Critical Pessimism, Progress, and Social Regression: The Schopenhauerian Deficit of Critical Theory

Abstract

Unlike the founders of the Frankfurt School – especially Horkheimer and Adorno – most contemporary representatives of critical theory tend to overlook Schopenhauer and the critical and emancipatory potentials of his nonconformist and antifinalist pessimism. Does this neglect not implicitly contain an overlooked element for understanding what is today referred to as the “exhaustion of critical theory”, particularly when diagnoses of the present time concerning political and social regression are at stake? The aim of this article is to develop some preliminary considerations on possible dialogues between premises of Schopenhauerian philosophy and those of contemporary critical theory, especially certain premises taken up by Rahel Jaeggi in her most recent book, Fortschritt und Regression (2023). In conclusion, the article argues that, in a manner similar to Amy Allen’s and Rahel Jaeggi’s respective proposals for a return to Foucault and Adorno, and to Benjamin and Adorno, an as-yet unexplored return to Horkheimer and Schopenhauer could revitalize critical theory in the face of its current exhaustion.