Abstract
The critique of the fetishist character of contemporary science was central to the contributions of the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research. Based on the works of Horkheimer and Adorno, our aim is to emphasize aspects that are frequently neglected by the reception of “critical theory”, namely: (a) the basic continuity between the reflections made in the 1930s and those formulated in Dialectic of enlightenment and Eclipse of reason; (b) the importance, as a mediating factor between these two periods, of the transformations through which capitalism has gone between the two great wars, such as the integration of working class and the reconfiguration of the use of technology; (c) the historical-materialistic character of the interpretation given by the authors to the processes of subjectivation of reason and of inversion of science in magic.
Critique of science; Fetishism; Critique of capitalism