Die Perspektive der vernünftigen Gesellschaft

Abstract

To realize reason was one of the objectives of enlightenment. The left was committed to this goal since Engels' dictum that the German working class is the heir of philosophy. Discussing the ambivalences and pitfalls of reason the article shows that there is a strong and legitimated criticism of reason for its totalitarian and authoritarian implications. Emancipatory strategies since long are well aware of these consequences and therefore looking for new ways of conceptualising the aim of a rational shaped world. Paradoxically only by and through reason it is possible to overcome the logic of equivalence.