Enlightment Dialectic and Human Captivity

Self-sufficient reason, which is the basis of Enlightenment, was mathematical and pragmatic. Therefore, it was on behalf of bodily interests, not divine and spiritual ones. It was in order to avoid the mythological aspects that dominate over human beings. This pragmatic and quantitative reasoning, which is begin with dualistic philosophy of Descartes, firstly, and finally in Kant's philosophy reached a peak, see the human reasoning as an organized structure which is capable of attaining the logical objects. But toward the end of Enlightenment, both subject and object trapped by instrumentalism and quantitative looking, to the extent that subject which must apply its attitudes and acted based on this, became an object of main (liberal-capitalist) discourse, even loose its freedom. In fact, Critics of Modernism, particularly members of Frankfurt School, often criticizes the practical reasoning of Enlightenment from this point of view. In this study, human captivity, which is a result of this certain kind of reasoning, is considered based on thought of two of these critics, i.e Horkheimer and adorno.