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Max Horkheimer Quotes about Reality

All Max Horkheimer Quotes Fate Philosophy Reality quotes
Reason as an organ for perceiving the true nature of reality and determining the guiding principles of our lives has come to be regarded as obsolete.

Reason as an organ for perceiving the true nature of reality and determining the guiding principles of our lives has come to be regarded as obsolete.

Max Horkheimer
Reality, Guiding Principles, Reason
Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.11, A&C Black

In most cases, to be reasonable means not to be obstinate, which in turn points to conformity with reality as it is. The principle of adjustment is taken for granted. When the idea of reason was conceived, it was intended to achieve more than the mere regulation of the relation between means and ends: it was regarded as the instrument for understanding the ends, for determining them.

Max Horkheimer
Taken, Mean, Reality
Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.8, Read Books Ltd

Reason has never really directed social reality, but now reason has been so thoroughly purged of any specific trend or preference that it has finally renounced even the task of passing judgment on man's actions and way of life. Reason has turned them over for ultimate sanction to the conflicting interests to which our world actually seems abandoned.

Max Horkheimer
Reality, Men, Our World
Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.5, A&C Black

Spinoza , for example, thought that insight into the essence of reality, into the harmonious structure of the eternal universe, necessarily awakens love for this universe. For him, ethical conduct is entirely determined by such insight into nature, just as our devotion to a person may be determined by insight into his greatness or genius. Fears and petty passions, alien to the great love of the universe, which is logos itself, will vanish, according to Spinoza, once our understanding of reality is deep enough.

Max Horkheimer
Passion, Reality, Greatness
Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.9, A&C Black

Calvin's theocentric irrationalism eventually revealed itself as the cunning to technocratic reason which had to shape its human material. Misery and the poor laws did not suffice to drive men into the workshops of the early capitalistic era. The new spirit helped to supplement external pressures with a concern for wife and child to which the moral autonomy of the introverted subject in reality was tantamount.

Max Horkheimer
Children, Reality, Men
"The Essential Frankfurt School Reader" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 34), 1982.

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