Objective reason and irrational society: the “linguistic turn” in Horkheimer and Adorno

Might the later Wittgenstein and the early Frankfurt School have adopted similar pictures of language? I suggest that – surprising as it may seem – this is, indeed, the case, albeit that this was not known to either of them. Other commentators have sought to bring the later Wittgenstein into conversation with the Frankfurt School. But instead of mobilising insights from the later Wittgenstein to criticise Adorno (as Wellmer and, indirectly, Habermas have done), I suggest that these insights have a more appropriate home in the critical theory of Adorno (and Horkheimer). The key lesson from these insights is not a purely intersubjective account of language (and, connected to it, of moral validity), but that the human life form and language are inseparable. This makes language a reservoir for what Horkheimer called ‘objective reason’. Moreover, paying attention to this inseparability enables us to engage in disclosive social critique. In particular, by considering as example the current debates around sustainability, I show how becoming forgetful of this inseparability can blind us to dependency relations in meaning and how this can have pernicious effects on how public debates are framed and conducted.