Societal stages of capitalism produce distinct forms of philosophical error

Evidence

Horkheimer saw rationalism as a fitting expression of the over-estimation of his or her own abilities by the type of individual never able to view matters as a whole, a type which had flourished in the liberal period of bourgeois-capitalist society. In irrationalism, by contrast, he saw an expression of the growing powerlessness even of most members of the middle classes in the phase of monopoly capitalism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 155

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Maps two entire philosophical positions onto two stages of capitalist development — liberal vs monopoly — treating thought itself as symptomatic of social structure. This is the load-bearing move of the whole early Critical Theory program.
• XREF: Connects to Horkheimer’s related claim that adult social helplessness, not child biology, drives the demand for authority — both read philosophy as a reflex of social powerlessness. — connects to: Capitalism’s rupture with older social forms makes their myths undecipherable to us — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1674; Under capitalism the Aristotelian four causes must be refracted through class and commodity structure — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 752

Broader Connections

• Capitalism’s rupture with older social forms makes their myths undecipherable to us #expands (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1674
• Under capitalism the Aristotelian four causes must be refracted through class and commodity structure #exemplifies (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 752