Peter E. Gordon on the Frankfurt School

An interview with Peter E. Gordon on the Frankfurt School (Adorno and Habermas):

"Traces of different colors" (Platypus Review, November 2022)

Excerpt:

Soren Whited: Do you see a higher degree of continuity, at least in the philosophical realm, between the two generations [of the Frankfurt School] than others are inclined to see?

Peter Gordon: Yes. I drive home this point when I’m introducing students to the tradition of critical theory. This continuity is evident when one reads Adorno and Horkheimer’s "Dialectic of Enlightenment" (1947) alongside Hambermas’s "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere" (1962). The latter was a very early book by Habermas, and it was one that he wrote when he was close to Adorno. One can detect lines of argumentative affinity between the two books. "Public Sphere" has been denatured by more empirically minded historians, who believe that Habermas plundered history for illustrations of a thriving public sphere that we should cherish. In fact, the historical and theoretical trajectory of the book is more sobering and dialectical than that: it ends with the refeudalization of the public sphere and the reemergence of the performance of publicity before an abject public. I.e., it ends with a dialectical reversal, not unlike "Dialectic of Enlightenment": enlightenment reverts to myth. Habermas has a realistic assessment of the chances of public rationality: he’s not an exemplar of what is called “ideal theory,” because he embeds his model of communicative reason in a socio-historical framework that acknowledges how frequently that model remains unrealized. This is a continuity that is often missed by critics who insist on the chasm between the first and second generations of critical theory.

Peter E. Gordon is Professor of History at Harvard University. He is the author of "Adorno and Existence" (Harvard University Press, 2016), and "Migrants in the Profane.  Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization" (Yale University Press, 2020). He is co-editor of "The Routledge Companion to the Frankfurt School" (Routledge, 2018).