Abstract
Hegel and MarxMarx, Karl both understand enlightenment as a failed project at liberation. For Hegel, the failure lies in the form of consciousness that he calls pure insight. For MarxMarx, Karl, the failure lies in the commercial practices that perpetuate pure insight. Pure insight wins its battles with superstitious faithFaith, but its view of human activity as purely subjective lapses into skepticism. Pure insight cannot arrive at the truth it seeks and ultimately reduces all things to utility. Utility is the pseudo-notion that imposes its own emptiness on things, unleashing the violence of terrorTerror. MarxMarx, Karl, too, regards utility as an imposter, one that offers a phony answer to the question What gives commodities their value? while disguising the exploitation inherent in capitalist society. The essay closes with a discussion of how Max Horkheimer’s account of instrumental reason presupposes the purist splits of enlightenment that it seeks to overcome.