Title: From Kant to Sade: A Fragment of the History of Philosophy in the Dialectic of Enlightenment
Abstract: In this paper I set out to do two things in relation to the Second Excursus of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno’s co-authored Dialectic of Enlightenment: (1) to consider the extent to which their account of the transition from Kant’s theoretical philosophy to key features of the novels of the Marquis de Sade can be classed as an example of the ‘history of philosophy’ and (2) whether this account actually succeeds, given the standards that it must meet if it is to count as an example of Philosophiegeschichte. In connection with (2), a particular problem emerges. This problem concerns the role played by a non-instrumental form of reason in Horkheimer and Adorno’s attempt to establish an essential connection between Kant’s theoretical philosophy and the novels of Sade, and the difficulty of finding any such form of reason in the Critique of Pure Reason in a way that would be consistent with Horkheimer and Adorno’s understanding of the ‘dialectic of enlightenment’
