Sohn-Rethel traces idealist theory’s logical autonomy to the primal break of exploitation

Evidence

The first insight consists of the claim ‘that the historical development of theory independent from the practical-material being of humans and endowed with the appearance of logical autonomy – that is, the historical development of “knowledge” in every idealistic sense – can ultimately be explained alone by a unique and extremely profound break in the practice of human existence’. This break is said to be ‘the fact of exploitation in the elementary sense that one part of society lives on the products of the labour of the other part’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 313

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Sohn-Rethel’s core genealogical thesis: autonomous idealist theory is the ideological residue of the historical break of exploitation.
• XREF: connects to: Sohn-Rethel sought to derive Kantian categories from the exchange-relation — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 326