著者

岩熊 典乃

出版者

経済社会学会

雑誌

経済社会学会年報 (ISSN:09183116)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.38, pp.171-184, 2016 (Released:2021-04-01)

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The subject of “nature” played a significant role in the critical theory of early Frankfurt School. “Nature” was a conceptual tool for them for revealing barbarism and violence of the Enlightenment, which were regarded as the Program of human liberation. Although such an insight into “nature” has disappeared from the framework of the critical theory since its “communicative turn,” the early Frankfurt vision is recently being reexamined from another context, namely that how we should understand contemporary ecological crisis. This paper surveys this new trend and analyzes points of discussions and results. Outlining the early Frankfurt vision on “nature,” I argue that M. Horkheimer, W. Benjamin, Th. W. Adorno and H. Marcuse shared the critical viewpoint that is, the correlation between the social domination (domination of man) and the domination of nature. This, in a sense, ambiguous viewpoint about the domination is the subject at issue for recent studies which compare the early Frankfurt vision with the ecological thoughts, and also for Interpreters about the alienation on the early Frankfurt school. The theory of “societal relationships with nature” (gesellschaftliche Naturverhältnisse) which is on going in Germany reworks on the early Frankfurt vision and focuses on how “nature” is constructed in society, but, at the same time, how society is materially mediated through its biophysical conditions. According to it, the so-called ecological crisis should be reduced neither to the crisis of “nature in itself,” nor to the crisis of our social-economic structures, but understood as the crisis in societal relationships with nature.

著者

岩熊 典乃

出版者

経済社会学会

雑誌

経済社会学会年報 (ISSN:09183116)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.37, pp.180-191, 2015

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Decades before the so-called "ecological issues" came up to the fore, Th.W. Adorno and his colleagues paid serious attention to the destructive relation of human beings to the nature. In spite of their deep interest in the thought of K. Marx, they did not reduce its cause to the matter of mode of production. They also rejected the idea of "return to nature" in spite of the influence of romanticism on their thought. That is, they pursued the way of emancipation from the dominative as well as subordinate relation of human beings to the nature. This paper focuses on Adorno's idea of "Naturgeschichte" (natural history) which is one of bases of this highly requested and currently meaningful enquiry.<br>I firstly argue that Adorno's idea of "Naturgeschichte" has two aspects in his terminology. On the one hand, "Naturgeschichte" functions as a critical description of human history. In this description human history appears as a blindly compulsive, namely, naturally growing (naturwüchsig) process. Such an idea was formed through Adorno's own interpretation of Marx. On the other hand, "Naturgeschichte" refers to the reconciliation (Vers&ouml;hnung), that is, a possibility of fleeing from the dominative or subordinate relation of human beings to the nature. What is the correlation of these two aspects which are apparently incompatible? I consider this question by way of reexamining the ideas of G. Luk&aacute;cs and W. Benjamin that Adorno attempts to synthesize. He suggests the conception of deciphering the "second nature" which appears stiff and compulsive but is a historically produced world, as a "transitory (verg&auml;nglich) nature", hence, a variable moment. <br>I conclude that Adorno's aim lies at the emancipation from ideas which stiffen the process by positing either nature or history as the first principle. This is the emancipation not only from "the ideology of subordination to the nature" (an ideology shared by Hegel, social Darwinism and the so-called Dialectical Materialism), but also from "the ideology of domination over the nature" (Marx).

著者

岩熊 典乃

出版者

経済社会学会

雑誌

経済社会学会年報 (ISSN:09183116)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.37, pp.180-191, 2015 (Released:2016-03-25)

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Decades before the so-called "ecological issues" came up to the fore, Th.W. Adorno and his colleagues paid serious attention to the destructive relation of human beings to the nature. In spite of their deep interest in the thought of K. Marx, they did not reduce its cause to the matter of mode of production. They also rejected the idea of "return to nature" in spite of the influence of romanticism on their thought. That is, they pursued the way of emancipation from the dominative as well as subordinate relation of human beings to the nature. This paper focuses on Adorno's idea of "Naturgeschichte" (natural history) which is one of bases of this highly requested and currently meaningful enquiry. I firstly argue that Adorno's idea of "Naturgeschichte" has two aspects in his terminology. On the one hand, "Naturgeschichte" functions as a critical description of human history. In this description human history appears as a blindly compulsive, namely, naturally growing (naturwüchsig) process. Such an idea was formed through Adorno's own interpretation of Marx. On the other hand, "Naturgeschichte" refers to the reconciliation (Versöhnung), that is, a possibility of fleeing from the dominative or subordinate relation of human beings to the nature. What is the correlation of these two aspects which are apparently incompatible? I consider this question by way of reexamining the ideas of G. Lukács and W. Benjamin that Adorno attempts to synthesize. He suggests the conception of deciphering the "second nature" which appears stiff and compulsive but is a historically produced world, as a "transitory (vergänglich) nature", hence, a variable moment. I conclude that Adorno's aim lies at the emancipation from ideas which stiffen the process by positing either nature or history as the first principle. This is the emancipation not only from "the ideology of subordination to the nature" (an ideology shared by Hegel, social Darwinism and the so-called Dialectical Materialism), but also from "the ideology of domination over the nature" (Marx).