Dialectic of Enlightenment originated as a mimeographed 1942-44 typescript stripped of anti-capitalist vocabulary.

Evidence

Horkheimer’s plan for an English edition, which he had been considering since work started on it, was not carried out. The Philosophical Fragments, with only a final thesis on anti-Semitism added, and with the anti-capitalist vocabulary softened at numerous points, were published three years later by the Amsterdam émigré publishers Querido as a proper book under the title Dialectic of Enlightenment (this had been the title of the first chapter in the mimeographed edition). The end of the 1944 introduction had read: `If the good fortune of being able to work on problems of this sort without having the baneful pressure of immediate goals should continue, we hope to be able to finish the whole work in the not too distant future.’ Horkheimer and Adorno left this sentence out of the book edition in 1947. They still continued to hope, even later when they returned to the German Federal Republic, that a continuation of the work would be possible. But the discussions in October 1946 in which they tried to clarify how enlightenment was to be rescued and how a concept of correct reason was to be developed showed that they were largely at a loss. The omission of the passage in the introduction mentioned above, and the fact that a continuation of the study did not appear, made the book into something different from what its original form of publication had indicated: it became a complete fragment providing a record of the essentials of what its authors had to say. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1362

Categorization

• XREF: Provides bibliographic provenance for a text central to Critical Theory reference work; connects to any later secondary-source discussion of Dialectic of Enlightenment’s editions. — connects to: Dialectic of Enlightenment was republished with its anti-capitalist vocabulary softened. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1362; The Dialectic of Enlightenment began as a five-chapter confidential plan in 1942 — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1310; Dialectic of Enlightenment began as a provisional fragment collection rather than a finished work — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 741 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Dialectic of Enlightenment began as a provisional fragment collection rather than a finished work #expands (0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 741
• The Dialectic of Enlightenment assembled scattered ideas into a theology-based philosophy of history #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1435