Instrumental reason has prevailed as the dominant form of rationality in Western society since the Enlightenment. Reason served as a means to free man through dominating and manipulating nature to serve his end of self-preservation. However, in this process, Western pragmatism reduced truth to usefulness, and reason lost its critical ability. Through reification and alienation, the subject now serves the object. This essay synthesizes the ideas from the early Frankfurt School philosophers on the phenomenon of reason in post-Enlightenment Western society. Unlike previous critical theory analyses, I attempt to coalesce Horkheimer and Adorno’s philosophical critique of instrumental reason with Fromm’s psychoanalysis of the human condition. I provide a critique of instrumental reason and present the modern-day consequences of this form of rationality. I argue that the Frankfurt School philosophers’ critical theory illuminates some of the significant psychological, social, and political problems of today.

Elizabeth Bartle would like to thank their faculty sponsor Ruth Groff for their support of this project.