Self-Preservation and Exchange: Two Ways of Historicizing Kant’s Concept of Synthesis and their Epistemological Implications

Titolo Rivista RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Autori/Curatori Robert Ziegelmann
Anno di pubblicazione 2017 Fascicolo 2017/4
Lingua Inglese Numero pagine 12 P. 617-628 Dimensione file 45 KB
DOI 10.3280/SF2017-004007
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This article discusses two critical attempts to historicize Kant’s concept of synthesis: Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s theory that the basis of cognitive synthesis is the social synthesis through commodity exchange and Theodor W. Adorno’s considerations on the role of synthesis in the domination of nature. As is pointed out in the first section, Sohn-Rethel’s approach has certain relativist implications whereas Adorno’s is, to some extent, inevitably realist. In section 2 the author first analyzes Adorno’s agreement with Sohn-Rethel’s social synthesis and then demonstrates how the opposing epistemological implications are reconciled. In the final section the resulting continuity between self-preservation and exchange is found to be epistemologically promising although it carries the danger of naturalizing capitalism.

Keywords:Adorno, Sohn-Rethel, Critical Theory, second nature, exchange, abstraction.

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Robert Ziegelmann, Self-Preservation and Exchange: Two Ways of Historicizing Kant’s Concept of Synthesis and their Epistemological Implications in "RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA" 4/2017, pp 617-628, DOI: 10.3280/SF2017-004007