Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Frankfurt School/archive1

Frankfurt School

Article is still a featured article.

A quotation:

Consequently, at a time when it appears that reality itself has become ideology, the greatest contribution that critical theory can make is to explore the dialectical contradictions of individual subjective experience on the one hand, and to preserve the truth of theory on the other. Even the dialectic can become a means to domination: "Its truth or untruth, therefore, is not inherent in the method itself, but in its intention in the historical process." And this intention must be toward integral freedom and happiness: "the only philosophy which can be responsibly practised in face of despair is the attempt to contemplate all things as they would present themselves from the standpoint of redemption". How far from orthodox Marxism is Adorno's conclusion: "But beside the demand thus placed on thought, the question of the reality or unreality of redemption itself hardly matters."

I realize that this is mostly quoting Theodor Adorno's word salad. But Adorno can't be blamed for passages like:

By locating the conditions of rationality in the social structure of language use, Habermas moves the locus of rationality from the autonomous subject to subjects in interaction. Rationality is a property not of individuals per se, but rather of structures of undistorted communication. In this notion Habermas has overcome the ambiguous plight of the subject in critical theory. If capitalistic technological society weakens the autonomy and rationality of the subject, it is not through the domination of the individual by the apparatus but through technological rationality supplanting a describable rationality of communication.

I realize that part of the problem is the confused and confusing thoughts of the school of thought itself. Maybe the article can't help but be vague, abstract to the point of evanescence, and confusing --- if it hopes to convey an accurate impression of these vague, evanescent, confused thinkers. Still, as David Hume said:

Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

The article contains a number of passages like that, whose meaning, if any, seems pretty impenetrable. It also seems to have some POV issues. It's introduction to the history and the people involved are pretty good, I agree. But I would question whether passages like this actually leave a reader unacquainted with the Frankfurt School that much more knowledgable about the substance of their thought, or its historical and cultural consequences, than before he had read it. (The jargon might help that reader fake it and drop the right names, which is perhaps the main thing a student of the FS needs to learn.) Teaching these guys to speak English is a chore, I realize; but I think a better attempt should be made before this article qualifies as a featued article. -- Smerdis of Tlön 14:09, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This echoes my complaints about the article on Jurgen Habermas. Unfortunately, my extensive critical reading at Talk: Jurgen Habermas does not seem to have attracted any response, let alone improvements on explaining the ideas of this philosopher. BTW, a very apropos quote from David Hume, Smerdis! -- llywrch 20:55, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)