After-Virtue’s Critique of Metaethical Emotivism
After
Virtue begins with a phalanx of
arguments against the malaise of modernism and in particular against the poor
British philosopher, G.E. Moore; and I say poor because the utilitarian was
portrayed as a hedonistic aesthete that exposed Western Civilization to the
ethics of “it’s all good” Emotivism. Moore rejects idealism whether
British Hegelianism, Transcendental Kantianism, or German Continental philosophy.
Emotivism is the metaethical theory that asserts statements of right and
wrong are expressions of approval, or disapproval. I will use the terms statements,
sentences, assertions, and propositions interchangeably
unless otherwise noted for detailed analysis. Oxford philosophical logician,
W.E. Johnson defined twenty distinct meanings of “proposition.” Even some knowledgeable students of British
analytic empiricism would find it difficult to climb this first obstacle while
other readers are shepherded through the book as it progresses from the
critique of Emotivism (AV, p. 14), then links to R.M. Hare (Ibid,
p. 20, 26, 113), bumps into Sartre (Ibid, p. 26), then to the
totalitarian social manipulation dealer, Max Weber (Ibid, p.
23-24). It’s your brain on Emotivism. Any systematic philosophy whatsoever can
be corrupted and used to manipulate others, which is why we should always ask
Moore’s open question, “…but is it good?”
The
reader would be in much better shape knowing in advance the distinctions between
normative ethical propositions (what ought to be done),
and metaethical propositions (what is); the various relations of entailment
between metaethical theories and normative rules of right and wrong;
familiarity with the Humean “no ought from is”
(NOFI) problem; the difference between cognitivist and noncognitivist schools
of thought; and the methodologies employed by Moore in his famous (or infamous)
work, “Principia Ethica (1930).” I want to discuss these and other such
topics to show that metaethical Emotivism is not based on some arbitrarily
conclusion, but arrived at by force of rational analysis.
Scottish philosopher, David Hume, famously argued that no normative ought statement can be derived from an empirical statement; in other words, values cannot be derived from facts. Evaluative moral statements cannot be inferred from factual statements alone. A metaethical statement of the socio-psychological fact that “Humans are empathetic,” to the moral statement “One should be empathetic of others” cannot be logically based on empirical factual statements describing human behavior. Ought statements are modal assertions of possible worlds or situations, whereas factual (synthetic) statements are indicative describing some actual state of affairs.
Entailment of Metaethical and Normative Theses
Philosopher Dr. Kai Nielsen (University North Carolina) has studied the relationship between normative and metaethical theses and found that some metaethical statements are neutral to normative claims while some others are not neutral (Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Collier Macmillan (1972), Vol. 3, p. 120).
Take propositions (q) and (p) for example: simple entailment means if (p) is true, then (q) is true, and if (q) is false, (p) is false.
However, if (p) is presupposed by (q) the relation of entailment is different as in the example below:
(q) The professor’s students
are Irish
(p)
The professor has students
If (p) is false (the professor has no students), then (q) (students are Irish) and not-q (students are not Irish) are void since there are no students.
However, there is an example of (q) being false without (p) being false:
(q) The professor’s students
are Irish
(p) The professor has students
If it is false that (q) the professor’s students are Irish, it does not follow that (p) the professor has no students. In this case (q) is false, but (p) can still be true (the students could be Canadian). The statement (q) in this case is neutral in relation to (p).
Now
let’s look at the same pattern with metaethical theses statements:
Likewise,
some metaethical propositions do not presuppose a normative rule. Let (q)
represent a metaethical thesis, and (p) a normative rule.
(q)
Ethical statements can be true or false (Cognitivist thesis)
(p)
Vegetarianism is good (normative statement)
If
(q) is false, then (p) is void. The normative statement (p) cannot be true if
the metaethical thesis statement (q) is false. The relation in this case is not
neutral.
However,
in the case of Emotivism that asserts ethical statements only imply, or display
an expressive-aesthetic attitude toward ethical norms, the entailment relation
does not hold in the converse:
(q)
Ethical statements are expressions of emotion (Emotivism)
(p)
Vegetarianism is good
If
(p) is false, then (q) is neutral: (q) does not presuppose any normative
ethical rule. For Moore, the role of the philosopher is to determine the metaethical
is, and not be a moral counselor of oughts. Metaethics is helpful
in clarifying and understanding normative statements. This complex issue
of entailment relationship will come up again when we examine the theses of
realist and anti-realist paradigms.
The
“Good” Captain
MacIntyre
completely rejects the ought/is dichotomy and presents an argument from
logician A.N. Prior to defend this position (AV. p. 148 ). However, After
Virtue’s summary description of the ought/is division is excellent:
"Some
later moral philosophers have gone so far as to describe the thesis that from a
set of factual premises no moral conclusion validly follows as 'a truth of
logic', understanding it as derivable from a more general principle which some
medieval logicians formulated as the claim that in a valid argument nothing can
appear in the conclusion which was not already in the premises (AV. p. 56-57)."
In
other words--the NOFI thesis known as Hume’s Law--states values cannot
be derived from facts. Within deductive logical one cannot
validly infer a conclusion containing moral claims from non-moral premises. In
opposition to Hume’s Law, MacIntyre wants to show A.N. Prior’s counter-example
wherein a value statement can be derived from a factual premise
containing no value statements:
1.
'He is a sea-captain' (Is)
2.
Therefore: “He ought to do whatever a sea-captain ought to do.”
Unfortunately, A.N. Prior’s counter-argument is deeply flawed and has instead committed the "One word, one meaning fallacy (Copleston, vol. 8, pt. II, p. 178 )(pdf. of Copleston’s History of Philosophy, Vol..2, 3, 7, 8, 9).” If the term “captain” is referenced in a Thesaurus, a number of synonyms appear such as “commander,” “officer,” and “boss” that by definition mean the sea-captain has authority and a duty (δέον, deon as in ethical deontology). Prior’s syllogism already has embedded in the premise a copula linking “captain, to “duty.” Dr. Prior merely deduced a moral conclusion from a disguised moral premise—an overlooked tautology. One cannot derive normative conclusions (ought) from non-normative premises (descriptions).
Moore believes any inquiry into a definition of goodness must distinguish between good conduct, and good things for if we only are searching for what property makes for good conduct, then we may mistake it for some property not shared with other good things; otherwise, any analysis falls into confusion (Ethica, para. 1, 6). MacIntyre does not seem to be impressed with Moore’s efforts writing, “Moore's arguments at times are “…obviously defective-he tries to show that 'good' is indefinable, for example, by relying on a bad dictionary definition of 'definition' –and a great deal is asserted rather than argued (AV. p. 16).” MacIntyre opposes Hume and Moore’s NOFI position in order to preserve his belief in naturalism that postulates ethical judgments and values are properties which can be derived from facts about the world. One can get a better understanding of these various metaethical paradigms if we group them into generalized schools of thought of which there are many significant, but subtle variations.
Metaethical Paradigms
“6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value.”—Tractatus (pdf.)
Naturalism is a metaethical theory asserting that ethical propositions are either objectively true or false in referencing the world independent of thought while rejecting Hume’s Law that absolutely separates fact from values. However, ethical properties are definable and can be reduced to non-ethical properties as with hedonism which reduces goodness to pleasure. According Dr. Richard B. Brandt, some forms of naturalism are very similar to emotive theory (Encycl. Vol. 2, p. 486). Since naturalism can reduce moral properties to non-moral attributes the study of ethics can be an empirical naturalistic science.
For nonnaturalists “good” is an indefinable, simple, and unanalyzable primitive term (Encycl. Vol. 3, p. 100). Moore argues that good is a nonnatural indefinable property and can only be known directly such as a color can be experienced directly, but yet impossible to describe to a person that has never seen color. Nonnaturalism is a reaction to the aporias of naturalism. I believe that on this issue Wittgenstein concluded good is a nonnatural property by his famous quote in the Tractatus, “6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.” Bertrand Russell wrote: “The whole subject of ethics, for example, is placed by Mr. Wittgenstein in the mystical, inexpressible region (Tractatus, p. 18 ).”
The nonnaturalist believes that naturalists are confusing good things with the analytic tautological meaning of good which Moore named “The Naturalistic Fallacy.” This fallacy originates from reading the “is” of attribution (adjectively) as an “is” of identity (substantively). For example, if pleasure “is” good, then good is identical to pleasure. If we equate the meaning of “good” with some determinate characteristic, we make it impossible to discuss whether that characteristic is good. If these things, objects, or attributes are what “good” means, then there is no point in asking whether they are good! Philosopher Nicolai Hartmann wrote,“ ‘beauty’ is to ‘value’ as ‘red’ is to ‘colored’ (Encycl. Vol. 3, p. 101).” Moore’s nonnaturalism is still debated today. Surprisingly, it is other nonnaturalists like A.N. Prior that MacIntyre appealed to for his counter-argument against Emotivism. A.N. Prior believes that the naturalistic fallacy is merely a “definist fallacy” not particular to nonnaturalism so they are not logically excluded from arguing that moral terms can be defined in non-moral terms (Ibid., p. 101). But Socrates would still ask, “Why can you only describe to me the parts of virtue, and not what virtue is as a whole?” And Moore would ask if virtue could be reduced to some non-moral property ‘x,’ the question still legitimately remains to be asked, “…but is it virtuous?”
Moral cognitivism puts forth the thesis mortal statements are bivalent meaning
they can be either true or false, and is a response to another group of
philosophers who are noncognitivists
holding the opposite position that moral statements are not factual
propositions so bivalence (truth or falsity) does not apply. Noncognitivists
vary in their theories of the speaker’s state of mind, beliefs, and attitudes.
The emotivist, as we discussed, claim moral statements are expressions of
approval and disapproval; or of a prescription for behavior; or of acceptance
of behavioral norms of conduct so in this limited sense moral statements
are meaningful yet not bivalent.
Other
metaethicists adhere to a more severe version of noncognitivist emotivism named
the “Error Theory” of moral statements claiming
that as linguistic entities they are neither true nor false just as the
linguistic moods of wish (optative),
hypothetical (subjunctive), or question (interrogative), or the
command “Open the door!” (imperative) are not bound by truth-conditional
semantics. Ethicist Dr. Kai Nielson writes of the error theory thesis:
“…there
are some metaethicists who claim that there are objective moral judgments and
yet deny that moral judgments…can properly be called true or false. They
recognize that moral judgments do not have the kind of necessary truth
characteristic of mathematics, and they argue with considerable plausibility
that moral statements are not true or false—there are no ethical
characteristics, rightness and wrongness, goodness and badness, that are either
directly or indirectly observable….’truth’ and ‘falsity’ are not correctly
applicable to moral judgments (Encycl.
Vol. 3, p. 126).”
After-Virtue argues, “… the possibility of such rational
justification is no longer available. And this is what emotivism denies
(AV., p. 19).” However, MacIntyre makes no real effort to distinguish between metaethical
philosophers, and fails to see “There are many possible routes to a moral
error theory, and one mustn't assume that the metaethical position is refuted
if one argumentative strategy in its favor falters (SEP: Moral Antirealism).”
Assigning
the adjectives of rightness or wrongness to a noun are pseudo-predicates
denoting no actual properties and fail as synthetic
propositions. However, the moral error theorists are not necessarily eliminativist
of moral language, but view “ought” statements as ultimately non-moral.
Moral error theorists are epistemic agnostics and still engage with
normative language, but remain ethical skeptics. Analytic language philosophers
study…language; and as Wittgenstein wrote, “5.6 The limits of my
language mean the limits of my world.”
The logical positivist, A.J. Ayer, is credited for this strict error
theory version of emotivism, but it was actually suggested to him by
philosopher Austin Duncan-Jones that Ayer had forgotten to give credit while “Stephen
Satris (1987) tracks the Continental origins of emotivism back to the work of
Hermann Lotze in the 19th Century (SEP).”
Non-objectivism is, I think, the most interesting metaethical
theory, and closest to Wittgenstein’s view on metaethics. Also, non-objectivism
exemplifies the same complex entailment relationships between metaethics
and normative ethics that was discussed earlier. Non-objectivism is defined as “…moral
facts are mind-dependent; here I shall use the term “non-objectivism.” Thus,
“moral non-objectivism” denotes the view that moral facts exist and are
mind-dependent (Ibid., section 5).” The question, “What does ‘mind-dependent’ mean?” will be
discussed examining epistemological realism and anti-realism, which have their
own entailment relations.
I believe Wittgenstein’s aphorisms are the result of his summary thoughts on the aporetic character of language itself which we can rediscover in the Tractatus: “This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it—or similar thoughts…(Ibid., p. 23).” Wittgenstein would likely say virtue is not an object, or thing: “4.121 That which expresses itself in language, we cannot express by language.” And in another comment, “4.1212 What can be shown cannot be said.” Plato’s aporetic dialogues suggest that "good" cannot be defined algorithmically (Socrates’ geometry lesson): virtue can only be shown. For Wittgenstein, virtue--as a linguistic entity--is not “a thing of this world.” We will discuss further Wittgenstein’s own thoughts on aporia while considering epistemological Realism and Anti-Realism in the second objection to After Virtue.
MacIntyre’s Critique of Moorean Aporetic Normative Consciousness
…which boils down to ad hominem arguments
against Moore and his alias “emotivism.” MacIntyre intended on taking on the
voice of Keynes to describe Moore and his Bloomsbury friends
when he wrote, “...these people take themselves to be identifying the
presence of a nonnatural property, which they call 'good'; but there is in fact
no such property and they are doing no more and no other than expressing their
feelings and attitudes, disguising the expression of preference and whim by an
interpretation of their own utterance and behavior which confers upon it an
objectivity that it does not in fact possess (AV. p.17)." However,
MacIntyre unconsciously is speaking through the voice of Anytus revealing
another bad case of Anytus-itis. Bloomsbury writer Dorothy
Parker is quoted saying of the group, "they lived in squares, painted
in circles and loved in triangles." So clearly Moore is corrupting the
youth! MacIntyre indignantly reports on Bloomsbury’s “private preferences” as
noncognitivist, aesthetes, and nonnatural that is pretty much correct (Ibid.,
p. 107). According to After Virtue Moore is giving permission for
ethical relativism and sexual anarchy, which we only just now entered this
century. “It is that the group who
were to become Bloomsbury had already accepted the values of Moore's sixth
chapter [of Principia Ethica]” (Ibid.,
p. 15, 16, 18 ).”
After Virtue leaps to
Rudolf Carnap’s theory of emotivism making no distinctions between Moore,
Charles Stevenson, and Ayer’s differing versions. Carnap and Ayer’s versions of
noncognitivism were “atypical” according to Dr. Kai Nielsen. Any school, or schools of philosophy can be made into
a straw man for easy criticism by interpreting them as hyper-reductionist. In fact,
MacIntyre’s account of noncognitivism is historically incomplete. Emotive
theory was first presented by Swedish philosopher Axel Hagerstrom in 1917, then
later Scandinavian Ingmar Hedenius, and Alf Ross. In the English speaking
world I.A. Richards and Bertrand Russell presented emotivism that was further
developed by Ayer and Stevenson (Encycl. Vol. 3, p. 106). They have all been thrown into the postmodern theory
“Boo bucket.”
And yet MacIntyre is patient with Callicles of Plato’s dialogue Gorgias for “a systematic statement of his standpoint whatever the deductive consequences and whatever the degree of the breach with ordinary moral usage (AV, p. 140).” Although Moore was not a logical positivist, analytic and ordinary language philosophy developed from his work. According to the history of philosophy historian, Frederick Copleston S.J., “… Moore is concerned with phenomenological rather than a linguistic analysis (Copleston, Vol. 8, part II, p. 409, 415).” In fact, Moore did not have a single methodology, “Moore was not a systematic philosopher… Moore's ‘common sense’ is not a system. Even in ethics, where he comes closest to presenting a ‘theory’ he explicitly disavows any aspiration to provide a systematic account of the good. Hence, as the preceding discussions show, Moore's legacy is primarily a collection of arguments, puzzles and challenges (SEP: Moore).” MacIntyre is so understanding of "Aristotle takes himself not to be inventing an account of the virtues, but to be articulating an account that is implicit in the thought, utterance and action of an educated Athenian (AV. p. 147),” but isn’t this what Moore and his colleagues were doing in trying to develop a “…primary, if incomplete, definition is crucial to the whole enterprise of identifying a core concept of the virtues (Ibid., p. 187)?" Then, within a few pages MacIntyre’s own arguments against analytic philosophy applies the same approach as Moore to define virtue while speaking of “practices” of virtue (Ibid., p. 209)." Dr. Nielsen wrote, “Morality necessarily involves a cluster of practices (Encycl. Vol. 3, p. 131)”—bring us back to Wittgenstein whose favorite quote from the poet Goethe is, “In the beginning was the act.”
“Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character.”—“After Virtue,” p. 11.
The
emotivists were able to show the various modes of ethical discourse as
expression of feelings, imperatives, persuasion, judging, and prescriptions
while showing the aporetic question-begging character of understanding
rule-governed conduct (Encycl. Vol. 3, p. 130). Unfortunately, After
Virtue commits the fallacy of one word, one meaning when appealing
to Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism by equivocating on the words “feeling,”
“pain,” and “sensation” with the implicit tri-partite assumption
that thought and emotion are inherently oppositional (AV. p. 62). Hegel made
the same criticism of Schiermacher’s definition of religion as the feeling
for the infinite by confusing--maybe deliberately--the difference between “feeling,”
and “sensation,” not recognizing that feeling and thought are both
present in emotion.
“One of the principal
objections adduced by Hegel against Schleiermacher's doctrine of immediate
self-consciousness and one that has frequently since been made is that feeling
is the lowest grade in the intellectual process, and is not even distinctly
human, being also possessed by the brutes as the sense-form of their
consciousness. This objection, is itself psychologically false, fails to
apprehend Schleiermacher's view, and confounds his representation of sensation
with that of feeling. Sensation, it is true, needs to be supplemented by
perception and thought: for it is the non-existence, or rather the prophecy of
these. It is not so with feeling (Schleiermacher: Personal and Speculative,
Robert Munro, Pub. Paisley, Alexander Grardner, 1903, p.200) (pdf.).”
After-Virtue attacks the emotive theories of Moore, C.L. Stevenson, A.J. Ayer, R.M. Hare, and F.P. Ramsey by blaming them for the aporetic nature of virtue (AV. p. 17, 206). Even if each of these emotivists is in error, Dr. William P. Alston, University of Chicago notes that “emotive theory has many forms, no one difficulty is likely to be serious for all possible types (Encycl. Vol. 2, p. 496).” In other words, MacIntyre commits the fallacy of composition: a particular emotivist thesis may be in partial error, but the whole can still be correct.
Anytus Cancel-Culture
After Virtue is explicitly arguing that emotivist noncognitivism is undermining all normative ethics by reducing moral statements to caprice; consequently, Moore’s Bloomsbury aestheticism is immoral: “…Moore's disciples advanced their private preferences under the cover of identifying the presence or absence of a non-rational property of goodness, a property which was in fact a fiction…(AV. p. 33, 107)." First, Moore is in fact a cognitivist, nonnaturalist, but his case against naturalism drew other philosophers to noncognitivism (Wiki: emotivism), and (Encycl. Vol. 3, p. 100). Secondly, the criticism of Moore’s ethical character confuses metaethics with normative ethics: “…any form of noncognitivism would in effect undermine the objectivity of moral judgments…to take the remark in this way is to confuse metaethical claims with normative ethical ones (Encycl. Vol. 3, p. 130).
So let’s look at the positive characteristics not of Moore, but of Ludwig Wittgenstein who ranks with the terrible nonnaturalistic, noncognitivist, non-objectivist ethicists. Wittgenstein was closest to John Maynard Keynes, but was not an enthusiastic member of the Bloomsbury literary circle. Instead, he attended few of the Society’s meetings; he was not a native speaker of English, and had an ascetic personality detesting small talk at social gatherings (Ray Monk, “Wittgenstein: Duty of Genius,” (1990) Free Press, p. 256). Wittgenstein came from an immensely wealthy family; his father was an Austria-Hungarian steel magnate who in 1913 left his fortune to his son Ludwig who shocked his banker and family by giving his fortune away to artists, and poets. When the Nazis invaded Austria-Hungary they seized the Wittgenstein family estate fortune that only had seven tons of gold remaining. Wittgenstein read Leo Tolstoy’s “The Gospel in Brief” which had a profound influence on his life and became a devoted Christian mystic (B. McGuinness, “Wittgenstein: A Life,”(1988 ), Univ. Cal. Press, p. 220). In 1913 Wittgenstein joined with Keynes to secretly funnel donated money through King’s College to increase the yearly stipend for the once famous logician W.E. Johnson living in near poverty (Ibid., 99).
During World War I in 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungry. Wittgenstein volunteered for the most dangerous job as an assisting enemy artillery position spotter. His job was to shine a spotlight on enemy artillery positions causing retaliating counter-artillery fire. The Austrian military lost some 100,000 men in battle (Ibid., p. 263). Wittgenstein was awarded at least three war metals: the Silver Medal of Valour, a Bronze Metal, and the Band of the Military Service Medal with Swords (Ibid., p 242, 258, 263). After the Italians defeated the Austrian army at Vittorio Veneto, Italy, ranked Austrian officers fled abandoning their own retreating troops who were refusing to fight; but Wittgenstein stayed behind and was captured by Italian forces in November 1918 in Northern Italy at Trentino. He subsequently spent nine months in Italian prisoner of war camps: a total of 300,000 prisoners were captured with 30,000 dying in captivity (Ibid., p. 267-8 ).
The point is Wittgenstein was not a nihilist, nor even an ethical skeptic; his famous work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) was not just about logic, but a book on ethics. His telos was to preserve in modern society what is most important in life--that which cannot be said, but only shown. For Wittgenstein, logic is ethics! This view is not original, but can at least be traced to philosopher Wilhelm Windelband (1848-1915) of the Baden School of neo-Kantianism which emphasized the study of culture, ethics, and aesthetics describes the axiological similarity of logic and ethical reasoning:
"For just as ethics is concerned with moral values, so is logic concerned with a value, namely truth… The true is that which ought to be thought. Thus all logical thought is guided by a value, a norm. The ultimate axioms of logic cannot be proved; but we must accept them if we value truth. And we must accept truth as an objective norm or value unless we are prepared to reject all logical thinking. (Copleston, Vol. 7, pdf. p. 749/ original pagination p. 364)."
Philosophically it has always been “After Virtue” in the sense that normative ethics and metaethics have always encountered ethical skepticism, nihilism, and relativism of which Socrates was accused of and executed by the state. Meno’s dogmatic realist friend, Anytus, who voted for Socrates’ death is still with us today, but in the contemporary form of crusaders against “postmodern relativism.”
The Weberian Hip-bone…
After Virtue sets it sights next on anti-positivist sociologist Max Weber as responsible for justifying the new bureaucratic state, "I am referring precisely to his [Weber] account of how managerial authority is justified in bureaucracies (AV., p. 26, 86, 114)." This is the most puzzling criticism of MacIntyre that connects Weber to the emotivist bone, that’s connected to the relativist bone, that’s connected to the prescriptivist persuasive bone, connected to the individualist manipulative bureaucratic state bone, that connects to the Frankfurt School leg-bone (Ibid., p. 31). MacIntyre directs his criticism of Weber’s attempt to “define authority naturalistically,” combined with stochastic studies of how a group will obey commands. Weber defined three forms of authority in society: traditional, rational, and charismatic. As a sociologist, and historian he studied legal history, and Roman agrarian law; one can see why Weber would be interested in the topic of authority, but some critics blaming Weber for the rise of the authoritarian state is beyond absurd.
Weber’s list of written work is short because of his early death in 1920 from the Spanish flu. The anti-positivist sociologist attempted to study society, “…through interpretive (rather than purely empiricist) methods, based on understanding the purpose and meanings that individuals attach to their own actions...His analysis of modernity and rationalisation would significantly influence the critical theory associated with the Frankfurt School “(Wiki: Weber)." Weber wrote that modern society is “characterised by rationalisation and intellectualisation and, above all, by the ‘disenchantment of the world’ (Ibid., fn, 69).“
…Is Connected to the Frankfurt Leg-bone
MacIntyre’s own criticism of disenchanted modernism (anomie) could of been taken right from Weber’s research; in fact, their criticism can be traced back to the Frankfurt School of Social Research. Long before After Virtue was written, the Frankfurt Schools produced a mass of literature that critique modern naturalist-positivist scientific reductionalism. Let’s take for example the Frankfurt school philosopher Herbert Marcuse’s assessment of modern scientific ideology in “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society” (1964)(pdf.) focusing attention on the Orwellian decay of language resulting in a universal “withering,” or constriction of non-reified experience, and fiercely critiques ahistorical positivist analytic linguistic philosophy in particular! Another book, “Eclipse of Reason,”(1947) authored by the director of the Frankfurt school, Max Horkheimer, is an anti-Enlightenment critique of instrumental reason. In another critique of modernism “The Dialectic of Enlightenment,”(1944-47) authored by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno examine instrumental-pragmatic scientific operationalism concerned only with the efficient control of means and critical of Wittgenstein’s early logical positivism as they interpreted the Tractatus. “The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy,” (1954) by Edmond Husserl is criticism of modern epistemological mechanistic scientization of life, and worked out the concept of the pre-theoretical “Lifeworld” structures of culture, society, and personality. And most importantly, Soren Kierkegaard’s 1846 “Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” by Soren Kierkegaard, trans. by David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie, 1941, Princeton Univer. Press (pdf.)(Hereafter, ‘Postscript’). Kierkegaard wrote, "In the end all corruption will come about as a consequence of the natural sciences...(Kierkegaard, Journal: VII A 186, 187-200 year 1853 in Postscript, p. xv).” Some acknowledgment should be given to critical theory for its contribution to the critique of Enlightenment—because the Weberian hip-bone is connected to the Frankfurt leg-bone.
The most annoying distortion of the postmodern critics is this: some postmodern critics accuse the Frankfurt school of lacking the very insights that they were famous for formulating. It’s like accusing Plato of misunderstanding the Platonic Socrates. The postmodernist critics attack the Frankfurt school with the very same arguments that the Frankfurt school is known to have formulated—they chew up the school’s critiques of modern industrial ideology, and spit them out partially digested to their readers. Postmodernist critics completely ignore the earlier “traditions” by failing to understand that modern scholars originated many of the epistemic criticisms that focus on society’s scientific and moral malaise that the traditionalist only complain about—without using the word “existentialism”—such as the objectivating attitude of instrumental reason, scientism, alienation, nihilism, anomie, relativism, disenchanted experience, authoritarianism, and acquisitive hyper-individualism (AV., p.33, 88, 137). Kant, Hegel, Marx, Marcuse, Horkheimer, Adorno, Weber, and Wittgenstein all addressed these issues, and did it much better.
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