Dialectic of Enlightenment

Dialectic of Enlightenment

Authors	Max Horkheimer Theodor W. Adorno
Original title	Dialektik der Aufklärung
Translator	John Cumming (1972)
Country	Germany
Language	German
Subjects	Philosophy, social criticism
Publication date	1947
Published in English	1972 (New York: Herder and Herder)
Media type	Print (pbk)
Pages	304
ISBN	0-8047-3633-2
OCLC	48851495
Dewey Decimal	193 21
LC Class	B3279.H8473 P513 2002

Dialectic of Enlightenment (German: Dialektik der Aufklärung) is a work of philosophy and social criticism written by Frankfurt School philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno.^[1] The text, published in 1947, is a revised version of what the authors originally had circulated among friends and colleagues in 1944 under the title of Philosophical Fragments (German: Philosophische Fragmente).^[2]

One of the core texts of critical theory, Dialectic of Enlightenment explores the socio-psychological status quo that had been responsible for what the Frankfurt School considered the failure of the Enlightenment. They argue that its failure culminated in the rise of Fascism, Stalinism, the culture industry and mass consumer capitalism. Rather than liberating humanity as the Enlightenment had promised, they argue it had resulted in the opposite: in totalitarianism, and new forms of barbarism and social domination.^[3]

Together with Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality (1950) and fellow Frankfurt School member Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man (1964), it has had a major effect on 20th-century philosophy, sociology, culture, and politics, especially inspiring the New Left of the 1960s and 1970s.^[4]