Il problema della secolarizzazione in Max Horkheimer: la dimensione della trascendenza nella Teoria critica

This essay aims to analyze the question of religion in Max Horkheimer’s sociological and philosophical thought; more particularly, it focuses on the issue of “secularization”, which, although not explicitly or systematically addressed by Horkheimer, seems to be transversal in many of his essays dedicated to the relationship between modernity and theology. The progressive rationalisation in the western world and society leads to an inevitable “disenchantment of the world” (to say it with Weber’s words): this means on the one hand an ever-increasing explicability, controllability and predictability of reality in rational (i.e. scientific) terms, but on the other hand a loss of value of the theological and religious dimension which is intended as an inner disposal for humans tuning to a transcendent dimension. Compared to his colleague Adorno, and mostly to the first-generation Frankfurt School theorists, this essay shows how for Horkheimer – especially in the last period of his intellectual production – there is a constant focus on the theme of the “transcendent”. In addition, it could be argued that the specific feature of Critical Theory advanced by Horkheimer posits precisely the openness to the transcendent dimension as an essential condition for a very authentic Critical Theory. Interweaving themes ranging from sociology to social philosophy, intersecting analyses of the crisis of theology with a fundamentally pessimistic theoretical orientation, this essay sheds light on an aspect of Horkheimer’s work that fits coherently within a still topical debate on the sociology of religion and the role of religion in the civil sphere.