Nuevas investigaciones sobre teoría crítica y antisemitismo: de Adorno y Horkheimer a Moishe Postone

Abstract

En este trabajo me propongo revisitar “Elementos de antisemitismo” de Adorno y Horkheimer bajo la matriz reconstructiva de Moishe Postone. Intentaré mostrar que el concepto de antisemitismo es construido en Dialéctica de la Ilustración en términos que carecen de la suficiente especificidad histórica. El antisemitismo es comprendido como la culminación extrema de un proceso de auto-cancelación de la ilustración que coincide, al fin, con la historia de la civilización como tal. Esto conduce al peligro de eternizar el odio a la diferencia que la teoría crítica quiere precisamente cuestionar. Siguiendo a Postone, es posible reconstruir la teoría crítica del antisemitismo (y más ampliamente de algunos fenómenos totalitarios específicamente modernos) en términos de la crítica del capital históricamente determinada. Este giro a la especificidad histórica permitiría reformular los valiosos análisis de Adorno y Horkheimer, evitando la deriva pesimista a la que conduce su filosofía de la historia implícita. Title: New Research on Critical Theory and Antisemitism: from Adorno and Horkheimer to Moishe Postone Abstract: I intend to revise “Elements of Antisemitism” from the point of view of Moishe Postone´s categorial reconstruc-tion of Critical Theory. I will try to show that Adorno´s and Horkheimer´s considerations o antisemitism in Dia-lectic of Enlightenment entail an implicit philosophy of history, which relates the hatred of difference with the development of rationality and civilization as such. This leads to a pessimistic impasse, since their theory ends up hipostatizing the very phenomena it intends to criticize. Following Postone, it is possible to reconstruct the critical cheory of antisemitism in terms of the historically determinate categories of the critique of capital. This turn to historical specificity would allow for a recovery of some valuable insights in Dialectic of Enlightenment, but in terms that avoid the pessimistic consequences of it´s originally implicit philosophy of history. Title: New Research on Critical Theory and Antisemitism: from Adorno and Horkheimer to Moishe Postone Abstract: I intend to revise “Elements of Antisemitism” from the point of view of Moishe Postone´s categorial reconstruction of Critical Theory. I will try to show that Adorno´s and Horkheimer´s considerations o antisemitism in Dialectic of Enlight-enment entail an implicit philosophy of history, which relates the hatred of difference with the development of rationality and civilization as such. This leads to a pessimistic impasse, since their theory ends up hipostatizing the very phenom-ena it intends to criticize. Following Postone, it is possible to reconstruct the critical cheory of antisemitism in terms of the historically determinate categories of the critique of capital. This turn to historical specificity would allow for a recovery of some valuable insights in Dialectic of Enlightenment, but in terms that avoid the pessimistic consequences of it´s origi-nally implicit philosophy of history.