By the 1930s, Lebensphilosophie had turned from critical correction into ideological apology
Evidence
In the 193o’s, he argued, attacks on reason were designed to reconcile men to the irrationality of the prevailing order. The so-called tragic outlook on life was really a veiled justification for the acceptancc of unnecessary misery. Leben and Dienst (service) had come to be synonymous. What was once critical had now become ideologi cal. This was also true of the attack on science, which, in the hands of the first generation of Lebensphilosophen. had been a justified corrective to the pretensions of scientism, but which by the 193o’s had degenerated into an indiscriminate attack on the validity of scientific thought as such. “The philosophic dismissal of science,” he wrote in 1937, “is a comfort in private life, in society a lie.” 31 In seeing the irrationalism of the thirties basically as an ideology of passivity, Horkheimer neglected its dynamic and destructive sides, which the Nazis were able to exploit. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 207
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies how Lebensphilosophie shifted registers from a salutary critique of scientism to an ideological attack on science itself.
- XREF: Connects to later Frankfurt School themes of instrumental reason critique and the origins of Dialectic of Enlightenment. — connects to: Horkheimer’s critique of Lebensphilosophie defined Critical Theory’s foundations — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 214; Adorno’s motto ‘life does not live’ inverts vitalist Lebensphilosophie into opposition to it. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 918
Broader Connections
- Horkheimer’s critique of Lebensphilosophie defined Critical Theory’s foundations
#expands(0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 214 - Adorno’s motto ‘life does not live’ inverts vitalist Lebensphilosophie into opposition to it.
#qualifies(0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 918