“The endeavor of scientific research to see events in their more general connection in order to determine their laws, is a legitimate and useful occupation. Any protest against such efforts, in the name of freefom from restrictive conditions, would be fruitless if science did not naïvely identify the abstractions called rules and laws with the actually efficacious forces, and confuse the probability that B will follow A with the actual effort make B follow A.” IfsWould BeLawOrderNamesForceEffortConditionsEventsResearchConnectionsDetermineProtestOccupationEndeavorProbabilityAbstractionScientific Research Author:Max Horkheimer
“If the subjectivist view hold true, thinking cannot be of any help in determining the desirability of any goal in itself. The acceptability of ideals, the criteria for our actions and beliefs, the leading principles of ethics and politics, all our ultimate decisions are made to depend upon factors other than reason. They are supposed to be matters of choice and predilection, and it has become meaningless to speak of truth in making practical, moral or esthetic decisions.” IfsThinkingMadeMatterReasonHelpingActionChoicesBeliefSpeakGoalDecisionViewsMoralPrinciplesDependsEthicsIdealsUltimatePracticalsFactorsSupposed To BeMeaninglessOur ActionsCriteriaDesirability Author:Max Horkheimer
“The significance of God, cause, number, substance or soul consists, as James asserts, in nothing but the tendency of the given concept to make us act or think. If the world should reach a point at which it ceases to care not only about such metaphysical entities but also about murders perpetrated behind closed frontiers or simply in the dark, one would have to conclude that the concepts of such murders have no meaning, that they represent no 'distinct ideas' or truths, since they do not make any 'sensible difference to anybody.” IfsThinkingWorldShouldIdeasSoulCareGivenCausesDifferencesDarkNumbersBehindsConceptsMurderCeaseTendenciesSubstanceSignificanceSensibleEntityMetaphysicalFrontiers Book:Eclipse of Reason Source: Eclipse of Reason
“The pleasure a man gets from a landscape would [not] last long if he were convinced a priori that the forms and colors he sees are just forms and colors, that all structures in which they play a role are purely subjective and have no relation whatsoever to any meaningful order or totality, that they simply and necessarily express nothing....No walk through the landscape is necessary any longer; and thus the very concept of landscape as experienced by a pedestrian becomes meaningless and arbitrary. Landscape deteriorates altogether into landscaping.” IfsMenLongPlayLastsFormOrderWalksPleasureRolesColorConceptsRelationStructureConvincedMeaningfulLandscapeMeaninglessSubjectiveArbitraryTotalityPedestriansLandscaping Author:Max Horkheimer
“Now that science has helped us to overcome the awe of the unknown in nature, we are the slaves of social pressures of our own making. When called upon to act independently, we cry for patterns, systems, and authorities. If by enlightenment and intellectual progress we mean the freeing of man from superstitious belief in evil forces, in demons and fairies, in blind fate--in short, the emancipation from fear--then denunciation of what is currently called reason is the greatest service reason can render.” IfsMenMeanReasonEvilBeliefForceSocialFateProgressCryAuthorityIntellectualEnlightenmentOvercomingPressureBlindSlavePatternsDemonFairyAweEmancipationSuperstitiousSocial Pressure Book:EPZ Eclipse of Reason Source: EPZ Eclipse of Reason
