On Eclipse of Reason

        Eclipse of Reason by Max Horkheimer provides another influential critique of the irrational turn of reason in the name of civilization and progress and illustrates the calamitous influences caused by it on both academia and human life. This book especially focuses on the historical transform of Western Philosophy and its overarching influences on other academic disciplines, politics, society, and human life.
The title of this book—“Eclipse of Reason” implies a two-fold meaning (pp. 3-10). First, it indicates a historical process in which reason proceeded from objective reason through subjective reason to instrumental reason in the past several centuries. With no regard for any good ends, subjective factors are replaced by rational reason in decision making as a sole emphasis is placed on the linkage of feasible means with a given end. In this way, the essential principles of truth and the greatest good inherent in reality are largely sacrificed for adhering to the tenets of choice and predilection. The consequence of this transform is a degradation of reason into a matter of conflicting interests. Second, the word—“eclipse” which refers to a temporal phenomenon implies Horkheimer’s efforts and hopes to bring reason back on track. In his words, the relationship between objective reason and subjective reason is not merely contradictory. Rather, the former incorporates the elements of the latter and treats it as a subjective expression of a comprehensive totality which sanctions things and beings for achieving a good end. The reasons for the current crisis of reason lie in the fact that subjective reason has taken precedence over objective reason. The notion of conquering the unknown world derived from subjective reason negates the objectivity in the faculty of human thinking as an illusion or even an impossible mission. Except the concepts of usefulness and mathematical calculability, reason is subjectivized and then formalized in the way that the objectivity rooted in any other concepts is completely emptied. By teasing out the historical transform of reason and the dialectical relationship within it, the author implicitly expresses a hope to rescue objective reason from the shadow of subjective reason.
Another important argument proposed in this book is that the present calamitous outcomes caused by the advent of subjective reason are due to the destruction of humanity (namely, the formalization of human desires, drives, and thoughts) in both academia and human thinking. The prevalence of positivism, pragmatism, and neo-Thomism continuously reinforces the despotic role of science characterized by the mechanical procedures of physics and its branches (in Chapter 2). The utilization of these procedures commits a lethal reduction of complex reality to obvious, sensual things which are assumed to be clarified single-handedly by empirical methods but do not need the precious inheritance of humanity—independent thinking. Influenced by these theoretical principles, human’s natural desires have to be restrained within the boundaries of self-preservation so as to cater for the needs of industrial development and technological progress. The nightmare of humanity in academia and human life ultimately gives birth to “the revolt of nature” from both inside and outside human beings (p. 94). The extreme instance is the ascendancy of Nazism which manipulated human beings for its own purpose by the means of freeing people’s nature desires. The emphasis on the irreplaceable role of humanity is echoed in the last chapter which advocates philosophy as a corrective of history to salvage reason through the reincorporation of humanity (p.186).