Re: Adorno's influence in Foucault

In a message dated 1/16/99 12:13:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
anaspinoza@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

> Although Adorno critizised the idea of
> revolution, although, despite Marx, he thought that alienation started in
> acient Greece and not in modernity, although he critizised stalinism, I
> think that he was a critic marxist. He translated many concepts of Marx to
> cultural problems (influenced also in this sense by Simmel) and founded the
> Frankfurt School to develop intersections between marxism and freudism.
>
>
> About the links between Foucault and Wittgenstein (there are many,
specially
> with the second Wittgenstein), I remember that Foucault took from
> Wittgenstein the metaphore of the box of tools, when he says that anyone
> can take his concepts as if they were tools, and use them without thinking
> who created them.
>
The intent and purpose of the Frankfurt School and their Critical Theory was
not primarily to critique Marx, this simply happened along the way.
Primarily, they were interested in analyzing society as an object of
investigation. They used not only Marx and Freud, but many more and deeper
analytical approaches. For example,
The Dialectic of Enlightenment and Critical Theory analysed society and
history.
I do not don think you should confuse them with Marxists although they did
deliberate upon his major thesis, but Adorno and Horkheimer in paprticualr
were always at odds with "politicized" Marxists in prewar Germany and in post
war Europe. The Frankfurt School was best known not only as politically
neutral but also as the main warehouse of documents addressing Marxist issues.
They did considerably more than the few items you listed above.

Vunch

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