Dialectic and Enlightenment: The Concept of Enlightenment in Hegel and Horkheimer- Adorno

The opening line of Horkheimer-Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment reads, "Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant". This path of enlightenment is what the interpretations found in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Horkheimer-Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment have in common. Considered in terms of their broad outlines, these interpretations are the same. They differentiate themselves from one another only in the details. The conceptions of the enlightenment process in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Horkheimer-Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment are like perpendicular lines; they begin at the same point and then proceed to move further and further apart. However, even as they move apart, both conceptions still point back to their common origin, and no matter how far from that original point they move, one can still draw two parallel lines that relate them, one connecting the perpendicular lines, the other bisecting their point of origin. What I propose to do in this paper is draw a series of such parallel lines in the hopes of reaching the common point of origin: the concept of enlightenment. I will begin at the limit of enlightenment, the border where enlightenment crosses over into barbarism, and work my way back, step by step, line by line, from the limits of enlightenment to its public face, to its positive aspect, to its negative aspect, and finally to the very heart of enlightenment as conceived by Hegel and Horkheimer-Adorno. In the end, I believe, it will be shown that, while Hegel and Horkheimer-Adorno have different interpretations of how enlightenment plays itself out, they start