logo
episode-header-image
Jul 2025
2h 3m

117: Max Horkheimer & Theodore Adorno - ...

Untimely Reflections
About this episode

Foundations of Critical Theory, and an exploration of the chapters, "The Concept of Enlightenment", "The Culture Industry". We analyze how myth and enlightenment both contain one another, and why enlightenment negates itself. We explore what this means in concrete terms by examining the culture industry and how the apparent democratization of culture leads to its dissolution. Part one of two.

Up next
Yesterday
Becoming-Spooky #3: Ray Bradbury - The October Country
Enjoy an early release of the episode slated for Halloween, including an extended meditation on the significance of Halloween, the "autumn feeling", the difference between horror & weird fiction, Ray Bradbury's philosophy concerning death, and a review of Bradbury's The October C ... Show More
1h 16m
Oct 27
Becoming-Spooky #2: Algernon Blackwood - The Man Who Found Out
Join me for this foray into the work of Algernon Blackwood - theosophist, occultist, and writer of weird fiction tales. Blackwood tell us the story of Professor Mark Ebor: a man with a double life, but a wholesome one, split between the scientific and the mystical. He is an "inco ... Show More
1h 22m
Oct 22
Becoming-Spooky #1: Edgar Allen Poe - The Fall of the House of Usher
Welcome to Becoming-Spooky! This is the first of three episodes in this special, seasonal series. Join me and deterritorialize the domains of sanity, the familiar and the human. Patrons will receive two additional episodes!The first half of the episode is my full reading of The F ... Show More
1h 41m
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2021
Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer's "The Dialectic of Enlightenment" (Part 1/2)
In this episode, I present the first half of Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer's "The Dialectic of Enlightenment." If you want to support me, you can do that with these links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy paypal.me/theoryphilosophy Twitter: @DavidGuignion IG ... Show More
49m 28s
Jun 2021
Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer's "The Dialectic of Enlightenment" (Part 2/2)
In this episode, I present the second half of Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer's "The Dialectic of Enlightenment." If you want to support me, you can do that with these links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy paypal.me/theoryphilosophy Twitter: @DavidGuignion I ... Show More
36m 2s
Sep 2017
Episode #110 ... The Frankfurt School pt. 3 - The Culture Industry
Today we talk about an important chapter from The Dialectic of Enlightenment entitled The Culture Industry. Thank you so much for listening! Could never do this without your help. Website: https://www.philosophizethis.org/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/philosophizethis Social: ... Show More
28m 45s
Aug 2024
Episode 290: Blinded by the Light (Plato's Cave Pt. 2)
<p>David and Tamler continue their discussion of Plato's allegory of the cave. We talk about the connections with mystical traditions including Gnosticism, Sufism, and Buddhist paths to awakening. We also dig deeper into what Socrates calls 'dialectic' – what allows this method t ... Show More
1h 37m
Apr 2024
Where does culture come from?
The word ‘culture’ now drags the term ‘wars’ in its wake, but this is too narrow an approach to a concept with a much more capacious history. In the closing LRB Winter Lecture for 2024, Terry Eagleton examines various aspects of that history – culture and power, culture and ethic ... Show More
1h 11m
Apr 2022
Philosophy and myth
There was once a time when mythology and philosophy got along perfectly well together. But since the Enlightenment, philosophy has come to regard myth as something of an embarrassment – and today, we often tend to view “myth” as synonymous with “falsehood”, or at least as a throw ... Show More
28m 26s
Sep 2023
Cancel Culture Chronicles: Shaping Public Discourse and Consequence
On this introductory episode, we delve into the content, context, culture, character, and culpa (conflict) surrounding cancel culture. Through insightful analysis and engaging conversations, we explore the influence of social media, the complexities of subjective reality, and the ... Show More
14m 49s
Sep 2019
Homi Bhabha's "The Location of Culture" (Part 2/2)
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I continue my exploration of "The Location of Culture." In this part, I expound upon Bhabha's bifurcation of post-colonial and post-modern thought to propose an urgency behind recognizing the impact of colonial ... Show More
49m 12s
Sep 2019
Michel Foucault's "Madness & Civilization" (Part 1/2)
https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I take a stab at one of Foucault's first texts, "Madness & Civilization." In it he tries to disturb everything we know about madness and its treatment--the positivist assumptions about its coming into realization; the t ... Show More
1h 5m
Mar 2021
Ethiopian Renaissance Part II የኢትዮጵያ ተሃድሶ ክፍል ሁለት
In the first part of my lecture, I tried to explain how Renaissance helped the Italian people to change their mindset and build a creative and dynamic society. Great thinkers like Dante by studying the social and psychological crises that prevailed in the Italian society during t ... Show More
9m 52s