The Dialectic of Enlightenment aimed to display enlightenment’s ambiguity, not to discard it.

Evidence

The formulation dialectic of enlightenment' indicated that Horkheimer and Adorno did not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, that they only wanted to demonstrate the ambiguity of the idea of enlightenment. But a passage from Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History’ seemed to have become the motto of their inquiry:’ `The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are “still” possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledgeunless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable.’ — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 350

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the book’s title-concept as ambiguity-demonstration rather than outright rejection of enlightenment.
• XREF: Connects to Benjamin’s ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ and to the reader’s Critical Theory institutional-history track.