is’ the Object. In this way the representational system replacesthe Object and determinacy regresses to hypostasis.

We can summarize these features in a table (Table 1).

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Table1 The Conceptual System

Features of representation Features of regression

Concept Precision RigidityClarityDistinctiveness

System Organization DominationComprehensiveness

Conceptual Determinacy Hypostasissystem

The representational conceptual system in its regression becomesrigid, dominating and hypostatic. These are the features of instrumentalanimism for Adorno.25 Instrumental reason has thereby regressed tobecome animistic in the sphere of representation.








projection, results in certain of the same traits as fantasy. In fantasy theSubject’s relationship with the external world is undeveloped so that theSubject imagines the Object rather than actually encounters it. In fantasy

the Subject (1) does not identify the Object at all and (2) simply projectshis imaginings onto the Object. In hypostasis something similar to thesetwo processes occurs. Hypostasis results from the system’s rigiditywithin which the Subject’s thought has become trapped so that he isunable to go beyond the system to the Object itself. As a result, inhypostasis the Subject does not engage with the external Object at all.In this respect hypostasis is parallel to fantasy. Furthermore, in hyposta-sis, through remaining within the internal workings of his own systemthe system comes to replace the Object as the ‘Object’ for the Subject’s

mind. Thus, although there is no actual act of projection of the Subject’simaginings onto the Object in hypostasis, the Subject’s mental constructsstill come to replace the Object.

There is, however, a further way in which instrumental identificationcan regress to instrumental animism. This is a regression in identificationthat occurs in the actual process of identification itself. That is, instru-mental identification regresses to an animistic form. This occurs in thefollowing way.

First, the process of discrimination increases so that there are moreand more demarcations between Objects. This has the effect of ‘break-ing’ the Object up into ever and ever smaller ‘pieces’. As a result, dis-crimination becomes fragmentation.

Secondly, the feature of control within identification increases. Asmore and more control of the Object is generated, control regresses intorigidification and domination. So far, we see in this depiction of theregression of identification that the very features of instrumental identifi-cation undergo a regress. Discrimination becomes fragmentation andcontrol becomes domination and rigidification.

Thirdly, it becomes apparent that the actual process of identification

itself regresses. Making the Object like the Subject becomes mere fan-tastical ‘projection’: that is, the Subject does not make the Object likehimself but instead of doing so simply imagines that the Object is likehimself. The process of bridging the gap between the Subject and theObject is replaced by the Subject’s fantasizing that the Object is likehimself.26

Note that projection here is distinct from the appearance of ‘pro-jection’ that we mentioned in the regression of representation tohypostasis. There, hypostasis meant that the Object was replaced by the

system so that there was no actual process of identification at all. Here,‘projection’ encompasses the idea that the actual process of identificationoccurs but in a regressive form, that is, as mere fantasy.

Finally, in the regression of identification we see that the Object,

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through being fantasized by an instrumental mind, becomes imbuedwith instrumental meaning. That is, the Subject is instrumental. There-fore, in imagining that the Object is like his mind he imagines that it is

instrumental. In imagining that it is instrumental he imbues it withinstrumental meaning. Note that this latter encompasses three points:first, imbuing the Object with instrumental meaning entails a loss of sub-stantive meaning; secondly, it entails an impossibility of there even beinga substantive meaning – that is to say, it is not simply that the Subjectdoes not gain substantive meaning whilst accepting that substantivemeaning might be ‘out there’, but that he denies the very possibility of there being such a kind of meaning; thirdly, the imbuing of instrumentalmeaning means that instrumental meaning itself becomes potentially

false – that is, a projected form replaces the actual form.There are thus two different ‘routes’ in the regression of instrumentalidentification to animistic projection: one through the decline of rep-resentation to hypostasis; and one through the decline of the process of identification itself. In spite of these two distinct routes the actual resul-tant problems are the same.

Regressive identification, namely, projection, consists of two majorproblems. These are delusion and a ‘loss of the Object’.

Let us look first at delusion. Projection entails delusion that occurson two levels. On one level, the conceptual system is ‘deluded aboutitself’. ‘It believes’ itself to identify the Object. However, the conceptualsystem has merely (in the main) identified itself. The conceptual systemin believing it captures the Object therefore is deluded about itself . Onanother level, the system is deluded, not just about itself, but also aboutthe Object. In the process of projection what the system in fact captures– ‘in’ what Adorno refers to as ‘the anticipatory identification of thewholly conceived and mathematized world’ (Adorno and Horkheimer,1979: 25 [DA 41]) – is the ‘system itself’. Thus in believing that it cap-tures the Object, the system is deluded about the Object. Adorno’s first

point about the problem of projection is that it entails delusion.Projection also entails a second problem, namely, the ‘loss of the

Object’. Adorno writes:

The separation of subject and object . . . must not be hypostasized, not ma-gically transformed into an invariant. (Adorno, 1978: 499)

However, he writes of how ‘this [problem] in the separation of subjectand object is imparted to epistemology’ (Adorno, 1978: 499).27 In identi-fying the Subject with the Object, the Subject conceives of himself to

have bridged the separation between the Subject and the Object. In factthis gap is ‘magically transformed’ – for which read ‘mythically trans-formed’, magic being inherently part of myth for Adorno – which is tosay, the gap is mythically traversed; which is, of course, to say that it is

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can be no defense in the claim that although instrumental ways of think-ing about the world fail to provide moral understanding they at leastprovide the essentials for ‘practical’ life such as a high degree of certainty,

control, or ‘efficiency’. Instrumental reason is inherently poised on thebrink of decay. It is, for Adorno, according to the more basic criterionof the attainment of human survival, a form of unreason.29

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, UK

Notes

1 I would like to express my thanks to Raymond Geuss and Nigel Simmondsfor comments on a final draft. I would also like to thank Robert Mayhew,David Rasmussen and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

2 Adorno does not follow an analytic approach to philosophy but aimsinstead to use concepts in the way in which they have been historicallytransmitted to us, often embodying a ‘constellation’ of meanings. Thisapproach does not always, however, suffice to defend the looseness withwhich he often deploys concepts. For instance, his use of ‘reason’ is verybroad, often referring to what would ordinarily be considered ‘knowledgeacquisition’ or ‘cognition’. Furthermore, he fails to offer clear distinctionsbetween the processes of reasoning and those of acquiring knowledge.Although this is very unsatisfactory, I will use the term ‘reason’ as Adornodoes, because to criticize it would take us beyond the constraints of a singlepaper.

3 It is not that authors themselves defend instrumental reason in instrumentalterms, it is that they leave space, within their reading of Adorno, for othersto do so. See, for instance, readings of Dialectic of Enlightenment as ahistorical or sociological theory (e.g. Agger, 1992; Bottomore, 1984;Connerton, 1980; Slater, 1977; Tar, 1977) or philosophical readings thatview it as a critical theory (Benhabib, 1986; Gastelaars et al., 1990); orthose that explore certain psychological aspects (such as Alford, 1988;Dallymayr, 1991; essays in Pensky, 1997; and Wolin, 1987). See also formore detailed analysis within the same framework: Buck-Morss, 1977; Jay,1973, 1984; Habermas, 1982; Rose, 1978; Wolin, 1987: 23–52; see also,in German, Recki, 1988.

4 Whole bodies of thought defend instrumental reason as the most effectiveinstrument in securing human survival; for instance, rational choice theory,forms of pragmatism, positivism, etc.

5 They argue about issues such as the period of enlightenment and the natureand extent of its values. See for example, Gay, 1967–9; Outram, 1995; Porterand Teich, 1981. See Cassirer, 1951. We do not need to discuss these issues,but should note them and situate Adorno’s concept in relation to them.

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6 The views about Enlightenment developed by historians draw on andengage with Kant’s conceptualization. That is to say, Kant’s treatment in‘What is Enlightenment’ gives us the conceptual framework within which

most of those who discuss the concept of Enlightenment operate.7 Adorno and Horkheimer depict these (1979: 3, 81 [Adorno, 1984: 19,100]).

8 Although there has been much criticism of Adorno’s notion of myth (seeNote 3). This often, however, misses the point. Adorno’s concept of mythis internal to the enlightenment : he depicts what he believes the enlighten-ment regards as myth, so that any critique ought to be aimed at theenlightenment’s view of myth – if it believes this to be flawed – or atAdorno’s failure to capture the enlightenment’s view. Adorno’s own view of myth, in the context of his critique of enlightenment, is irrelevant.

9 For Adorno’s works I cite both the original text and the translation. Theoriginal texts are cited in square brackets after the translation and areabbreviated as follows: DA = Dialektik Der Aufklarung: PhilosophischeFragmente (2nd edn, 1984); ND = Negative Dialektik (1973a).

10 I am not, of course, implying that Adorno invented this term himself.11 We focus upon Adorno’s epistemology through an interpretation of his use

of Freud which means deploying unusual categories such as ‘animism’ and‘myth’ rather than the more familiar German Idealist ones. This is not tosuggest a priority of Freudianism over German Idealism in Adorno.

12 And Freud from Fraser and others. That is to say, this term does not

originate with Freud.13 Adorno’s concept of enlightenment is a theoretical construct built upon theideas of a number of different thinkers, one of whom is Kant and anotherof whom is Sigmund Freud.

14 I transform the word ‘presentation’ into ‘representation’ because the trans-lation mistranslates the German in this important respect.

15 My emphasis.16 My emphasis.17 The terms ‘propositional statements’ and ‘conceptual statements’ will be

used interchangeably.18 Note that, for reasons of clarity, I have given my own example here.19 We see that although the term ‘conceptual statements’ refers to the process

of representation only, the term ‘conceptualization’ refers to the wholeprocess: that is, to both identification and representation.

20 For Adorno instrumental reason and ‘conceptualization’ (or indeed‘conceptual thought’) have the same meaning.

21 Adorno writes that ‘the concept [is] the organon of thinking, and yet thewall between thinking and thought’ (Adorno, 1973b: 15 [ND 27]); myemphasis.

22 For Adorno magic is part of myth, and thus negative.23 My emphasis. It ought also to be emphasized that there are two kinds of

domination, which, for Adorno, are related. There is the tendency withinthought for the system to come to dominate thought processes, which wehave depicted. There is also the emergent tendency for this to translate intoforms of social domination, which we do not depict as such. The quotation,

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strictly speaking, refers to how the former kind of domination leads to thelatter.

24 We will discuss this term shortly.

25 We will analyze the features of animism later in our discussion of the regres-sion of identification.26 The relationship with the external world is undeveloped so that the Subject

fantasizes rather than ‘encounters’.27 Adorno uses the term ‘contradiction’, which I have replaced with the term

‘problem’ because I refer to only ‘half’ the contradiction.28 See Freud (1913) for a depiction of magical, mythical ‘omnipotence of

thoughts’. Adorno is claiming that the whole of enlightenment ends up insuch a childish fallacy.

29 Note that for Adorno this is only half the story. Adorno always thinks

dialectically so that instrumental reason’s decline to animism is part of adialectic: this has many ramifications, not least that Adorno is not, in anysense, an all-out critic of instrumental reason. See Sherrat (1998).

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