Dämmerung II: Notes For Dämmerung (1926-1931)
Fragments on the metaphysics of capitalist society, by Max Horkheimer.
Part II of a series of translations of texts for, from, or contemporaneous with Horkheimer’s Dämmerung. Notizen in Deutschland (1934).
Dämmerung I: Horkheimer's Weimar Journals (ca. 1920-1928)
Dämmerung III: Aphorisms from Dämmerung (1934) (forthcoming)
Dämmerung Appendix I: Sketches for a Negative Metaphysics. Herbert Marcuse (ca. 1933)
Table of Contents
Translator’s Note.
§1. Philosophia perennis.
§2. Capitalism and the Sultan Saladin.
§3. The Metaphysical Transfiguration of the Revolution.
§4. Positivism.
§5. Profanation.
§6. Fatherland and Religion in the Present.
§7. Marx and Messianism.
§8. Presuppositions of Research.
§9. Ego and World.
§10. The Gregariousness of the Rich
§11. Pleasure and displeasure.
§12. Language and Metaphysics.
§13. The Philosophers and Eternity (The Unfathomable).
§14. Irrationalist Philosophy.
§15. Theory and Practice.
§16. The criterion of the most advanced cognition.
§17. The Ground of Metaphysics.
§18. The Unity of the Absolute.
§19. On The Metaphysical Formulation of Questions.
§20. The American Spirit.
§21. Truth and Time.
§22. On the validity of historical materialism for the past.
Translator’s Note.
The twenty-two fragments below are original translations of the “Notizen” written between 1926 and 1931 for Dämmerung, but which were cut for unknown reasons from the final manuscript that would be published in 1934. In the “Editorische Vorbemerkung” to the posthumous publication of the “[Notizen zur Dämmerung] [1926-1931]” in MHGS, Bd. 11 (1987),1 Noerr explains:
The notes compiled here were cut by Horkheimer from the original typescript of Dämmerung, probably because they did not seem sufficiently developed. However, no statements of a more exact nature on this issue have been given. The sequence of the individual notes corresponds to a retrospective reorganization (by Pollock, most likely, for the purpose of publication). As can be seen from the page numbers on the typescript, this order does not correspond to the original placement of the notes in Dämmerung. The original ordering can no longer be reconstructed with any exactitude, however, since the typescript of the part published in 1934 has not been preserved. A note entitled ‘Die Philosophen und die Ewigkeit’ included in the collection in Horkheimer’s Nachlaß has been cut from this edition, as, apart from the title and an introductory paragraph, it is identical with the note already published in Dämmerung as ‘Das Unerforschliche.’ The editor’s dating, by reference to the date of composition, follows that which is found in the foreword to the 1934 printing. The Notizen der Dämmerung, Horkheimer writes in the foreword to Dämmerung, “refer repeatedly, and critically, to concepts of metaphysics, character, morals, personality, and human value as they were valid for this period of capitalism.” In the following notes, the most contemporary metaphysics is the central point of the presentation. Metaphysics is criticized not only in terms of “bourgeois” philosophies such as phenomenology or Lebensphilosophie, but also in terms of metaphysical adaptations of Marxism and socialist currents.2
Below, I have followed the order of the Notizen in MHGS, Bd. 11 with one exception—I have included a translation of ‘Die Philosophen und die Ewigkeit’—(§13) “The Philosophers and Eternity,” including a re-translation of the rest of the fragment, “The Unfathomable,” as published in Dämmerung—given the potential significance of the introductory paragraph mentioned by Noerr above for understanding Horkheimer’s methodological approach to the critique of metaphysics: holding against capitalist society the dreams of the metaphysicians it makes of us.
I consider the clarification of the difference between idealism and materialism to be quite important, including the significant difference in the way each formulates this question. The materialist could answer idealism of any shade as the Wunderrabbi did the Chief Rabbi of Wiesbaden: “It’s possible,”3 —for he does not understand the question, and in response to which the latter provides an answer, taking it for granted. Therefore, the idealist is right to regard the materialist as a critic of knowing [Erkenntniskritiker] itself: for he demonstrates the absurdity of the idealist’s way of formulating the question. In each case—even in the positivistic metaphysics of elements [viz., of Ernst Mach]—the idealist thesis is formulated to exempt itself from verification in historical process. The materialist therefore has no counter-thesis to offer on the same level; at most, the materialist can attempt to explain the position of his opponent back to them, and must always appear as unphilosophical for this reason. Whoever asks metaphysical questions is already an idealist,4 since the belief in the possibility of their solution necessarily presupposes the assertion of the autonomy of the mind. And, on the basis of our discussions, we know that the metaphysical question always refers to that of the totality.
—Horkheimer to Adorno, 2/24/1932.5
§1. Philosophia perennis.
Philosophia perennis, the eternal philosophy, takes prides in the fact that, as a rule, no progress is ever made in it, unlike in science. The perenniality of philosophy is said to derive from the fact it always relates to problems which are either insoluble in principle or, for now at least, unanswered by science. In connection to such questions, it is only natural that Professor Heidegger converse with Aristotle across the millennia about the unknowing crowd, as if nothing whatever had transpired in the meantime. The ruling classes, at any rate, are always pleased that such problems exist. They hold a monopoly over higher education and, therewith, “the key to the dark realm of the mothers”6—out of sight from the ruled. In their hands, it would seem that knowledge of the infinite is power in the finite.
§2. Capitalism and the Sultan Saladin.
While the capitalist social apparatus functions miserably with respect to provisioning for human beings, it nevertheless dominates the personal relationships between them so comprehensively that even a high-ranking functionary cannot misuse his power to suspend its force on even a single occasion. The Sultan Saladin walked undiscovered through the streets of his capital and brought heaven into the hovels of the poor.7 When a minister of the German Reich walks through the streets of Berlin, he is unable to protect even a single unlicensed street vendor from the police.
§3. The Metaphysical Transfiguration of the Revolution.
Many intellectuals, and particularly the ingenious ones, sympathize with the revolution on philosophical grounds. For them, capitalism is the realm of consummate sinfulness, of the cruel isolation of human beings, of lies and fear.8 They are convinced that in the abolition [Aufhebung] of the capitalist order, the present-day structure of consciousness, indeed of the human being, will be radically transformed and truth eternal will arrive on earth. When it comes to the realization of such a lofty vision, the thought of a transitional period of destruction and chaos does not occur to them, and they can easily be led to state that any conceivable state of affairs would be better than that of the present.
But the utopian exaggeration of their speech, the derivation of their demands from the sphere of the superstructure, betray the idealistic, religious character of this radicality. In actuality, the proletariat struggles for the satisfaction of its most primitive needs in due proportion to the stage of technological development. Knowing that this is impossible in capitalism gives this struggle a socialist goal. Because the economic laws of capitalism perpetually abolish [aufheben] the effects of reforms carried out within its framework; because the workers experience with each passing day that the present form of society has reached a point in its development at which new inventions, if they are not all withheld, will never benefit workers in remotely the same degree as they do the extant economic apparatus; because they can expect nothing from the ruling order than the continuation of their misery—which, in view of the wealth of society, cannot be justified—or of their enduring material insecurity in the ever shortening cycles of economic crisis, unless, that is, some constellation of economic competition leads to diplomatic complications and the misery of capitalist peace is replaced by the atrocities of capitalist wars, which are completely meaningless to the proletariat yet unrivaled by all the horrors of world history;—because they recognize this complex of facts, the most advanced strata of the proletariat pursue the socialist revolution. In origin, the proletariat had nothing against the “rational-calculative” mode of thinking which the philosophizing socialists of today describe as a capitalist mortal sin. On the contrary: it must use this finely calibrated instrument along with the other forces of production developed under capitalism as well as it possibly can if it wants to achieve its goal. Its motives, which the actually revolutionary intellectual must understand and express, are, in fact, not philosophical but materialistic. The metaphysical grounding and justification of the revolution is superfluous. Of course, it is certain that human beings will also change fundamentally as social conditions do. The capacity of human beings to change is clear enough from history, and even from the present, and it exceeds everything which we consider possible on the basis of our experience, clouded as it is by capitalistic social relations. But the struggle is not concerned with a more problematical, socialist type of human, but a more purposive form of economy. The achievement of such a goal would be a trifle for these philosophers, but salvation for humanity.
The defense of the revolution on philosophical grounds is reminiscent of the old doctrine of the necessity of suffering and sacrifice for the sake of spirit. But the revolution has nothing to do with a new Crusades. By virtue of the excessiveness of their expectations, the metaphysicians of the revolution are not taken all that seriously by the bourgeoisie and are quite a welcome sight in times of relative calm. Their spirit serves as an aesthetic ornament of the haute bourgeoisie milieu, and these philosophers are no more stingy with their wisdom in the salons than other virtuosos in attendance are in their field of fine art. In Germany after the war, it was primarily the big bourgeoisie [Großbourgeoisie] who read their writings, not merely because they were so difficult to understand, but also because in this pseudo-radical, religious form, the problems were stripped of their materialistic sharpness.
I do not wish to contradict these philosophical transfigurations of the revolution. Perhaps they are justified; perhaps the thousand-year reich will actually begin under socialism, and the prophecies of the Old Testament prophets will be fulfilled. Nevertheless, to me it seems more correct for us to leave all this undecided. What is more pressing today than making human beings into something other than what they are is making it so they are better off.
§4. Positivism.
The name ‘positivism’ has become a dirty word in science today. The founders of this philosophic-sociological tendency, Comte and Spencer, did indeed liquidate the radical enlightenment in their systems and supplied the liberal bourgeoisie with a harmless historical philosophy of progress. Imperialism has not only done away with this democratic bourgeoisie, but also with its empiricist philosophy, and today, under the title of positivism, it frowns upon any attempt to replace metaphysical ideology with empirical-genetic explanations.
As the old, seemingly neutral positivism thus begins to disappear, the dominant intellectual tendency deserves the name of “positivism” in a wholly new sense. One is supposed to have a “positive” attitude towards the world and towards people, above all those who are well-dressed. The critical spirit, who always and ever puts to the test and only accepts something as fact after a thousand subtle observations, may still have a certain space in which it may freely move in the narrowest specializations of physics and chemistry, but in philosophy, art, and life, it is made out to be nothing short of a fiasco. Everywhere one must seek out and recognize the good! Disputation and negation, doubt and critique towards whatever presently happens to be the case is of little value—rather, everyone is supposed to take it in good faith and build further off of it, or make it better themselves. The state of the world, be it a foreign one or one’s own, is supposed to appear in a favorable light; it is senseless to always focus on the negative. ‘Keep smiling,’ even when you and your loved ones are dragged through the dirt while others enjoy all of life’s bounties. ‘Keep smiling,’ since this society is as good as it could possibly be—there is certainly room for improvement with regard to its institutions and products, its organization, distribution, and cultural endeavors on the whole, but this order is nevertheless true to human nature. Every man only has to stand up for himself and participate with positivity. The fact that some will fall by the wayside, this has always been so and always will be—and, in any case, most responsibility for this lies with those who fall behind themselves. In Germany, the answer to the question: “How are you getting along?” is, all too often: “bad.” In America, the answer is, predictably: “wonderful.” Christian Science is there to explain to you that all evil is just the result of your own error: simply think correctly, and reality will fall into place around you.
This new “positivism” is the self-evident presupposition in literature and social intercourse. It is not denounced by our philosophers for being an attitude which beclouds judgment—as they do in the case of its antithesis, the mood of “ressentiment”—but as a condition of penetrating insight. Love is blind—is only true today of solidarity with the oppressed. Love for capitalism and its world, to the contrary, should make you clairvoyant—that is, predestined for advancement.
§5. Profanation.
Those who object to the “destruction” of art and religion by scientific, critical analysis show no great respect for art and religion, else they would seek less to preserve them from scientific analysis, which may only destroy lies and errors. But the concerned parties are less interested in art and religion themselves than in their ideological function, which is, admittedly, endangered by scientific work.
§6. Fatherland and Religion in the Present.
The more fragile the necessary ideologies become, the crueler the means must be which protect them. In the absence of social respect, economic ruin, harsh imprisonment, and murder, fatherland and religion in their present shape would have long since come to appear as the dominators’ means of domination they actually are. In itself, even the meager development of the understanding experienced in any elementary school would be enough to clear this up; a fraction of the intelligence the fifth-year pupil needs for their mathematics would have been enough to see through this pathetic hocus-pocus. Thus, the executioner once again stands next to flag and cross in Europe, just as he stood before throne and altar two hundred years ago, and the professors and dignitaries who speak on their behalf have quite a mouthful.
§7. Marx and Messianism.
Only the stupidest among the philosophical lackeys of capital openly badmouth Marx and his doctrines today. The others instead incorporate Marxist words into their jargon and “deepen” them in the cloaca of the latest metaphysics until they finally exude the same stink as “the primordial ground of being” or “the hierarchy of values.”9 — Thus, one might hear socialism spoken of as “the perfect society” and discover that, for Marx, this concept is identical with that of “unconditional truth.” But as for the truth, the better order of society is essentially distinct from capitalism in that the latter exists “in truth,” whereas the former has yet to become truth. For now, socialism is a goal—not “the” goal “of history,” but the goal of certain human beings!—and its metaphysical elevation to heaven as absolute truth or the messianic kingdom of God expresses only the reassuring certainty that the socialist order will only arise at the end of time, and that no historical reality will ever measure up.
§8. Presuppositions of Research.
Every investigation contains a theoretical presupposition about its object. The moment to be explained is not considered self-evident, as belonging to the essential nature [Wesen] of the object; its origin is sought.
Insofar as, for example, religion and metaphysics regard God as the prime mover, they presuppose, consciously or unconsciously, rest as the natural state of things. Thus, Galileo’s doctrine of the relativity of motion was deeply heretical: it denied absolute rest. As many have pointed out, every theory of history presupposes a determinate concept of the human being. In any case, all attempts to explain the existence of society made by bourgeois philosophy are grounded on an egotistic concept of the human being. To bourgeois philosophers, it appears to be natural that human beings should hate and fight one another, and thus marvel at the fact civilization has arisen regardless. Freud’s doctrine that all love is originally from and for one’s own self, and his attempt to explain its diversion [Ablenkung] towards other objects psychologically—this doctrine, which presupposes narcissism is primary and love is constructed, merely develops the principle of all liberal anthropology, but that one may evince it has nothing to do with its truth. Of course, this does not necessarily mean it is false.
When the cohesion of the human being is not examined abstractly, but with regard to a historical point in time, the logical presupposition is not necessarily an asocial concept of the human being. The question of why present-day society continues to exist at all springs more from astonishment over the fact that human beings still coexist so poorly rather than the fact they coexist so well. What is problematic is not that no society exists besides capitalism, but that no better society exists at all. Among other things, this question presupposes the opinion that humanity will not act against its own interests for the duration, or rather, amazement that humanity has done so for so long.
§9. Ego and World.
The map of our consciousness is everywhere co-inscribed [mitgezeichnet] by our drives. Just as the structure of my image of a city essentially depends on where those who I love reside and where I have been in their company, so too is the great map of the experience of all humanity co-determined [mitbestimmt] by their fates. If one thinks to remove from the image the portion of subjective interests which serve as its co-author [Mitgestalter], then what remains is not nothing, but merely a chaos of convoluted lines from which no determinate features stand out; a background without figures, lettering without meaning. Some contemporary philosophers have made note of this fact; it has been spoken of in the teachings of the Heidelberg Kant-school, and above all in the late writings of Max Scheler, although, of course, the dependency of image-inscribing human factors upon the object [Objekt], the dialectic between cognition [Erkenntnis] and its object [Gegenstand], is always ignored. To my knowledge, however, they do not speak to the difficulty which each human being must face in preserving, in the slightest degree, the image they have won on the grounds of their group-based or individual prehistory. This achievement is essentially taken care of by the ego [das Ich], the organization of which Freud rightly depicts as extremely fragile. It is indeed easy to damage, and who knows whether, on waking up tomorrow morning, everything will not have fallen into disorder. Who knows to what extent we may rule those dark forces which are decisive for our image of the world so well that tomorrow morning we will not have to deny what we affirmed today, and affirm what we denied yesterday. After all, the ego of the human being is a historical product and subject to transience.
§10. The Gregariousness of the Rich.
When a millionaire interacts with poor people on friendly terms, he must fear they want something from him. Most likely, they expect at least some profit from the relationship, even if only an increase in credit. The millionaire can thus never be sure whether this friendship is for the sake of his “person” or his money. Most of the time, he therefore consciously or unconsciously arranges his dealings according to his wealth. How could he continue to associate with others who, as a consequence of their social situation, have been brought up so differently, seek other enjoyments, and have other material and spiritual interests than he does? He could never be fully open with them!
But, once such unequal relationships arise, they are usually grounded on the rule that both sides tacitly respect two propositions. First: The economic laws of capitalism are just. It would be reprehensible if the millionaire wanted to render them inoperative and help his poor associate, “for no reason,” lead a life as carefree as his own. That would be a rather feudal caprice, and it could only breed parasites. In a society which keeps indeterminable masses of human beings capable of working away from it and condemns them to hunger in order to maintain the system of profit and the laborless income of the rich, regular, voluntary donations are considered bad because they excuse one from work! Second: the person is one thing, their wealth is another. The separation of life into a private sphere and one for business is unconditional. The poor one may only claim his wealthy friend as a person, not as the owner of his wealth. Even the fact he himself holds an unsatisfactory and insecure position, and cannot escape from his cares, does not, fundamentally, belong to his personality, and therefore does not belong in his private relationships either. Now and then he may mention his woes or appear saddened, but, in the long run, this pointless lamentation would only undermine good relationships. The one is not really a millionaire, nor the other really a poor devil: in essence, both are human beings. The zenith of understanding is reached when the rich one can declare, with the full approval of the other: we are equal in every respect that matters. The bourgeois concept of the person who is determined by their own self, only from within, which dominates the philosophy of life as well, ought to remain authoritative.
The gregariousness of the rich either depends directly on the circumstances of their wealth or is mediated by their unbreakable adherence to capitalist ideology.
§11. Pleasure and displeasure.
Pleasure and displeasure [Lust und Unlust] are the most correct abstractions conceivable. The fact that all psychic impulses [seelischen Regungen] can be characterized by such categories opens a unique window into the soul of the human being. I don’t even know if the distinction between man and woman is as apposite and important as this fundamental distinction in psychology. Were I a phenomenologist, I would refer to pleasure and displeasure as examples of the existence of true essentialities, since they can in fact describe that which is “essential” about human beings. All theories, psychological or otherwise, which seek to obscure the import of these determinations deserve the greatest suspicion.
At present, when, despite the technological possibility of a happier social order for all, the outdated capitalist form of society, which has an excess of displeasure in store for the greater part of humanity and a life of leisure for vanishingly few, is maintained by violent force, there is naturally a vested interest in trivializing the concepts of pleasure and displeasure and establishing a doctrine of the human being which diverts us from these foundational relations. Instead of seizing the opportunity to place their intuition of essences [Wesensschau] in the service of humanity, instead of brandishing against modern philosophical anthropology, which obscures these relations, the intuitive certitude that the pursuit of pleasure is one among the vocations of human beings, or even the most essential one, the phenomenologist have flocked to philosophical anthropology in droves. They have abandoned phenomenology at the exact point it could have become philosophy.
§12. Language and Metaphysics.
All critique of metaphysics must proceed from the fact that metaphysical systems speak of being in a way as if language were not a means of communication between human beings, but rather the immediate association of the subject with the imperishable, unconditioned, eternal. But the word—as much as the thought, which in no way has an unambiguous relation to speech, but develops phylogenetically and ontogenetically in reciprocity with it—is an evental process, a human, social function. By the determination of its own finitude, thought has not, as Hegel and Simmel imagine, risen above its finitude into infinity, but, in this case, has only determined what thought itself “is,” rather than what another object is as per usual.10
But doesn’t the problem reside in this “is”? Does not every theory, every determination, every proposition, as is so often claimed, contain metaphysics by the simple fact of predicating, by asserting that something or other “is”?
By no means. Language is a means of intercourse; under certain circumstances, in the consciousness of the thinkers themselves. The assertion that something “is” is an indication of encounterability [Vorfindlichkeit].11 Talk of being cannot be separated from this character of encounterability, which always includes a positive relationship to time. Even modern phenomenology grants that the relations between ideal essentialities [Wesenheiten] should also be considered such kind of encounterability. the assertion that something ‘is’ does not necessarily mean it is “in” a consciousness, but that it happens, and we speak of it as it would have to happen if human consciousness were to encounter it. We cannot assert the existence of the absolute in the sense of independence from time, or independence from the subject.
The attempt to render invalid the above line of thinking by pointing out that speaking of being in many cases does indeed “intend” such independence, that timelessness and absolute unrelatedness are “posited” over and against the cognizing subject, is itself invalid. We will not let philosophers contest our insights on the basis of what they say people “intend” with their words, especially when this opinion has been determined to be nonsense.
§13. The Philosophers and Eternity (‘The Unfathomable’).
The finest achievement for a man of thought is to have fathomed what may be fathomed, and quietly to revere the unfathomable. — Goethe, Maxims and Reflections.12
Metaphysics concerns itself with eternity. To comprehend its unique manner of posing problems, as well as the nature of the solutions it offers in the present, one must imagine the kind of person who would devise this kind of problem and pursue this kind of solution. Even the technical educational background for reading, speaking, and writing in its jargon are available only for those who do not truly stand outside the world or experience society from the outside. They are distinguished by their possession of an ‘up-to-date’13 educational apparatus and, therefore, typically have a whole range of possibilities for accommodation at their disposal, such that capitalist society need never show them its grimace [Fratze] in earnest. I speak not of powerless literary figures or Privatdozenten, but of those with rich prospects [Zukunftsreichen] and the well-established [Arrivierten], those whose books are published, have a say in society—in short, all those whose voices are heard in the elevated spheres of cultural life. It’s not merely by virtue of their endowment of applicable education, capacity for expression, etc., that these people number among their class, but by virtue of their conditions of existence as a whole. They have time for concerning themselves with intellectual things, and even stand to profit from this.
[Whatever the general dependency of thought upon social being, of cognition overall upon society, may consist in, one thing is certain: the gentlemen representatives of the official intellectuality will not saw off the very branch on which they sit.]14 Schopenhauer, who could certainly afford to live a rentier’s existence from early on, and ideologically transfigured it extensively, recognized that the philosophy professors of his time overtly or covertly supported religions because their class, however indirectly, and the ministry that fills and endows philosophy chairs, very directly, could not do without it. It became clear to him how the thema probandum, the compatibility of religion with the achieved level of scientific cognition, played a role, voluntarily or involuntarily, in even the remotest details of philosophical systems. But he neglected the fact that religious representations [Vorstellungen] comprise only a small part of prescribed ways of thinking and those concepts towards which, for those same reasons, philosophy still tolerates or is, at the very least, neutral. Today one need not even immerse themselves in the content of a philosophical theory to recognize the social situation of its author’s interests: the manner of formulating the question [Fragestellung] and the more or less sophisticated tone in its treatment of its theme already betrays the security of the position to which it belongs. What’s true for philosophy holds for the “human sciences” [Geisteswissenschaften] in general. Neither their discourse on Spirit, Cosmos, God, Being, Freedom, and so on, nor their pronouncements over Art, Style, Personality, Gestalt, Epochs, even on History and Society, betray any suffering behind them, nor even indignation over injustice or compassion for the victims. They can, in this respect alone, remain wholly ‘objective’; their material cares [Sorgen] are not those of the greater part of humanity. How are these people supposed to serve the “timeless” interests of human beings if they don’t even understand their temporal ones? For all the difficult problems which the thought of eternity may contain, it is still the wretched in their despair who are more likely to engender it than the officials who have been appointed to put it forth. The thought of eternity has the peculiarity of appearing in greater purity and sublimity in the most naive, sensuously crude hope than in the most refined, spiritualistic metaphysics and theology; the latter has polished the thought, desubstantialized it, elevated it beyond the realm of human representations, all to overcome its contradiction with reality mythologically; the latter has raptured the thought from the all-too-material ideals of the ruled and adapted it all the better to the purposes of their rulers. For a number of centuries now, God has been conceived solely and completely as transcendent, having thus become, ultimately, unfathomable. This has perhaps less to do with the fact that the horrors of this world are too difficult to reconcile with the goodness and justice of an omnipotent being—for theologians, this has never been too tricky—than with the aversion to dress up justice and goodness as divine attributes. These traits were never compatible with the image of the rulers. It was difficult to present the Almighty in a form as dark and terrifying as the powerful on earth; this would drive men to despair. So God was robbed of all recognizable attributes, his heavenly ways were wholly distinguished from the earthly. They became just as obscure as the business practices of factory owners and bankers. Justice, Goodness, and Humanity have taken on a critical aftertaste under capitalism; our good metaphysicians don’t even think to idealize them. For this, they have the patriotic joy of war [Wehrfreudigkeit].
§14. Irrationalist Philosophy.
From the philosophers, psychologists, and other intellects of the present, we hear the praise of the irrational. The drives which break out of the depths of the personality are glorified and placed in a relationship to the primordial ground of life. What does not pour directly, unreflectively from the womb of life itself is considered misshapen, inauthentic, weak, deceptive. Potency is what triumphs. The women of the haute bourgeoisie are pleased with it for these reasons, their men for other reasons. The irrationalist philosophers, however, seldom know how to act irrationally. Not merely in the proclamation of their preferred theory, but their whole life gives the impression that their own irrationality expresses itself precisely in those actions which they make their career on. They even get along swimmingly with one another, and with all of the cliques of officials who might grant them an advantage. According to their present-day proclaimers, the uninhibited, vital human seems to an extremely agreeable, even “rational” being. One could even speak of a caste-like alliance of these ideologues. In their lives, what irrationalist philosophy means today is revealed. The struggle of a closed guild of intellectuals for the consolidated great bourgeoisie against ratio, and, in last analysis, against a society organized in the interests of the majority of human beings. The sermonizers of vitality are inclined to treat the concepts of universal validity [Allgemeingültigkeit] and the mass with almost as much hostility as they do the ratio. The enlightenment of the eighteenth century summed-up those all propositions which hold true for the human race, and are crucial for its progress, under the concept of reason. The philosophy of the present does not concern itself with such trivialities.
§15. Theory and Practice.
That theory and practice are separate from one another is a common and empty cliche. In actuality, they are mutually dependent on one another. A good example is the following: the action of a proletarian in the interests of the fatherland can be transformed into its opposite through the right theory. Patriotism today has everything to fear from knowing [Erkenntnis], for it unveils the monstrous gulf between the lives of the masses and those of a privileged few within their capitalist fatherlands. It exposes the swindle of the ‘community of interests’ [Interessengemeinschaft] between exploiters and exploited and reveals the same situation of class comrades in the other country against which one was supposed to let oneself be used. On the contrary, the revolution has nothing to fear from knowing, but everything to expect from it, for it uncovers the actual commonality [Gemeinsamkeit] of interests and illuminates the darkness in the consciousness of the ruled, that darkness which is so essential for the security of the rulers of today. Theory itself is an effective factor in the historical process.
§16. The criterion of the most advanced cognition.
When it comes to the question of truth, every determinate judgment must withstand the acid test of its suitability to the most advanced cognition [die fortgeschrittenste Erkenntnis]. This test is therefore a kind of consensus, one to which we must submit ourselves, as criterion of truth. Aside from our subjective uncertainty with respect to which cognition is the most advanced at any given moment, we cannot even be certain in our opinion that our determinations of ‘the most advanced cognition’ have even designated an objective moment, changeable and transient as it may be. That which constitutes the most advanced cognition at any given time depends on the vicissitudes of social development, and we cannot know whether in a new Middle Ages brought about by external causes—a second migration of peoples—the existence of God and his angels would not constitute a source of knowledge [Wissen] that is, relatively speaking, highly productive.
Perhaps, among other things, foresight that such vicissitudes would need to be avoided prompted Kant to establish once-and-for-all the forms of socially organized experience in general, i.e., of “science.” He sought to record the forms without whose givenness any cognition, and thus the most advanced cognition, could not be spoken of at all. In this way, at least, the danger that any determination of the truth which takes historical progress into account could become entangled in the contradiction of having to maintain the accidental consensus of a bad society, in the event that the general level of culture declines, could be prevented. Through exposition of the forms of cognition a priori, he erected a protective wall around the concept of truth against intellectual reaction precisely by determining what cognition, socially organized experience, “science” should mean. In short: he sought to preserve the historical concept of truth from the historicist. This is why his philosophy is so relevant today.
§17. The Ground of Metaphysics.
From the perspective of metaphysics, philosophy today should still be able to accomplish more than mere logic and epistemology. In the last analysis, all professors of philosophy agree that philosophy ought to penetrate into the very centrum of being, whereupon it becomes capable of deciding which of the various modes of behavior in the world is the most adequate, the true one. Certainly, dispute prevails over whether this decision can be definitive, whether it is subject to rigid standards, a generally valid control, or any criterion whatsoever; in any case, the aim of philosophical endeavors appears to be gaining such a deep and unified vantage that a determinate direction for life emerges from it which is authentic and meaningful. Philosophy is supposed to furnish human action with grounds of justification. One might recall the times in which the behavior of individuals as a whole was directly decided by a unified view of the world, when any action to the contrary appeared both absurd and criminal—it is the hope of philosophy to restore this “more substantial” life and, with it, the authentic community. Philosophy is therefore assigned a higher mission than science, which is limited to the explanation of events, could ever fulfill.
It is evident that very great and unrefusable individual and social needs must be involved in this philosophical achievement, for otherwise it would be unthinkable that the complicated and frequently contradictory arguments which are supposed to make sense of the metaphysical mission, i.e., of the intelligibility of its problems and the fundamental possibility of its solution, would still find an interested public. In fact, at the present time, is is a necessity for society to convince a mass—whose minimum subsistence has been depressed by the organization of that society to a level impossibly far below that which is possible given the means available to us—of the existence of an ideal order, since it evidently comes up short in terms of a material one. From a social point of view, the idealism of the bourgeois era is grounded in this necessity. More than this, the individual—whichever class they may belong to—always has the prospect of coming to a bad end; metaphysics is needed as last foothold against despair at the thought of death.
But the materialists know that this spiritual foothold [geistigen Halt]—that is, a philosophical decision about the right life—is not possible. According to them, there is no philosophical authority which could distinguish between making a sacrifice of one’s life for humanity and the profit of a banking magnate. The language of my heart is no philosophical argument, but psychic fact. Anyone who sacrifices themselves cannot rightly be reassured that some higher-order, eternal authority sees them and takes them in. If the respect and love of certain human beings provides them with a substitute for such reassurance, tant mieux: this too is a mere factum; no philosophical consideration could prove this evaluation “right.” The materialists may lack such a spiritual foothold, but they do not falsify the feeling of this lack into the possibility of its elimination. They regard their love as a natural fact. Nevertheless, they are strong enough not to transmute the feeling of that lack into despair. Might belief in the possibility of metaphysics arise from a lack of love of transient human beings? Might the metaphysician need to give such consideration to the beyond because he is not captivated by the plight of those living on this side? Why else would he live his life in the shadow of eternity?
§18. The Unity of the Absolute.
The reserve of all idealistic theory is to think the world as having arisen from a principle. The unified origin of the world, as well as the concept of all events as a unified process in esse, contains within it an idealistic moment, or constant, insofar as this unity presents us with a quality in which the cognizing spirit is supposed to recognize itself. Establishing unity is the aim of all rational thinking; it is the product of systematic theory: wherever unity is not understood as the outcome [Ergebnis] of thinking carried out by determinate human beings within the world, but as a moment of the world itself, as a category of being [Seinskategorie], therein lies idealism. Nine-tenths of ‘materialistic’ philosophy thus seems to consist in systems of an idealistic kind. The doctrine of unity is no less idealistic than the malevolent assertion of the good, order, and beauty of the world itself. All attempts made in the direction of a unified derivation of real events from any principle of whatever kind, attempts which are not conscious of the fact that principles have their properties as products of human order, succumb to the critique of idealistic metaphysics. Leibniz’s best of all worlds is only distinguished from the worst because it can be conceived with the fewest principles.
In phenomenology, according to which the meaning of the world arises from the transcendental ego; and furthermore, in every kind of philosophy of history for which the dialectic appears as the ultimate power, in every kind of philosophical thinking in which ‘history’ itself is refashioned into the unifying principle of reality, every philosophical belief which makes society out to be the ultimate bearer of all development—all such modern attempts to identify the absolute with the outcome of one’s own thinking are impotent efforts to replace the old function of religion with philosophy. They are attempts at appeasement. It is a practical task to comprehend as much as possible in a unified manner, but at no point where such an enterprise is crowned with success may we imagine that the principle which underlies the whole is mirrored in our thoughts. As soon as thinking formulates a claim which is not inner-worldly, which is extra-worldly universal, as soon as thinking is no longer clear about the transience of thinking, or even regards the thought of this transience as itself ephemeral, thinking is on the path to deception.
§19. On The Metaphysical Formulation of Questions.
Metaphysics is always a matter of the order of Being in-itself, the absolute order. Every order is simultaneously an order of values. Therefore, metaphysics always tacitly presupposes a given standard of value independent of our intra-historical drives—but there is none. Even truth itself is not “in itself” of a higher order of rank with respect to untruth, nor decency with respect to meanness; such an ordering requires a human being indignant that there is none. Indignation, however, is no proof. The whole metaphysical formulation of the question [Fragestellung] concerns a fixed Being, an order beyond change, an absolute, is a petitio principii—even if change, history, or society are taken as the absolute. There is therefore no justified counter-thesis to metaphysics; only its critique.
§20. The American Spirit.
A high estimation of Indians is part of the American policy towards Negroes. The former have nearly been eradicated by Christian profiteering, whereas the latter have yet to be dealt with. To slander the Negroes all the better, one likes to sing the praises of Indians: “They never endured slavery.” —Whether this is true, I do not know. In any event, the white race has centuries of practice in matters of slavery, and would therefore know its way around it. —It is strange, however, that it can be considered a greater disgrace to descend from people who were cheated out of the happiness of life by means of the most infamous brutality than from the gold-hungry devils who were guilty of this. All respect to the American spirit!
§21. Truth and Time.
Many unclear concepts have been associated with the word “truth”; it is particularly mystified in contemporary philosophy. While in the symbolism of the enlightenment, the truth still appears as a maiden from whom reason and philosophy tear away the thin veil which enshrouds her, modern philosophers have ripped themselves from reason and cloak the truth with the thick mantle of metaphysics.
In a language free of metaphysics, a judgment is called true when the state of affairs [Sachverhalt] it indicates are found. Truth designates the relation of a judgment to a state of affairs. But judgments themselves only exist insofar as a cognizing consciousness passes and understands them. Whoever would speak of truth as if it were independent of a cognizing consciousness is fetishizing mere words and concepts. Truth “in itself” is a mere abstraction.
Metaphysics always has been, consciously or unconsciously, bound to the concept of a truth independent of finite human beings. Metaphysics formulated the content of this truth “once and for all.” In doing so, it is overlooked that judgments regarding eternity require the possibility of a relation between subject and object [Subjekt und Gegenstand], which does not hold unless God is brought into play. The most uncompromising thinkers of the seventeenth century interpreted such propositions, valid once-and-for-all, as God’s thoughts within our finite consciousness. Religion is the sanctuary of the philosophy of the absolute.
Even for the clear concept of truth, defined by the relation of judgment to state of affairs, there are propositions which are valid “once and for all.” But this “once and for all” then signifies nothing other than that a state of affairs is spoken of in a sense which involves no reference to temporal moments. These propositions—mathematical propositions are the best example—are, of course, just as historically conditioned in their emergence as all others. Like all others, the intelligibility of these propositions are bound to the total intellectual situation given in a determinate epoch. But within this total situation, from which we cannot escape even with all of the historical and sociological insights into its transience, these judgments have a validity of such greater breadth than those which are historically limited that a reversal of the quantity of their possible applications into the quality of their logical character may rightly be spoken of. The distinction between judgments a priori and a posteriori is therefore not a rigid and unsublatable [unaufhebbarer] one, because every “a priori” is included within historical practice and every “a posteriori” has an unlimited claim to truth pure and simple; but the distinction cannot be skipped over, because the determination of transient facts has another logical meaning than the formulation of universally valid insights a priori, on which each such determination itself depends.
On the presupposition of the rational concept of truth, there are two problems of time which concern logic, and which are usually mixed up in metaphysics. First, that which has just been mentioned: what does ‘valid once-and-for-all’ mean? This may be answered by the doctrine of the provisional distinction between judgments a priori and a posteriori; second, the question of the meaning of the dependency of all truth upon all finite cognizing consciousness. This problem presents the greatest of difficulties. Idealistic philosophy has recognized that not merely the truth, but even time itself, depends in a certain way on the cognizing subject. Time manifests in appearance as knowledge [Wissen] of change in connection with the knowing subject [wissende Subjekt]. That knowing subject, however, is finite—that is, it is itself within time. How is one supposed to escape from this circle? The way out used to be the doctrine of the distinction between the transcendental and human ego, which still plays an important role in phenomenology today. Time is supposed to depend not on the human ego but on the transcendental subject, thought of as unconditioned; within this subject, time is supposed to be constituted, whereas the subject itself is the condition of all time and all truth, and is therefore supra-temporal and absolute. The flight into this transcendental ego, which is even spoken of as the most concrete of all beings [das allerkonkreteste Wesen], is a flight into faith. In that determinate judgments, namely those which concern the sphere of such an absolute consciousness, assert themselves as absolute by means of the magic trick of ‘evidence,’ philosophy pulls itself out of the water by its own hair and declares itself the word of God. Thus, the difficulty of the second of the two time-problems, i.e., the antinomy between the dependence of all time upon the subject and the temporality [Zeitlichkeit] of that subject itself, is not dialectically overcome, but declared void by fiat [Machtwort].
The only satisfactory resolution to this question would be through an all-conclusive dialectic [abschlußhaften Dialektik]. In such a dialectic, philosophizing consciousness believes itself to have finally arrived at a stage at which cognition of totality is inherent to it. Then, it would not only possess the truth of itself as finite being but, as the producer of this truth, would enclose time completely within itself. This all-conclusive dialectic would distinguish itself from modern phenomenology in that it does not return along the path from the finite to the infinite subject by the magical means of evidence, in that it does not merely decree the being of the absolute but seeks to present this in a rational, dialectical course of demonstration as the necessary presupposition for each partial truth; yet, apart from this distinction between paths, this older doctrine, which begins with Hegel’s Phenomenology, is much closer to Husserl’s than one might imagine.
Whoever does not consider actual history, and therefore also the history of cognition, to be concluded [abgeschlossen] and cannot even grasp the idea of such a conclusion, would answer the question of how the unconditional subject, conceived as the author of time, relates to the empirical subject by attempting to determine the precise significance of both concepts of the subject. Above all, they would only venture to transcend the finitude of the empirical subject through its interrelation [Einbeziehung] with concrete social development, rather than through its relationship to a superhuman abstractum, and would otherwise declare this very problem of the relationship between the absolute, conceived as completely given, and the human ego to be an unanswerable question in principle. This question assumes the relationship between infinity and finitude is a state of affairs to be ascertained. To answer it, one would in fact have to be the self-knowing God-World, the subject-object of idealism, and not a human being. The question itself therefore presupposes a religious or metaphysical belief. On the contrary, the truth is always the truth of a historical subject. It remains all the more narrow, more one sided, and finite the more limited the horizon of this subject by virtue of their historical position. The consciousness of the Tyrolean peasant is “more finite” than the thought of the leader of a proletarian revolution. The quality of cognition [Erkenntnis] is enhanced, its limitations overcome, the more completely the life of history is mirrored in the consciousness of the cognizing subject by virtue of its becoming one [Einswerdung] with that of the progressive class.
There is no absolute subject because there is no concluded history, but each step by which determinate knowledge is recognized to be imprecise, limited, distorted, erroneous, and is corrected, and by which reality is thereby presented in greater clarity, is a step further in the direction from conditioned to unconditioned knowledge. Each of these two concepts acquires its meaning from this movement which happens through historical practice, not, as idealism imagines, the movement of concepts established independently of it. In any event, a truth independent of human beings living within history exists only in the dogmatic intuitions of metaphysics. In reality, human beings seek to create the right theories in connection with their historical struggles. Philosophical concepts may initially be defined however one likes, only gaining their concrete meaning in connection with this event in which we are all involved, and which no philosopher can disregard, which none can “objectify” without remainder, however much they may boast of this. The judgment which agrees with a state of affairs is true, but this agreement itself depends on the human beings who effectuate it, and is therefore interwoven with history. The relationship between judgment and state of affairs can only be granted unambiguous determination in the consciousness of the individual or collective subject which determines it thus; the distinction between true and false must, therefore, always be upheld with clarity and decisiveness in each case, and and all attempts to refute a determinate truth through general philosophical reflections are fruitless. But the historicity [Geschichtlichkeit] of the act of determination is not abolished [aufgehoben] by the truth of what has been determined. The decisiveness of our definition of truth does not, therefore, rescue us from the indecisiveness of history.
§22. On the validity of historical materialism for the past.
The dispute over whether historical materialism is “valid” for past epochs of the history of humanity is an entirely idealistic affair. The search for a solution to the riddle of the world runs totally contrary to historical materialism. The attitude [Haltung] of the “wisened” who, having once grasped the artifice on which the whole operation turns, calmly looks on requires either a lack of expectation from science or the contentment of a modest pension. Historical materialism comprehends metaphysical convictions as conditioned and ephemeral, and, therefore, as contradictory. It is concerned not with absolute principles, but with the cognition of social relations as a means of transforming society. This transformation is to be accomplished in the epoch which lies before us and not in the past, though the past supplies invaluable experiential material. The basic materialist thesis is that political, juridical, and pedagogical institutions, as well as received ideological notions of all kinds, today serve to maintain antiquated relations of production. From this thesis follows the necessity of studying the dependency of cultural transformations on economic ones over the entire course of history with the greatest attentiveness. Without a doubt, history can always be thought of otherwise. These other ways of thinking about history also have their own determinate presuppositions and lack any ultimate significance. Anyone can focus their attention on any random connections or the most peculiar regularities; it should always be asked, however, to what extent such considerations have concrete meaning, i.e., a meaning related to the present. The significance of any inquiry historical materialism might make into the past is conditioned by its practical attitude towards the present. To the past it poses the question whose answer promises to yield the material of greatest importance for its purposes in the present. This is, scientifically speaking, completely legitimate. No science of actuality can proceed otherwise. Consciousness, instinct, or, at least, some kind of scientific tact must guide the researcher in even those endeavors which seem the most remote from us in order to make them fruitful for comprehension of the most pressing problematic. Only the metaphysician—that is, one whose thoughts are determined by the illusion of practice-independent cognition—is much impressed by the objection: “Correct! But it could be viewed otherwise…,” as the metaphysician seeks a view not only of an aspect, but the totality, “the” essence. The materialist poses questions in the context of present-day practice and ranks a variety of selected perspectives not according to their supposedly greater or lesser metaphysical import, or how they stand in relation to an order thought to be fixed for all time, but according to their relation to determinate social motives and purposes. Like Lessing, the materialist leaves the “pure” truth to God alone.
Horkheimer, [Notizen zur Dämmerung] [1926-1931]. In: Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften. Band 11: Nachgelassene Schriften 1914-1931. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr (Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1987), 262-285.
Noerr, “Editorische Vorbemerkung.” In: Ibid., 262.
“While benefiting from the Enlightenment legacy, Buber’s approach to Eastern Hasidic spirituality incorporated a much more Romantic influence, and it would prove to be foundational for the Weimar generation of artists and intellectuals. Scholem admitted that it was Buber’s reinterpretation of Hasidism that shaped the conceptual framework of Eastern Jewish spirituality for most Western Jews. One of Buber’s main contributions to the understanding of the Eastern Jew and of Hasidism were his creative retellings of Hasidic legends about the Wunderrabbi who traveled through Eastern Europe, performing miracles in the Jewish ghettos and sharing their wisdom with the common people.” In: “Where Do We Go from Here? : Tortured Expressions of Solidarity in the German Jewish Travelogues of the Weimar Republic” by W.T. Jackson (2015), 46-47.
Cf. Horkheimer (1931/32): “Here, however, the character of conclusive knowledge comes to an end. Formulating the thesis: a definition of materialism and idealism: idealism is a worldview [Weltanschauung] insofar as it asserts the world has [an inherent] rational structure, that is, insofar as it believes it can convey this system in its complete perfection.” Horkheimer, from: “Science and the Crisis. Difference between Idealism and Materialism. Discussion of themes from a lecture of Max Horkheimer’s (1931/1932).” In: MHGS, Bd. 12 (1985)
Horkheimer to Adorno, 2/24/1932. In: MHGS, Bd. 15 (1995), 94-95. Author’s translation.
“the key to the dark realm of the mothers”: [den Schlüssel zum dunkeln Reich der Mütter]
A reference to Goethe’s Faust II (Act I.):
A GLOOMY GALLERY.
Faust and Mephistopheles.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Why bring me to this antique gloomy alley? / Is not within enough of mirth and cheer, / And in the courtiers' close-packed motley rally / Sufficient chance to sport and chicaneer?
FAUST. Spare me the discourse of your bygone zeal, / That special style, of yours is down-at-heel. / And now you slink about from place to place, / Only to shirk an answer face to face; / While I am pinched and badgered without rest, / At Seneschal's or Chamberlain's behest. / The Emperor asks, with urgency forthright, / That Helen stand with Paris in his sight; / The loveliest type of woman and of man / In clear dimensions will the monarch scan. / Swiftly to work! My promise can't be broken.
MEPHISTOPHELES. With mad unwisdom was that promise spoken.
FAUST. Fellow, you have not truly weighed / The fateful arts you have exerted; / By acts of ours his wealth was made, / And now he needs to be diverted.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Out of the blue you think such things appear; / But here with steepest climbing we must reckon; / You blunder boldly in the strangest sphere, / To find at last what wrecks us and bewilders. / Think you that Helen comes because you beckon, / Much as we raised the ghostly paper-guilders? / With cretin witches, ghouls, and ghost-marauders, / Or goitrous goblins, I am at your orders; / The devil's darlings have their points, are coy, / But cannot pass for heroines of Troy.
FAUST. The same old hurdy-gurdy tune you play! A master, you, of doubt and false deduction, / The father of all hindrance and obstruction. / For each fresh cunning you require fresh pay. / I know it only needs a muttered spell: / Scarce time to turn, and we behold her there.
MEPHISTOPHELES. The heathen race is hardly my affair, / It occupies its own particular hell. / Yet aids there are.
FAUST. Then quick, let these be told!
MEPHISTOPHELES. Loth am I now high mystery to unfold: / Goddesses dwell, in solitude, sublime, / Enthroned beyond the world of place or time; / Even to speak of them dismays the bold. / These are The Mothers.
FAUST. Mothers?
MEPHISTOPHELES. Stand you daunted?
FAUST. The Mothers! Mothers - sound with wonder haunted.
MEPHISTOPHELES. True, goddesses unknown to mortal mind, / And named indeed with dread among our kind. / To reach them, delve below earth's deepest floors; / And that we need them, all the blame is yours.
FAUST. Where lies the way?
MEPHISTOPHELES. There is none. Way to the Unreachable, / Never for treading, to those Unbeseechable, / Never besought! Is your soul then ready? / Not locks or bolts are there, no barrier crude, / But lonely drift, far, lone estrangement's eddy. / What sense have you of waste and solitude?
FAUST. You could dispense with speeches of this kind, / Which bring the Witches' Kitchen back to mind, / An echo of far distant days renewed. / Was not my fate to mix with earthly vanity, / Learn the inane, and then impart inanity? / And when I ventured what I could of sense / Dislike and protest grew the more intense. / Was I not driven, under strain and stress, / To seek for comfort in the wilderness? / And not to live foredoomed, alone, apart, / At last I have to give the devil my heart.
MEPHISTOPHELES. And if to ocean's end your path should lead, / To look upon enormity of space, / Still would you see that waves to waves succeed, / Ay, though you have a shuddering doom to face, / You'd still see something. For in the green / Of silenced depths are gliding dolphins seen; / Still cloud will stir, and sun and moon and star; / But blank is that eternal void afar: / There eyes avail not, even your step is dumb, / No substance there, when to your rest you come.
FAUST. Like the prime mystagogue your piece you say, / The first to lead true neophytes astray; / But in reverse: into the void you send me / That greater power and cunning may attend me. / The fabled cat am I, who will not tire / To scratch your chestnuts for you from the fire. / Well, let us on! We'll plumb your deepest ground, / For in your Nothing may the All be found.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Congratulations to you, ere we part, / I see you know the devil, Sir, by heart. / Here, take from me this key—
FAUST. That petty thing!
MEPHISTOPHELES. First hold it, man, not undervaluing.
FAUST. It grows, it sparkles, blazes in my hand!
MEPHISTOPHELES. Its hidden power you soon may understand. / This key will scent the true trail from all others; / Follow it down, 'twill guide you to The Mothers. FAUST (shuddering). The Mothers - still I feel the shock of fear. / What is this Word, that I must dread to hear?
MEPHISTOPHELES. Are you a dunce who jibs at a new word? / Or deaf, except for things already heard? / Be not perturbed, however strange it rings, / You so familiar with all wondrous things.
FAUST. And yet in torpor see I no salvation: / To feel the thrill of awe crowns man's creation. / Though feeling pays the price, by earthly law, / Stupendous things are deepest felt through awe.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Then to the deep! - I could as well say height: / All's one. From Substance, from the Existent fleeing. / Take the free realm of Forms for your delight; / Rejoice in things that long have ceased from being; / The busy brood will weave like coiling cloud: / Wield then your key, drive back from you the crowd.
FAUST (with ardour). Good! With firm grip, new strength comes surging in, / My heart leaps up: let the great task begin.
MEPHISTOPHELES. A burning tripod bids you be aware, The deep of deeps at last awaits you there. / And by that glow shall you behold The Mothers. / Some of them seated, some erect, while others / May chance to roam: Formation, Transformation, / Eternal Mind's eternal recreation. / Around them float all forms of entity; / You they see not, for wraiths are all they see. / Pluck up your heart, for peril here is great: / Go to the tripod well resolved, and straight You touch it with your key. / (Faust, with the key, assumes a resolute bearing of command.)
MEPHISTOPHELES. Ay, that's the style! / You it will follow, be your slave the while; / Calmly you rise, and follow Fortune's track; / Before they know it, you and your prize are back. / And once you have it here, you hold the might / To call heroic spirits from deep night, / Hero or heroine: thus are you decreed / The first achiever of this daring deed. / 'Tis done: by magic power the incense-haze / Henceforth must turn to gods upon their ways.
FAUST. What's now to do?
MEPHISTOPHELES. Bear down with might and main; / Stamping you sink, by stamping rise again. / (Faust stamps on the ground and sinks from sight.)
MEPHISTOPHELES. Now from the key some profit may he earn! / I wonder if he ever will return.
In: Goethe, Faust: Part Two. Translated by Philip Wayne (Penguin Books, 1959), 75-80.
See: Bahāʼ al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Rāfiʻ Ibn Shaddād, Rare and Excellent History of Saladin: “When he died, he possessed nothing for which he owed any alms. As for superogatory charity, that exhausted all the property he owned. He ruled all that he ruled, but died leaving in his treasury in gold and silver only forty Nasiri dirhams and a single Tyrian gold piece. He left no property, no house, no estate, no orchard, no village, no farm, not a single item of property of any sort. […] Saladin's generosity was too public to need to be recorded and too famous to need to be recounted, and yet we will give an indication of it in general terms. He ruled all that he ruled and, when he died, in his treasure chest were found only forty-seven Nasiri dirhams of silver and a single Tyrian gold coin, the weight of which was unknown to me. He would give away whole provinces. Having conquered Amid, he was asked for it by Ibn Qara Arslan' and gave it away to him. When a number of envoys had gathered at his court in Jerusalem, at a time when he had planned to depart for Damascus, but there was nothing in his chest to give the envoys, I kept on about them, raising their subject, until he sold a village that belonged to the Treasury and distributed the money he received for it amongst them. Not a single dirham was left over. In times of shortage he would be generous, just as he would in easy circumstances. The officials of the Royal Chest used to hide a certain amount of money from him, as a precaution in case some crisis surprised them, because they knew that, if he learnt of it, he would spend it. In the context of some hadith that was mentioned, I heard him say, “It is possible that there are people who look upon money as dirt.” It is rather as if he had himself in mind. His gifts were beyond what any petitioner hoped for. I have never heard him say, 'We have already given to so-and-so.' He used to give large gifts and he would smile no more on those to whom he gave than he would on those to whom he gave nothing. He would give and be generous beyond measure. The people knew this, so they used to be always asking him for more. I never heard him say, 'I have given several times more. How much more can I give?' Most approaches on such matters were made verbally through me or by my hand. I was ashamed at the amount that they asked for, but not embarrassed before him at the frequency of my requests for them because I knew that he did not blame one for that. Everybody who ever served him was dispensed with the need to ask anyone else for anything. As for counting up his gifts and all their variety, then there is no hope of really getting to the truth. The head of his administration said to me, when we had a conversation about his generosity, ‘We totalled up the number of horses that he gave away on the plain of Acre alone, and it came to 10,000.’ Those who have witnessed his giving will consider this figure on the small side. O God, You inspired in him this generosity, but You are the more generous one. Generously bestow Your mercy and good pleasure upon him, O most merciful of the merciful.” In: The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, Or, Al-Nawādir Al-Sultaniyya Wa'l-Mahasin Al-Yusufiyya. Translated by D.S. Richards. (Routledge 2016 [Ashgate 2002]), 19; 25-26.
the realm of consummate sinfulness: [das Reich der vollendeten Sündhaftigkeit].
See Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique of the religious socialists for describing modern society in these terms in the 1931 protocol from the “Discussion about the task of Protestantism in secular civilization,” led by Paul Tillich. Adorno and Horkheimer’s introductory remarks are translated here.
[Die anderen nehmen vielmehr marxistische Worte in ihren Jargon hinüber und »vertiefen« sie in die Kloake der neuesten Metaphysik, bis sie schließlich den gleichen Gestank verbreiten wie der »Urgrund des Seins« oder die »Rangordnung der Werte«.]
Horkheimer’s language of the ‘Kloake’ (literally: cloaca) is echoed in several other scatological images throughout his works of the decade, particularly from the Philosophical Journals (1925-1928), “Entry No. 4 (9/16/1925),” where Horkheimer compares life in bourgeois society in the early 20th century to being processed in a massive digestive apparatus in which the greater one’s ‘class standing,’ the less one is smeared by the shit relative to others.
Cf. Horkheimer, “Materialism and Metaphysics” [1933]: “Materialism, too, seeks an historical comprehension of all spiritual phenomena. But its insight that there can be no infinite knowledge does not lead to impartiality in the face of a claim by any finite knowledge to be infinite. Thought is recognized to be limited, but no areas are set aside to which thought is not to be applied.” In: Critical Theory: Selected Essays, Max Horkheimer. Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell and Others. (Continuum, 2002), 39.
Cf. Adorno’s Against Epistemology, 242. (Refers to Adorno’s own English translation of Vorfindlichkeit in ‘Husserl and the Problem of Idealism.’)
In: “SCIENCE,” §577. Maxims and Reflections. Translated by Bailey Saunders. (MacMillan Co., 1906); In German: “Das schönste Glück des denkenden Menschen ist, das Erforschliche erforscht zu haben und das Unerforschliche ruhig zu verehren.” — Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen. Aphorismen und Aufzeichnungen. Nach den Handschriften des Goethe- und Schiller-Archivs hg. von Max Hecker, 1907. Aus dem Nachlass. Über Natur und Naturwissenschaft.
Goethe’s Maxims and Reflections are a constant reference point for Dämmerung, see: “On Goethe’s Maxims and Reflections” in: Dawn and Decline (1978), 96. And: “Difficulties in Reading Goethe,” in: Ibid., 80.
English in original.
Alternate, shorter formulation in the variant published in Dämmerung, “The Unfathomable” [Das Unerforschliche]: “Whatever the general dependency of metaphysics upon society may be, one thing is certain: the gentleman representatives of official intellectuality will not saw off the very branch on which they sit.”
Everything which follows this sentence is an alternate translation to the existing translation of “The Unfathomable” in: Dawn and Decline: Notes 1926–1931 and 1950–1969, trans. Michael Shaw (Seabury Press, 1978), 111-112.