Horkheimer and Adorno reworked Buber’s religious insight into a materialist concept of mimesis

Evidence

Human beings experienced, in nature, what they themselves were for nature. It was only the proximity to nature produced from a distance by means of consciousness which was able to realize, in a transcended form, the lost happiness imagined in retrospectthat is, authentically mimetic behaviour', organic adaptation to others’. `You encounter me, when you encounter me’: this insight from the philosophy of religion, pointedly expressed by Martin Buber, was turned by Horkheimer and Adorno into a materialist and anthropological one. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1439

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘authentically mimetic behaviour’ as organic adaptation to others, achieved only through the distance consciousness creates.
• XREF: Connects to Buber’s I-Thou philosophy; also the concept of mimesis as developed in Adorno’s aesthetic theory. — connects to: Horkheimer and Adorno converted Buber’s religious encounter into materialist mimesis. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1439; Horkheimer and Adorno’s collaboration fused two distinct materialist methodologies — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 662; Adorno recovered theological motifs materialistically for post-Auschwitz metaphysics — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2569

Broader Connections

• Adorno recovered theological motifs materialistically for post-Auschwitz metaphysics #corroborates (0.88) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2569