Adorno made instrumental reason a transhistoric urge rather than a capitalist product

Evidence

The triumph of instrumental reason therefore ceased to be, as Lukâcs argued, the consequence of a historically specific and transitory constellation of circumstances and became instead the inevitable outcome of humanity’s need to repro­ duce itself, involving a transhistoric tendency to dominate persons and nature alike which finds its culmination in late capitalism. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 380

Categorization

• QUESTION: Is this the book’s core charge — that Frankfurt School theory naturalizes domination rather than historicizing it — and does it apply equally to Jameson?
• XREF: Direct counterpoint to Jameson: where Jameson historicizes postmodernism as late capitalism’s logic, early Frankfurt school de-historicizes reification into a transhistoric drive. — connects to: Adorno’s identification of exchange with identity logic is meta-economic, not capitalist — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1298; Adorno saw formal logic as a social artifact mirroring commodity exchange. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 266; Adorno’s core concepts originate from Benjamin but his political economy developed against him — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 294 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno’s identification of exchange with identity logic is meta-economic, not capitalist #corroborates (0.92) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1298
• Adorno saw formal logic as a social artifact mirroring commodity exchange. #corroborates (0.78) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 266